More 6mm Hammer’s Slammers today – this is the Waldheim Dragoon’s Daedalus tank which appeared in 15mm earlier this year. It’s accompanied by an air-defence version with four tri-barrel powerguns – we’ve also made the laser/missile version in 6mm as well but I don’t have one to hand. These AD turrets are used by Ander’s Legion on the Rapier tank hull as the Machete tank, but again I didn’t have a spare Rapier hull handy when I took the photos so you can’t see that either. I’m not much good at this, am I …?
Today’s preview shows scaled down versions of some of the recent early Slammer’s vehicles – in this case, the M2A1 and M2A3 versions of the Icarus blower tank with the smaller turret and 20cm powergun and heavy laser respectively.
The M6 combat cars are on their way too, I have hulls but some of the weapons needed a bit of reworking to make them cast reliably (I made them too small !) so you’ll have to wait to see those.
First an apology to anyone who’s contacted us recently and has had a late reply (or is still waiting for one). I’m trying to keep on top of the sale as much as possible, so I’m spending most of my time at the workshop rather than in front of the keyboard. I will get back to everyone – I’m treating enquiries about orders or the sale as priority, but I will answer everything in the end, I promise.
Now, onto the main business of the post. You may have noticed some new buildings lurking in the backgrounds of our new 15mm releases lately (or you may not have been paying attention…).
We’ve been developing some new 15mm resin building components designed to help you spruce up likely looking plastic or cardboard boxes, vac-formed packaging, foam packing etc. Rather than individual pieces, we’ve made whole facades with doors, windows and other details. All you need to do is stick a panel on a box and – hey presto – you have a building. There are also larger garage/hangar doors, balconies, awnings and roof details such as vents and A/C units.
I’ve been experimenting with various items, including UK-pattern surface mount electrical boxes (also known as pattress boxes), which can be bought very cheaply from suppliers such as Toolstation or Screwfix (a pack of 10 single boxes is about a fiver). The ones in the pictures below were all made from these, using our building components and some plasticard to cover the tops.
This is a larger mosque for the Small Scale Scenery range, with four minarets and lots of domes. A resin building with metal parts, it’ll be available early next year.
One range of models we’ve wanted to expand for a while is the 6mm and 15mm Yenpalo – they’ve rather been pushed to one side by the expansion of the Hammer’s Slammers models in both scales. We’re planning to address that next year with a number of models (in both scales of course). Just as a taster, here’s a 15mm quad anti-aircraft gun…
New 6mm buildings – these are made in the style of the existing 6mm Primitive Dwelling in the Desert Buildings range, with flat roof terraces, external staircases, shuttered windows and wall buttresses. They may be put into their own subset of buildings (mainly because the Desert Buildings range is already very big), although I’m not sure what to call it!
Now that the sale is in full swing, spare time is limited at Brigade Towers. We won’t have any new releases for a while, certainly not until the sale is over. But before the sale, we were getting ahead with the design and development of lots of new models, and to fill the blog for the next few weeks we’ll preview as many of these as we can.
These won’t always be painted, some might be just masters, and photos might just be snaps from my phone – but hopefully you’ll get the idea. We won’t always have release dates, although pretty much everything you see should appear before Salute next April (some might be saved for the show itself).
We’ll start off today with an addition to the EuroFed space fleet in the shape of the Tetuán class battlecruiser. It has a single piece resin hull with three gun turrets, and should be out in January.
November is rattling along at a heck of a pace, and the Brigade Christmas Sale is already here again. We’re ready to go with our offers for another year
It’s due to run for just over four weeks, until Sunday December 15th. This should allow customers overseas to place their orders and receive them in time for Christmas, and it also allows us to get everything cleared and out of the way before our own holidays so we don’t have to come back to a huge order backlog in January.
It’s the same format as we’ve run for many a year now – 15% off pretty much everything that we make (there are some exclusions – see the Christmas Sale page on the website for full details). You have twenty-nine days starting now, so get to it ! Please feel free share this post on social media, mailing lists, forums etc.
The Slammers originated as the ‘Auxiliary Regiment’, part of the Friesland regular forces; however, around 317TW Colonel Hammer forcibly went rogue and broke away to make his unit into an independent mercenary regiment. You can read more about the early days of the regiment on the Crucible website where you’ll also find a playsheet. It’s also the subject of the story But Loyal to His Own in volume one of The Complete Hammer’s Slammers.
They took with them their equipment, which was similar to that used by the Friesland Regulars at the time. The Icarus M2 Blower tank was already being introduced, although initially it was in the form of the M2, with a 15cm gun and a smaller turret than later versions. The M2A1, with the same turret but a 20cm gun (and somewhat cramped by the addition of the larger weapon) was just coming into production at the time of the breakaway. The early M2 also had a 1cm pintel weapon rather than the ubiquitous 2cm tribarrels which came in with the M2A1. A laser-armed tank, the M2A3, was evaluated but rejected by the Slammers, although it did find its way into service with other mercenary outfits.
Interestingly, the M2A1 wasn’t part of the initial equipment trials, as Icarus had not officially confirmed its existence at that time. They only announced that they were working on the upgunned tank after the Friesland government had signed a contract for a large order for several hundred 15cm M2s along with an even larger number of M6 Combat Cars, both for the Auxiliary Regiment and the Friesland regular forces, including the Iron Guards regiment. Secretary Tromp was reportedly furious and accused Icarus of trying to unload their older model vehicles on him; Friesland lawyers tried their best to get out of the deal, but the contract was deemed watertight by the Bonding Authority and shipments from Earth started almost immediately. Had he lived long enough to find out the truth, Tromp would have been even more incandescent…
In fact, Hammer had agreed with Icarus to initially supply the Frieslanders with 15cm tanks, knowing that Icarus would be able to fulfil the order almost straightaway from existing stocks. This got his new Auxiliaries up to strength and into action immediately, before any of the waverers in Tromp’s government got cold feet about the idea of mercenaries serving under Friesland colours and pulled the whole project. But Hammer had also secretly negotiated with the Icarus CEO to supply his unit with small numbers of M2A1s to replace early combat losses, and the Auxiliaries would help with field evaluation of the new model.
There was a prototype M2A1 at Camp Loopvlak, the desert facility where the equipment was under test; but it was missing from the inventory submitted to the Friesland quartermaster corps by Icarus. It was kept hidden in a hangar when Tromp and the FDF top brass came to inspect their new vehicles, and was even given the same serial number (H50) as one of the other M2s in case it was inadvertantly spotted.
M2A1 prototype on test, taken from drone camera footage
When the time came for Hammer to break away from Friesland, this small number of heavier tanks gave his unit a qualitative edge over the Iron Guards which is one of the reasons why they were able to overwhelm them so quickly on the Southport starport apron on Melpomene.
The Regiment also had lighter vehicles, in the form of the Icarus M6 in a number of variants. The basic combat car was armed with two 1cm powerguns in an open backed hull (the fighting compartment could be covered by removable armoured shutters). Mortar and missile versions existed, plus a rather odd configuration with twin buzzbomb launchers in a retractable mount. Finally, a model with a twin 3cm-powergun turret provided heavy support.
The photos here were taken at the Regiment’s secret test facility, Camp Loopvlak, during initial evaluations (hence the rare sight of a laser armed M2A3 in Slammers’ markings).
HS15-111d – M2 15cm Blower Tank – £9.00 HS15-111e – M2A1 20cm Blower Tank – £9.00 HS15-111f – M2A3 Laser Tank – £9.00 HS15-116 – M6 Combat Car – £6.00 HS15-116a – M6A5 Support Car – £6.00 HS15-116b – M6A7 Mortar Car – £6.00 HS15-116c – M6A8 Buzzbomb Car – £6.00 HS15-116d – M6 Missileer – £6.00
