Castles in the Sky

Posted on June 23, 2022 by Tony

Castles in the Sky is the title of the latest Osprey release in the blue book wargames series, written by Eric Farrington. Rather than us telling you what it’s about, this is what their website has to say about it:

A wargaming ruleset for epic pre-WW1 battles in the sky.

It’s the dawn of the 20th Century and the Great Powers turn to war. Since the development of the air screw, leading to the creation of flying warships, the navies of the world have comprised an ever-growing number of these aerial ironclads. So fire up the turbines, ready the aether drives, and take to the air in Castles in the Sky: A Wargame of Flying Battleships.

Featuring all the rules required to fight battles with fleets of flying behemoths. Assemble your fleet from 8 nationalities and fight through a variety of scenarios. With a full campaign system, Castles in the Sky contains everything adventurous aeronautical admirals need to find victory in the skies.

The 48-page softback has a number of photos featuring our Imperial Skies models, plus other unique artwork. Today is the official release date, and we’ve just added it to our website. The Imperial Skies range now numbers well over 250 different flying machines of various types from 21 different nationalities, plus merchant vessels, giving you lots to choose from.

CITS-001 – Castles in the Sky – £14.99

Posted in Aeronef, New Releases | 2 Comments

Maidstone Wargames Society Open Day

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Tony

Coming up this Saturday is our local club’s Open Day. Maidstone Wargames Society has a history dating back over 50 years (the Golden Jubilee was rather disrupted by the pandemic) and a current membership of around 30. The Open Day is an annual showcase where the club puts on a number of games so that potential new members can see what goes on, try out a game or two and see if the club is for them.

We’ll be there in our role as club members. Tony has been working hard on one of the games on display, a 6mm Hammer’s Slammers event which you can join in to get a feel for the rules. If that doesn’t float your boat then there are modern, Spanish Civil War, renaissance and other games to try. You can find out more here.

Posted in 6mm SF, Hammer's Slammers, Shows | Comments Off on Maidstone Wargames Society Open Day

Joy of Six ’22

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Tony

Our next show, the Joy of Six at Sheffield Hallam University, is just over two weeks away, on July 3rd. The show is making a come back after a couple of years off with over twenty 6mm games and a dozen traders including the organisers, Baccus.

Since this is a specialised 6mm show we take a very cut-down subset of our ranges:

  • Full range of 6mm Hammer’s Slammers models, including a good selection of detachment packs
  • Full range of 6mm Iron Cow models, including a full range of army and company packs
  • Full selection of building/scenery models of all types, including packs
  • Full range of Squadron Commander fighters, both individual and blister packs
  • The complete 2mm Small Scale Scenery range

We’re hoping to have some new releases lined up for the show, which we’ll preview before the day, so keep checking between now and the 3rd.

If you would like anything from one of our other ranges, you can order it in advance and collect on the day. You can either place an order and pay in full using the collect in person option on the website, or just drop us an email with a list and pay by cash or card on the day. Since we’re on holiday for the week leading up to the show, we’ll need any orders well in advance to give us a chance to get them ready – the cut-off date is June 22nd.

Posted in 6mm SF, Shows, Squadron Commander | 1 Comment

Brushes Out !

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Tony

Following on from the recent Broadside show, the Milton Hundred Wargames Club is running a competition for the best-painted version of Leofwine. He was the free figure given away to the first 300 visitors to the show, and which we produced for them with help from from Martin Baker, who sculpted the master. Here’s mine, waiting for paint …

Simply pop over to their Facebook page (sorry, you will need to be on Facebook to enter) and put up a picture of your painted figure. We’ll be stumping up a prize for the best one of a random grab bag of Celtos figures – we can’t say exactly what will be in it, it might depend on what we’re overstocked on that day, but you’ll get a good number of figures.

So, what are you waiting for !?

Posted in Competitions, Shows | Comments Off on Brushes Out !

PacFed Updates

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Tony

Two more spaceships have had an upgrade this week, with new versions of the Pacific Federation Tigershark battleship and Sei carrier. Both are now 2-piece resin castings with improved detailing, and being all-resin makes them lighter and easier to base. An anomaly in these days of rampant inflation, the new Tigershark is slightly smaller than the original, which brings it more into line with the battleships of other fleets (and allows us to drop the price slightly). It also makes potential space for a larger PacFed capital ship sometime in the future…

SFS-701 – Tigershark class Battleship – £5.50
SFS-710 – Sei class Carrier – £6.00

Posted in New Releases, Spaceships | 1 Comment

Great War Vehicles in 28mm (and more)

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Tony

News today of a new venture for us. We’ve had a store on Shapeways selling a few 3D printed bits and pieces for quite a few years; initially it did quite well, but changes in their pricing structure have made some items unaffordable and sales have dropped off markedly in recent times. So we’ve taken the decision to close it, and instead we’re going to concentrate on printing our own models and selling them directly from the website. We will have stocks of the first offerings at Broadside tomorrow; the two scenic pieces are already on the website, expect the others (and many more) to arrive there soon.

