Brigade Models

Previews, new releases, interesting stuff … and cakes !

Brigade Models - Previews, new releases, interesting stuff … and cakes !

Category Archives: Shows

Waving Flags

Three days to go …

Yesterday evening the Brigadieress and I raised the flag – the new Brigade flag that is (I have no idea what some of you were thinking …).

The old Brigade banner (below) was a home-made affair with a charm of its own, and has served us well for many years. However, it’s beginning to show its age and the time has come for it to be pensioned off into well-earned retirement.

Banner

Its replacement is a shiny new, 10-feet high feather flag from the Hampshire Flag Company (we’ll give them a plug because we’re very pleased with what they’ve done and the service we received). It should give you a chance of finding us across the vast acreage of the ExCel centre on Saturday.

Flag

Ever wish you hadn’t started something … ?

Five days to Salute and counting … and both Phil and I are posting on the same day, so you can tell how busy it’s getting !!

So we spent all our money on some shiny new display cases for Celtos, all that remained was the small matter of moving all the figures from the old case to the new one. Simples. Unfortunately I don’t think I realised quite how long this exercise was going to take. There are 275 figures (give or take) in the Celtos range, many of which are painted to a very high standard, the rest aren’t. We decided that the unpainted ones should at least be displayed with a coat of primer rather than raw metal, so they couldn’t be moved straight from the old cases to the new ones, they have to be removed, taken away and sprayed, then brought back. But of course they’re no longer in the correct order, so each figure has to be identified first before being stuck in the right spot (hence a laptop with photos of all of the figures to ID them, and a spreadsheet for keeping track of where I’ve got to).

Ah yes, removing them from the old case … the old case was make of wood, and I have no idea what I stuck them in with – but I did a good job! The figures have to be levered out with a sharp knife, lots of brute force (and commensurate care with the painted ones) and then the splinters of wood that have come away with the base have to be removed. There have been several repair jobs where separate arms have come loose and have had to be pinned and glued, and some paint chips will have to be touched up.

I took over the dining room table for an evening for this exercise … three days later I’m still there, and the exasperated looks and comments from the ever-patient brigadieress are increasing by the day …

DSC_2551

I’m sure it’ll all be worth it …

BTW, the Salute release list has been updated and tweaked again …

A Fine Display

Nine days to Salute and counting …

One thing you will notice on our stand this year is that we’ve given it a bit of a facelift – we’re replacing all our old wooden display cases with shiny new clear acrylic ones, which are a massive improvement and make everything much, much easier to see. Although we intend to use them for the whole stand, they’re a bit pricey so we’re doing it in stages – first to be upgraded is the Celtos range, you can see the first of them below (I’d have got even further if I hadn’t brought the wrong set of figures home from the workshop last week …).

Also on their way are a set of clip-on spotlights which we’ll attach to the cases to make viewing even easier.

DSC_0544

DSC_0545

FINAL REMINDER – we need any Salute pre-orders by the end of the day PLEASE, otherwise we might not have time to do them.

Two weeks and counting …

Salute
Two weeks and counting … well, slightly less in fact, just 13 (count ‘em !) days until Salute. Which is all a bit scary, it seems to have crept up on us again. We’re on stand TM04 – go in the main entrance, turn immediately right and walk to the far wall – we’re four stands down.

We’re finalising our new releases for the show – we know pretty much what we’ll have, and it’s quite an impressive list, around forty new models. And it might be more, as I never know if Phil’s going to turn up at the last minute with a new mould that he’s managed to squeeze in !

British Spaceships
We’ll have the first batch of ten models available, along with two fleet packs.

Indonesian Fighters
We’ll have the two new Indonesian fighters for Squadron Commander, also ideal as air support for …

6mm SF Vehicles
Phil’s finishing off the moulds for a grand total of ten Indonesian vehicles, plus army and company packs.

15mm SF Vehicles
We’ll have the remastered German Thor MBT and Lynx APC available, along with the EuroFed Montsabert and Tassigny (all with several turret variants). Stock of these may not be great.

6mm SF Buildings
We’ll have a number of new models in the Desert Buildings range – I don’t know exactly what yet, it depends on what Phil gets done !

15mm SF Buildings
We should have the first of the new City buildings available, and possibly more (who knows).

28mm Great War
We’ll have the Belgian refugees ready at last.

Of course we’ll have stock of all of the recent new releases – the Pommerania, PacFed vehicles, 2mm buildings etc. And don’t forget that we also carry Angel Barracks’ 6mm (figures only) at shows too.

Show Orders
We’re happy to take advance orders to be collected at the show. If you want to pay in advance, you can place an order from the website; go to the online ordering page and select ‘Collect in Person’, then place and pay for your order as normal. This won’t charge any postage costs, and then you can just turn up on the day and collect your items. Please get any show orders in by the end of Thursday 11th April, otherwise we may not have time to complete them.

