Gallic Workhorse

Posted on September 7, 2022 by Tony

The next addition to our growing range of 28mm WWI 3D-printed vehicles is the Berliet CBA truck, of which around 40000 were made between 1913 and 1932. It was the most common French transport vehicle of the Great War, with 25000+ reaching the French army, and were especially vital in keeping the frontline of the Battle of Verdun supplied. They were still in service during the 1940 campaign, carrying 75mm guns of the French Mounted Artillery regiments. These old guns, which were designed to be horse-drawn, couldn’t be towed at speeds greater than 5mph so they were transported on the back of the CBAs.

As with our other releases, there are both intact and destroyed versions – the latter looks particularly sad lying on its side… Phil has done a cracking job on the painted version, recreating the Berliet logo on the canvas awning in freehand.

GW28-401 – Berliet CBA – £21.00
GW28-401d – Destroyed CBA – £21.00

Posted in 3D Print, Great War, New Releases | 1 Comment

polski brygadier

Posted on September 4, 2022 by Tony

When we took on the ArmiesArmy range of 15mm figures we inherited a splendid looking British officer figure complete with handlebar moustache, electronic monocle and swagger stick. Although his rank at the time was uncertain, we adopted him as ‘The Brigadier’. I’ve painted several versions of him, and our current Twitter/Facebook profile picture is a version in Ukrainian colours. Later we added a version of him to the PacFed armoured infantry, still with the monocle but with a big gun instead of the swagger stick. More recently he swapped his armour for a head scarf and cloak and took to the sands as part of the new range of Hashemite Desert Raiders – this version was nicknamed ‘The Brigadier of Arabia’.

Now the Brigadier has gone east and has become the ‘polski brygadier’ – or Polish Brigadier. The swagger stick is back, and he looks very dapper in his wide breeches and Polish cavalry boots. He also sports a square-topped czapka peaked cap.

After the news of a new version of the Brigadier, anything else is bound to be underwhelming, but we’ll plough on. Also new this week is a 15mm trailer-mounted air-defence system known as the Atgeir, made from a new missile mounting fitted to the existing Varningr trailer. The quad-missile launcher has four parts – two missile pairs, launcher body and base.

The missile mount is also available separately and will fit into the back of some of our flat bed vehicles, such as the Lievre, Connestoga or Hippo.

SF15-1366 – The Polish Brigadier – £0.50
HS15-1818c – Varningr Missile Trailer – £4.50
SF15-945 – AA Missile Launcher – £2.00

Posted in 15mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

Postal delays and Return to Colours

Posted on September 1, 2022 by Tony

If you’re in the UK you’ll probably know this, but for the benefit of our overseas customers, Royal Mail staff are staging a series of strikes which could affect our shipping times. The first one was last week and the second yesterday, so although we shipped out a lot of orders today they will probably be caught in the backlog. There will be more strikes next week – these are on consecutive days (8th and 9th) so there will be significant delays then. We will post as many orders as we can on the 7th to try and get ahead of the strike. We then have a final late summer holiday break for a week after that, so no orders will be processed from September 9th to the 18th – we’ll deal with them as as fast as we can when we return on the 19th.

In other news, we’re going back to Colours at Newbury Racecourse for the first time since 2019. The show is on Saturday week (September 10th) and, as a thank you to a very patient public, the organisers have decided to make entrance free for the day – so you can come along, have a look and the games and peruse the traders for nothing (you could spend the money you’ve saved on the entrance fee at our stand – just a suggestion … 🙂 ).

Newbury Stands – ©RacingKel, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Posted in Shipping Stories, Shows | Comments Off on Postal delays and Return to Colours

Great War Leviathans

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Tony

Earlier in the summer we posted about a new range of 3D printed Great War vehicles in 28mm. It’s taken us a little longer than expected, but the first of them have reached the website.

We’ve started with what is pretty much the iconic WWI tank, the British Mark IV. This is the Male version armed with two 6pdrs and three Lewis machine guns. It’s accompanied by a destroyed version that has obviously had a close encounter with some German artillery.

Our second model in this first batch is at the opposite end of the size scale. The Ford M1918 3-ton tank was developed by the US as an alternative to the French-built FT-17, and took a number of design features from the latter vehicle. It was turretless, and armed with a machine gun mounted in the bow. Only fifteen were built and, of these, only one made it to Europe before the Armistice.