We’re adding a range of 3D printed vehicles to our existing 28mm Great War range, starting with three models. The first is the Bussing A5P armoured car, a single example of which was built by Germany and used in Romania and Ukraine in 1916-17.

Adding heavy firepower is the 21 cm Mörser 10 used in large numbers (over 200 were built) by the Germans throughout the Great War.

Finally for the Great War, we have a Ford Model T armoured car, used by the Royal Naval Air Service on the Eastern Front. There’s also a destroyed version (r) for those inevitable moments when the Germans find their range…

We’re also going to be printing some of the most frequently bought scenery pieces from the old Shapeways store. The Transmitter Pylon is the biggest selling item in the range, so we had to start there. At just under 6″ tall, it can be used as a small-ish 6mm scale pylon, or alternatively as a large 2mm TV tower (it’s based upon the Crystal Palace tower).

The final offering for now is a pair of 1/1000th scale Gasholders of the telescopic type common in Europe. Although mostly decommissioned nowadays, they were a common sight on the skylines of most towns and cities.

All are 3D printed in resin; although we will attempt to hold stocks of these items, orders may be delayed slightly if we ever have to print to order.

GW28-301 – Bussing A5P Armoured Car – £21.00
GW28-302 – 21 cm Mörser 10 – £14.00
GW28-101 – Ford Model T Armoured Car – £6.50
GW28-101d – Ford Model T Armoured Car (destroyed) – £6.50
SF300-902 – Transmitter Tower – £7.50
SSS-8191 – Gasholders (x2) – £3.00

Posted in 3D Print, 6mm SF, Great War, New Releases, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment

Broadside 2022

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Tony

Through a combination of circumstances, cancellations, last-minute COVID withdrawals etc, we’ve reached June before we finally get to our first show of the year. It’s our ‘home’ one, Broadside in Gillingham, on Saturday 4th June at Medway Park Sports Centre (formerly the Black Lion for those who know the area).

As always, we’ll be happy to take advance orders. You can either send us an email with your order and pay on the day, or alternatively you can place an order via the website (using the Collect in Person shipping option to avoid shipping charges) and pay in advance. We’ll be taking cash and credit cards on the day.

Because of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee holiday, we’ll need orders by the end of Tuesday (May 31st). We’ll be casting and packing on Wednesday, but we’re then closed for the two bank holidays before the weekend.

If you attend then you should get hold of this little chap – he’s Leofwine Wargamerson, the mascot/emblem of the Milton Hundred Wargames Club who run the show. We were very pleased to have been asked by MHWC to produce a figure for the 10th anniversary of the show and the first 400 people through the door will get one. He was sculpted by the versatile Martin Baker, who’s done a great job of reproducing Leofwine’s casual pose from the MHWC logo.

Work-in-progress version of Leofwine painted by David Mustill, MHWC chairman.

Posted in Shows | 1 Comment

Steps of Emotion

Posted on May 20, 2022 by Tony

This week’s offerings are a small collection of useful 6mm scenic items.

First up is a set of eight cargo containers in various sizes, scaled down versions of our 15mm ones. You get four large, two small and two mini containers. The large one fits neatly on one of our monorail flat cars, while the medium ones can be carried by a Hippo heavy truck.

To allow better access to our new Deep Ocean Research Centre we have a pack containing four sets of stairs, an elevator and a ramp.

I’ve been making some scenery for a display game recently, and decided that I could also use some additional steps and stairs, so I made a set to go with those in the same material. The pack contains fourteen different items, including main steps for large buildings, straight stairs and also 90° corner ones in both directions.

Another item I wanted for my scenery was some arches to go between buildings, so this set has four ranging from one big enough to drive a tank through, down to a small one which would only fit a single soldier.

SF300-901 – Cargo Containers (x8) – £2.00
B300-151 – Steps and Stairs (x14) – £2.00
B300-152 – Archways (x4) – £1.50
B300-1252 – Stairs and Elevator – £2.00

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

The Last, Best Hope

Posted on May 8, 2022 by Tony

After a false start (I made a mistake on the original master…), this week we have a new addition to our spaceships range, the Argos space station. It has a cylindrical resin main hull with four metal solar panels, two either side. The station is unarmed (or at least has no visible weaponry), but you can add some from our various spaceship turret packs if you’re after something with a bit more offensive power.

It would make a great objective for a game of Full Thrust or Starmada, or as a installation in A Billion Suns.

SFS-6008 – Argos Space Station – £15.00

Posted in New Releases, Spaceships | 1 Comment

Ersatzteile

Posted on May 5, 2022 by Tony

With the release of the German battleship and battlecruisers recently, we have some useful metal parts from those models that we’re making available as an accessory set. Each set has a pair of heavy twin guns, two pairs of solar side panels, two different bridges and a vertical fin. We’ll only be selling these as a set, so please, no requests for twenty pairs of Pomerania guns – we won’t be able to do that.

SFS-395 – German Capital Ship Parts – £2.50

Posted in New Releases, Spaceships | 1 Comment