Bank Holiday Bonus

It’s a public holiday here in the UK, so the workshop is closed; in fact, for various reasons we won’t be back in the workshop until Thursday this week so there will be a slight delay getting orders out of the door.

To compensate, here’s a small bonus release. It’s a new version of the fleet scale AmRep Eagle interceptor from our spaceships range. The mould for the old model desperately needed replacing so we took the opportunity to redesign the Eagle to match the Squadron Commander version.

It comes in a pack of 12 and fifteen fighters are included in the AmRep Carrier Group pack.

SFS-260 – Eagle Interceptor (x12) – £1.50

Blast from the Past

Rooting through some old files recently I came across some designs for US airships that were sent to me many moons ago (the file is dated 2007) by a gamer called Frank Alvarado. One of these caught my attention so I immediately fired up the 3D software and, a few strokes of the mouse later, had the rough layout of a new dreadnought. This was then refined into a final design and sent off to be printed. It’s been modified slightly, mainly to make it fit our existing set of US turrets and other parts, but it’s still essentially Frank’s design which we’ve named after him.

Alvarado class Dreadnought

We’ve tried to contact Frank but to no avail – neither email address we have on file has elicited a response and we’ve had no luck on social media either. So if anyone knows Frank, ask him to drop us a line – we’d like to send him some examples of the vessel he designed all those years ago.

VAN-224 – Alvarado class Dreadnought – £8.50

What a (Fuel) Tanker!

Today we have two new spaceship models. The Admiral Lazarev class Battlecruiser joins the Neo-Soviets as a fast, hard-hitting capital ship somewhat removed from the usual big, heavy battleships of the rest of the fleet. It has a heavy gun turret for’d with a missile battery positioned behind. The superstructure is flanked by a quartet of medium Mass Accelerators, with another pair on the lower hull. Defensively the Lazarev class has moderate shielding and a battery of anti-fighter weapons, but lacks the ablative armour of larger ships such as the Voroshilov.

The second vessel in today’s release is the Vasilisk Fuel Tanker. Built on the same basic hull as the Ulyanovsk Fleet Carrier, the Vasilisk class serve under both military and civilian flags, hauling vast amounts of liquid cargoes. As befits such a valuable ship and consignment, the Vasilisks have a small point-defence battery to ward off raiders. This example, the WN-325, flies under the flag of the Westham-Norcross Shipping Company.

SFS-1203 – Admiral Lazarev class Battlecruiser – £6.00
SFS-5020 – Vasilisk Fuel Tanker – £12.00

Warriors of the Wasteland

Today we have another addition to our range of 6mm figures. Sculpted again by Martin Baker, our Desert Raiders pack has 24 figures in Shemagh (headscarves) and cloaks with a variety of armaments including rifles, AT rocket launchers and squad support weapons.

In Hammer’s Slammers they’re ideal as warriors for Hashemite (which is what we have them listed under) or Sincanmo forces. If you game in other systems then a) we won’t hold that against you 🙂 and b) we’re sure you can find a use for them anyway – they’d make great Fremen, for example.

HS6-4260 – Desert Raiders (x24) – £3.00

6mm Smorgasbord

We have a few odds and ends of 6mm scenery to release today. The first is an addition to the Desert Outlands range of 6mm buildings, which are slightly different in style to the rest of the Desert Buildings. This is a bigger model which we’ve termed a Large Residence.

The other two items expand our options for 6mm airbases. The first is a Blast Pen for sheltering aircraft on the ground from bomb blasts (they’re also known as Revetments). It’s large enough to house a single 1/300th aircraft or VTOL.

Finally we have tanks for storing aviation fuel. These come in a pair and would also work in 15mm as smaller fuel or water tanks.

B300-146 – Blast Pen – £2.50
B300-147 – Fuel Tank (x2) – £4.00
B300-806 – Large Residence – £3.00
BP300-802 – Walled Village – £15.00

Market Town

The first holiday that the Brigadieress and I went on together was to Northern France. One of the towns we visited was St Omer, and I remember thinking at the time how striking the Hotel de Ville (town hall) was, sitting as it does in the big market square.

Wind forward quite a few years and I’ve finally managed to get a 2mm model made of the Hotel de Ville, which is part of today’s new releases. Alongside it we have some terraced town buildings, nominally French in style but at this scale they could be used in many European countries. Each strip of buildings is 40mm long, and there are eight in the set. We’ve also made up a pack consisting of the Hotel de Ville and two sets of terraces to make up a complete market square.