GW28-102 – Mark IV Male – £25.00
GW28-102d – Destroyed Mark IV Male – £25.00
GW28-201 – Ford M1918 3-ton Tank – £6.50
GW28-201d – Destroyed Ford M1918 3-ton Tank – £6.50

Posted in 3D Print, Great War, New Releases | 1 Comment

Black China

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Tony

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).

Posted in 15mm SF, Hammer's Slammers, New Releases | 1 Comment

Castle Upgrades

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Tony

We have a trio of new add-ons for the budding 1/1000th scale castle builders out there.

First up is a new large bastion to fit the Vauban Fortifications range. This is the Baluarte de San Domingo, part of the walls of the Colombian coastal city of Cartagena de Indias. We’ve tweaked it slightly to fit the dimensions of our existing wall pieces, so it should nicely into your layout. The original has guns lining the ramparts – we don’t supply any, but our fort guns pack would be ideal.

Next is a new keep for the modular castles range – this one has a triangular layout with a round tower at each corner. It’s not based on any specific historical prototype, but may have uses when making a fantasy castle.

Finally, another castle add-on. This is a Dansker, also known as a latrine tower. These were towers over a running stream which were linked to the main building by a bridge – sometimes they extended out over the main castle wall. They were often features of central European castles (such as our Crusader castle) – I’m sure you can guess their purpose from the name (!). The origin of the alternative name Dansker isn’t clear – it comes either from the town of Danzig, from Dansk meaning Dane (ie one from Denmark) or an old Prussian word meaning ‘wet or humid’ – take your pick…

SSS-8121e – Triangular Keep – £2.00
SSS-8152e – Baluarte de San Domingo – £3.00
SSS-8192 – Dansker – £1.75

Posted in New Releases, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment

Racing the Dunes

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Tony

New this week is the big bunch of 6mm 4×4, 6×6 and half-track vehicles for the Sincanmo Federation, mirroring the 15mm release last year. There are 22 different variants in total when you include all of the turret and weapon options, enough to keep the most demanding desert warlord in business.

The 6×6 and half-track sets have the same options, with seven different variants in all – technical (eg open-backed utility), troop carrier, command, air defence (with three different armaments) and ambulance.

6×6 variants – {l-r) AA Missile, Quad AA, single AA, ambulance, technical, troop carrier, command

half-tracks – (l-r) AA missile, single AA, quad AA, ambulance, command, troop carrier, technical

The 4×4 buggies come in four different chassis types with different weapon options resulting in a total of eight variants – utility, scout (with two turret types), missile buggy, radar/EW buggy, buzzbomb carrier, mortar carrier and tow-truck.

4x4s – (l-r) utility, scout (twin powerguns), scout (laser), AT missile, radar/EW, mortar, buzzbomb, tow truck

The two ambulances have been added to the Surgeon General range, our list of models that support the MacMillan cancer charity – 50% of their ex-VAT sale price will go towards that cause.

The Sincanmo’s heavy armoured cars will follow soon, at which point we’ll also add detachment packs to the website.

HS6-2902 – Naib 6×6 Technical – £1.00
HS6-2902a – Naib 6×6 Troop Carrier – £1.00
HS6-2902b – Naib 6×6 Command Car – £1.00
HS6-2902c – Naib 6×6 AA Truck – £1.00
HS6-2903d – Naib 6×6 Ambulance – £1.00
HS6-2903 – Aamir Half-track – £1.00
HS6-2903a – Aamir Half-track Troop Carrier – £1.00
HS6-2903b – Aamir Command Half-track – £1.00
HS6-2903c – Aamir AA Half-track – £1.00
HS6-2903d – Aamir Half-track Ambulance – £1.00
HS6-2904 – Qaadi 4×4 Utility – £1.00
HS6-2904a – Qaadi 4×4 Missile Car- £1.00
HS6-2904b – Qaadi 4×4 Scout – £1.00
HS6-2904c – Qaadi 4×4 EW Car- £1.00
HS6-2904d – Qaadi 4×4 Buzzbomb Car – £1.00
HS6-2904e – Qaadi 4×4 Mortar Carrier – £1.00
HS6-2904f – Qaadi 4×4 Recovery – £1.00

Posted in 6mm SF, Hammer's Slammers, New Releases | 1 Comment

Armoured Monorail

Posted on July 22, 2022 by Tony

First … we’ve finally cleared the backlog (well, as good as) – we’re down to eight outstanding orders, of which two are finished and just need boxing up, two need one piece of resin each (we simply ran out of steam yesterday evening), and four new ones that arrived overnight. Everything else will go the post office tomorrow morning.