Obviously you can’t order any of the new releases this way since they aren’t on the website yet (and we haven’t published any prices yet either). If you want to reserve any of these, or you want to make an advanced order but pay on the day, e-mail us and we’ll get back to you with a total cost.

Aeronef at Stoke Rochford – advance orders

A week or so ago we posted the flyer for an Aeronef weekend at Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire. There is still time to get in if you fancy a weekend of jousting in aerial battleships – e-mail David Frampton for details.

What we forgot to mention is that we will be there for the Friday evening ‘get to know you’ drinks and Saturday’s gaming session (we’d love to stay all weekend but prior commitments mean we have to be off on Saturday evening unfortunately).

This isn’t a wargames convention as such, more a wargaming weekend, but we will be taking a mini trade stand with us; it’ll only be what we can pack in a car, so we won’t be taking our full ranges by any means, mainly the VSF ones (Aeronef and Land Ironclads). However, if anyone wants to order anything in advance or ask us to take along some particular items to have a look at then please let us know – preferably by the end of Thursday, so we have time to pack and do any necessary stocking up.

We should have plenty of stock of the new 2mm buildings that everyone seems to like so much :-)

Collect at Show Shipping Option

We’ve added another shipping option – this time it’s a ‘Collect in Person’ option, which essentially means no postage charges. Use this if you want to place an order for a show through the website, pay by credit card or PayPal and then pick it up on the day.

Unfortunately it’s come online a bit too late for Crisis, but in the absence of a website option you’re still more than welcome to come along on Saturday and thrust wads of Euro notes into our hands in return for tanks, spaceships, Sidhe warriors etc.

A Strange Request …

As usual, we will be at Crisis 2012 at the new venue on the dockside in Antwerp and, as always, welcome any orders you may have for collection at the show (e-mail us if you’d like to place an order). If the order is worth 50€ or more then we’ll give you 10% off as well.

We should have the odd new release or two; we’re hoping that the Belgian Civilians will find their way to us from New Zealand in time, and we’re working on getting others ready – watch out for details of these.

Now I have a rather odd favour to ask any European customers who are going to the show and can help me out; I would like to get hold of some 1-cent euro coins – quite a lot, about 500, or 5€ worth. Is there anyone who could get to a bank somewhere in the euro-zone and get some for me ? I’ll happily pay in advance if needed (via PayPal) or I can give you a crisp 5€ note on the day (and there’ll be a free model or two in it for you as well …). E-mail me if you’re prepared to get strange looks at the local bank when you ask for a fistfull of small coins, and I’ll be eternally grateful !

UPDATE – my euro-coin problem is solved, thanks very much to Patrick for offering to sort this for me :-)

SELWG Releases

With just over a week to go to the show we’re firming up on the new models that we’ll have available.

After a successful run of the master moulds the other night, we have tins and initial stock of the Neo-Soviet BRK gunboat, in two variants with a choice of turrets. Although we’re selling this as a Neo-Soviet model, it looks pretty good with other turrets from our 6mm range (for example, I tried it with the German Helheim gatling turret and EuroFed Tassigny AA turrets because they happened to be lying on my desk). If you ask us nicely enough we’ll sell it with whatever turrets you require.

In the same master mould were the two Scandinavian Union capital ships. The cruisers and escorts will be in a second mould which we’ll be spinning today. We should have the full range of ten plus fleet packs and Union flags on the day. As you can see, the ‘Nef absolutely look the business when tooled up with all of their turrets and masts.

As a little experiment, I also made up a couple of our Land Ironclads scale fortresses with Scandinavian turrets (I would have done the 4-turret fortress as well but ran out of turrets !). The Maunsell fortress (right) needs a little bit of work (drilling out holes for the turret pegs) but they look fine.

The next confirmed release will be the 28mm Great War Belgian skirmish infantry in three variants – infantry in shako, Grenadiers and Carabiniers.

Don’t forget that we’ll also have stock of Angel Barracks 6mm SF civilians and RDF infantry with us as well.

That’s what we have confirmed so far, but there may be more if we pull our fingers out, so stay tuned.

SELWG Advance Orders

The SELWG show is coming up on us soon – it’s on October 14th, so just over five weeks away. We’ll be taking advanced orders as always, with the usual 10% discount for any over £50. Any orders should be in a week before the show please, to give us time to get them ready for you.

SELWG

We’ll also be taking orders for anything from our Shapeways Shop – we’ll put all the requests together into one super-order and time it to arrive before the show. There is a lead time of three weeks on Shapeways items since they are printed to order – so if you fancy getting hold of some 6mm Power Pylons, a large water tower, Pegasus Bridge or a Norman Town Hall, or a 15mm Mobile Phone Mast – we must have your order in by September 21st at the latest

Pegasus Bridge

Maidstone Wargames Society will also be in attendance with the Pegasus Bridge game if you missed it at Salute.

%d bloggers like this: