Brigade Models

As mankind expanded beyond the solar system, if other civilisations were out there then one day we were going to make contact. Inevitably, given the vastness of the galaxy, it turned out that we weren’t alone after all. One of the first races encountered, the Yenpalo, are an aggressive, vaguely reptilian humanoid species. A number of combats have occurred between Yenpalo spaceships and human fleets around disputed systems, but ground combats have so far been fewer and confined to small-scale skirmishes. Reports of these actions speak of fully-armoured troops equipped with energy weapons and some form of personal particle shielding that seems to be effective against normal slug-throwing weapons.

The infantry set has ten figures – two five-man (alien?) sections, each with one squad leader, two riflealiens, a support weapon and a close combat specialist with pistol and energy shield. The support weapons pack has a shoulder launched anti-tank weapon, three assorted heavy weapons and another shielded figure.

The shields are printed on clear plastic. They need to be cut out and stuck on with clear glue after the figures are painted.

SF15-1101 – Yenpalo Infantry Squad – £3.75
SF15-1103 – Yenpalo Support Weapons – £2.00

These figures were formally part of the Armies Army range as the ‘Enemy Unknown’.

In the Gulags of Eastern Russia and the Laogai of central China, one option for lifers is to serve in a Penal battalion with the promise of early release, rather than rot in jail. Survive 3 months of suicidal combat missions and gain your freedom (or so the NKVD recruiters will tell you – the likely reality is transfer to a mine-clearing unit if you show signs of making it to the end of your term). The odds are stacked against you – brightly coloured uniforms to draw attention away from the real troops, low power and poor quality weapons and an explosive collar, just in case you feel like straying from your assigned mission.

To represent these poor souls, this pack of Penal Troopers has five unique sculpts in prison-issue boiler suits wearing explosive collars. Four have short-barreled weapons while one has a support weapon.

SF15-009 – Penal Troopers (x5) – £2.00

These are the first former Armies Army figures to make it to our website. We’ll be adding them all as fast as we can commision the moulds and get them painted and photographed.

Last week I finished painting up my first batch of our 15mm Infantry figures that we brought out at Salute (not helped by a rogue pigeon that divebombed my photo-shoot at one point !).

Originally they were going to be sold as generic armoured infantry, but with our recent acquisition of the ArmiesArmy infantry ranges we’ve decided to allocate figures to our various forces. So these figures are now assigned to the Pacific Federation where their fully-armoured look goes well with the high-tech grav vehicles of the PacFed.

There are nine packs available including riflemen, support and heavy weapons and command figures. There is also a 32-man platoon pack plus a 3-man crew for our Mercenary Combat Car.

SF15-750 – Riflemen (x8) – £3.00
SF15-751 – Support Weapons (x8) – £3.00
SF15-752 – Command Figures (x8) – £3.00
SF15-753a – Tripod MG plus crew (x2) – £3.00
SF15-753b – Tripod Railgun plus crew (x2) – £3.00
SF15-753c – Tripod Gatling plus crew (x2) – £3.00
SF15-753d – Tripod Tri-barrel plus crew (x2) – £3.00
SF15-754 – Combat Car Crew (x3) – £1.25
SF15-755 – Rifle Platoon (x32) – £11.00

Today we’re releasing what I think is the largest model we’ve yet made, plus re-releasing an old favourite.

The former is the 15mm Control Tower model that we sneaked through just before Salute. This 10″ tall model is part of our Colony Base and can mate up with other models in that range or be used as a stand-alone piece. There are two options, the full 10″ tall model or the slightly smaller version that has a single central pillar instead of two. This is a hefty chunk of resin that will make a great centrepiece on a 15mm table.

At the same time we’re returning the 15mm Athena VTOL to the website. We took a number of these to Salute (which we sold out of in a five minute burst in the middle of the morning). Now they’ve been remoulded it’s time to return them to full release.

SF15-111 – Athena VTOL – £17.50
B15-319 – Control Tower – £40.00
B15-319a – Control Tower (single height) – £35.00

If you’re wondering about our new 15mm infantry (and the Armies Army figures for that matter), they’re coming very soon. Even though the moulds are ready, we have a policy of not releasing anything until we have samples painted, and this week a big influx of orders, plus the Bank Holiday which made it a four-day week, means that I haven’t had a chance to do anything other than casting and packing. However, there’s a half-painted rifle platoon staring reproachfully at me from the workbench, which I should be able to get to next week.

Continuing the new releases, today we have more vehicles in our 15mm Science-Fiction range. Although SF, they use an older motive technology – half-tracks. They are the first Polish armoured vehicles in the range (although not the last, there are already more types lined up), which we’ve scaled down from the 6mm versions.

The Poles are backed by Germany on the front-line against the resurgent Neo-Soviet Empire, and make use of a lot of German tech and equipment (the turrets on these models are shared with the Lynx APC family).

SF15-1303 – Suwalska APC – £8.00
SF15-1303a – Suwalska with RFAC turret – £8.00
SF15-1303d – Suwalska with ATGW turret – £8.00