So by way of celebration, it’s finally time for something new. And what could be cooler than a train ? That’s right, a monorail. And even better than that is an armoured monorail 🙂 We took a few of these to Joy of Six, and now they’re finally available on the website.

There are six different cars – tank, scout, artillery, infantry, command and locomotive. They’re all available in pairs, and there are also two pre-packaged sets, one of four cars and one of eight.

The eight-car version has two each of the tank, artillery and infantry cars, plus a command car and a locomotive.

The four-car train has one each of the tank, infantry, locomotive and artillery cars.

The tank car is simply that – a tank turret on an armoured chassis. By default it has a Rapier turret, but we’ve put in options for several other turret types. If there’s any other tank turret you’d like, drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do.

The scout car has a light turret (from either a light tank or armoured car) plus an AA turret. Again, we’ve made it available with several options but let us know if you’d like anything else. This is intended to be an independent powered car which operates either singly or in pairs, running patrols along stretches of line.

The artillery car has two light artillery or mortar turrets plus an AA turret. And again, the same applies as far as turret options go.

The infantry, command and locomotive come as seen – there are no turret options (although the command car has a large radar which you could swap out for a turret if desired).

B300-1122 – 8-car Armoured Train – £12.50
B300-1123 – 4-car Armoured Train – £6.25
B300-1137 – Scout Cars (x2) – £3.50
B300-1138 – Tank Cars (x2) – £3.50
B300-1139 – Artillery Cars (x2) – £3.50
B300-1140 – Infantry Cars (x2) – £3.00
B300-1141 – Command Cars (x2) – £3.25
B300-1142 – Armoured Locomotive (x2) – £3.00

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases, Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment

Feelin’ Hot, Hot, Hot…

Posted on July 15, 2022 by Tony

Tony is back at work after his holiday, so we thought it was time for a quick update on orders. We’re steadily working through the backlog that built up while he was away, so far we’ve managed to clear almost all orders up to July 6th (and a few after that). Of those, only a few small UK orders (that fit in a post box) have been posted – we decided against losing valuable casting time at the post office, so everything from this week will go tomorrow (Saturday). As far as possible we’re working on a first-in, first-out basis and doing everything in sequence, so any new orders will go to the back of the queue. Please bear this in mind if you place an order, it’s probably going to take the best part of two further weeks to completely clear everything, but hopefully we’ll be back to normal by the end of July.

It’s been rather warm in the UK this week, which is making things interesting – resin sets incredibly quickly in the heat, and the metal casting kit gets very hot to the touch as well. And temperatures are forecast to hit 35°C on Monday and Tuesday – we can’t ever remember seeing temperatures that high being predicted (UK forecasts are usually quite conservative). The plan then is to get in early, do half a day and clear off before it gets unbearable, and catch up later in the week. Still, it beats working for a living…

As promised, we will try to get the new 6mm bits from Joy of Six (the Sincanmo and Armoured Train) onto the website in the next week or two, but we need to get them all properly photographed first.

In the meantime, Imperial Skies turn rules and altitude markers are now back in stock thanks to Dave at Moomin Merchandise who’s just sent us a big box o’ stuff. The command markers will be back as soon as he can get some suitably-coloured acrylic.

And one last update – the various global supply chain problems have finally caught up with us. Our mould manufacturer is unable to get supplies of the base material for our silicon moulds, it’s a combination of factors apparently including a fire at the processing plant in Scandinavia. We have a small number left which have been lined up for a couple of releases and a master mould, but after that we’re stuck until the supply chain unkinks itself. We should say that this only affects our ability to make moulds for casting metal – fortunately these have a very long life, so once we’ve made them they last a long time (we have moulds which are 15+ years old and still fine). But it means that we will have to switch to resin-only releases for a little while, we still have a good supply of the RTV used to make resin moulds and as far as we know there are no issues with that.

Posted in Imperial Skies, Shipping Stories, Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment

EuroFed Battlefleet

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Tony

Tony’s still on holiday, so there’s not much going on at the moment. We had a good day at the Joy of Six last Sunday – unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the show itself, one of the downsides of being a trader, but it was certainly busy with plenty of visitors. There are some after show reports online if you would like a better view of things.

We should hopefully start adding the new 6mm items released at the show to the website (the armoured train and the Sincanmo dune buggies). There is quite a backlog of orders which will take a couple of weeks to clear first, however.

In the meantime, Stephen Toropov has kindly sent us some photos of his rather nicely painted EuroFed spaceships – so instead of any more waffle from us, here’s some ships in a very striking colour scheme.

.

Posted in Galleries, Spaceships | 1 Comment