SSS-8164 – Hotel de Ville – £2.75
SSS-8165 – Terraced Town Buildings – £4.00
SSS-8166 – French Market Square – £10.00

Lunar Monorail

Two bits of news first – we’ve had a restock of Hammer’s Slammers figures in both 6mm and 15mm from Ground Zero Games, so all of our army, detachment and troop packs for the Slammers Regiment are back in stock.

We’ve also just heard that Colours has unfortunately been postponed again – the organisers don’t feel that they have enough certainty to go ahead so thought it better to pull the plug early, which is fair enough.

So this week’s main release is some more additions to our 6mm Monorail, which first took to the tracks last year. We have a Lunar Station, plus some additional carriages – a pair of engine cars which together make a short train for both passengers and equipment, and a pair of hazardous waste transporter cars. They ended up being code-named the Moon-o-rail, which has stuck…

Of course you don’t have to use it on the moon – the station makes an excellent alternative to the existing Desert Station in more advanced settings.

B300-1106 – Lunar Station – £10.00
B300-1135 – Lunar Carriages (x2) – £3.00
B300-1136 – Hazardous Waste Transporter Cars (x2) – £3.00

For inspiration, we recommend Artemis by Andy Weir – this features a lunar settlement with a monorail, which is where the idea came from (and it’s a very good story).

Barrier to Entry

Recently we remoulded the 15mm checkpoint model; while doing so I couldn’t find the master for the concrete barriers that come as part of the set. So we had to get those reprinted, and at the same time we tweaked the design a little (they’re no longer slightly asymmetrical) and created a larger production mould so we can turn them out in larger numbers.

Since they’re a handy item, very useful as cover for infantry or barriers to prevent vehicle access, we’ve released them as a pack of eight pieces. Each is 40mm long, making a total of 320mm per pack. At 12mm high, they’re also usable as 6mm walls.

B15-1006 – Concrete Barriers (x8) – £3.50

New Ukrainian Artillery

Today we can finally release some new 15mm Hammer’s Slammers models – these have been caught in development hell for quite a while now. The New Ukrainian Army get some much needed artillery and support upgrades in the form of the TOS-6 Rocket Launcher and the Groza II self-propelled artillery vehicle, plus air defence from the Burun II AA tank. The Shershnem gets a light assault gun variant as well.

Even if you don’t game in the Slammerverse, these would be ideal support for our Neo-Soviets since they are based on the hull of the Bars tank.

HS15-3901a – Burun II AA Vehicle – £9.00
HS15-3901b – TOS-6 Rocket Launcher – £9.00
HS15-3901c – Groza II Self-propelled artillery – £9.00
HS15-3904a – Shershnem Assault Gun – £6.00

The End of the Line

Yesterday, for the first time in three months, I left the workshop on time and with the order queue empty – for a brief period we were completely up to date with orders (of course, by the time I got home 25 minutes later there was already a new one…).

This feels like a cause for celebration, so we feel it’s time to start rolling out some of the many new releases that we’ve been sitting on. Back before A Billion Suns sent everyone into a spaceship-buying frenzy, we promised lots of new bits for the 6mm SF gamer. This is the first of those, and another addition to the Hammer’s Slammers range.

Back in the dim and distant days of 2020 I wrote a blog post about painting 6mm armour with contrast paints, using some new brand new models for the Prosperity National Army as test subjects. Six months later, those models are finally hitting the website. There are two vehicles, the Colonial Light Tank and the Pioneer Amphibious APC, each with a variety of turret options. We also have three associated detachment packs – Armoured and Mechanised Infantry (both Trained units with 15 TUs) and a Marine detachment (these are Veterans, so 10 TUs). The planet of Prosperity is the setting for one of the best known of the Hammer’s Slammers stories, Rolling Hot, with its climactic armoured battle.

HS6-3801 – Colonial Light Tank – £1.00
HS6-3802 – Pioneer APC – £1.00

HSD6-3801 – Prosperity Armoured Squadron – £13.50
HSD6-3802 – Prosperity Mechanised Infantry Detachment – £9.25
HSD6-3804 – Prosperity Marine Detachment – £8.00