Black China

It seems that everything is against us at the moment – this week saw our main air compressor, the one that drives the centrifuge, pack up (an outlet pipe fractured so it was just leaking air out through an ever-widening crack). So cue a frantic search for a replacement, which fortunately arrived the next working day and was fitted and working soon after. So we had a small delay on getting some orders out, but we seem to be back on track again. We’ve also got hold of a new outlet so we should be able to fix the old one and keep it as a spare in case of future failures.

So back onto our regular programming, and a new force for Hammer’s Slammers in 15mm. These are the Han Chinese, from the Slammers’ story The Warrior. Specifically, these are the Han Black Banner Brigade, an elite armoured formation. The old Han Chinese list was pretty basic – just a single 8×8 APC – so we’ve beefed them up with some brand new vehicles. Their primary equipment consists of 8×8 wheeled vehicles with wide balloon tyres, ideal for negotiating the local terrain. The ZTZ-81 is a wheeled tank with a heavy laser in a remote mount, while the ZSL-94 is a personnel carrier on the same chassis with a combined light laser/missile mount. They also utilise the CSK-27 Lìliàng 4×4 Scout Car with either twin MG or twin missile armament.

HS15-501 – ZTZ-81 8×8 Laser Tank – £8.00
HS15-502 – ZSL-94 8×8 APC – £8.00
HS15-503 – CSK-27 Lìliàng 4×4 Scout Car – £4.00

We’re working on some additional follow-on Han forces – the People’s National Guard, rather less-well trained troops who ride in large 8×8 trucks or, in some cases, on trikes. Expect to see these later in the year. The source story is well worth a read, with Han troops supported by Slammers blower tanks attacking a Hindi-held village across paddy fields. If you happen to have an Audible subscription then several Slammers stories, including this one, are part of the Audible Plus catalogue (so you can listen without using one of your credits).