Colonial Expansion

Our 6mm Agricultural Colony range has been going for a couple of years and continues to be popular, and we launched a new 15mm set at Salute. At Broadside tomorrow we’ll be helping the Werelords put on a 6mm Slammers game with lots of Agri Colony buildings on the table to fight in and around, and this will include a bunch of new models.

There are nine new items in total and they’re available today from the website. They include an office block, radar-equipped Comms building, a fast food joint and a very handy set of five small utility buildings.

All available on the website now, or at the show tomorrow.

B300-1304a – Small Barn – £1.75
B300-1309a – Open Front Warehouses – £3.50
B300-1314 – Office Block – £3.50
B300-1317 – Comms Centre – £3.00
B300-1318f – Narrow Shop – £2.00
B300-1319 – Industrial Unit – £3.50
B300-1320 – Fast Food Outlet – £2.50
B300-1321 – Utility Buildings – £6.00
B300-1322 – Homestead 6 – £2.50

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

Last Chance to Order…

A reminder that we’re at Broadside in Gillingham on Saturday (that’s the Kentish Gillingham, not one of the others). We’ve managed to replenish our show stocks back up to reasonable levels (certainly more than we thought likely) but you still have an opportunity to put in an order for collection at the show. This is especially necessary if you want to buy individual spaceships, Imperial Skies models or 6mm vehicles/buildings, since our show stock for those ranges is limited to fleet/army/company/detachment packs

We of course will have the new 28mm sci-fi range with us, including some more figures that you haven’t seen yet and that won’t be on the website for a week or two so you have a chance to get in early.

Stargrave players can also get their hands on the new Death Vector supplement from us at a discount. It’s a long story not worth telling here, but we’ve ended up with half-a-dozen surplus copies. We’ll be selling these at £16 (against the RRP of £20) and, what’s even better, the profits from the sale of them will go towards our ongoing Macmillan charity fundraising.

The Werelords are putting on 6mm Hammer’s Slammers game – this will be righta in front of our stand, just inside the entrance to the hall. Tony has been putting a lot of effort into a new set of scenery based around our Agricultural Colony buildings. And he’s created a whole new bunch of new designs specifically for this layout, which we’ll be releasing at the show. You also get the chance to watch the Crucible rules in action and ask questions of the chap who wrote them.

And finally – Maidstone Wargames Society, the club to which we both belong, are running their Battlezone game, the recreation of the classic 80s video game based on the What a Tanker! rules.

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Meet the Crew #2

We meet four more members of Pioneer Station’s crew today.

Madiwa Aquino is a senior member of the station’s command crew, and is often seen, clipboard in hand, checking on something or someone. She’s primarily responsible for making sure that the station’s supply of coffee is kept topped up. Anna Carrillo is a senior scientist on the geology team – in this case, she’s off to track down some supplies in the darkest recesses of the cargo hold. The lights there are on the fritz, hence the big torch – she’ll be having a word with Helen about the maintenance team’s priorities when she gets back.

Harker Spitz and Francois DeBoer are on the maintenance crew. They’re about to investigate what’s making the banging noise down in the reactor module, so as per protocol they’re suited up in case of a radiation leak. Harker has brought a blaster rifle – the station has a colony of rats that smuggled themselves aboard in a supply shipment years ago and have somehow managed to thrive in the bowels of the facility. He likes to take potshots at them ‘to keep in practice’, which makes Francois nervy when he does it near anything sensitive.

Francois and Harker

SF28-200 – Station Crew (8 figures) – £25.00
SF28-205 – Madiwa Aquino – £4.00
SF28-206 – Anna Carrillo – £4.00
SF28-207 – Harker Spitz – £4.00
SF28-208 – Francois DeBoer – £4.00

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Meet the Crew

Spacestations are generally classified by a standard naming system – the name of the system that they occupy, followed by Roman numerals indicating the planet they orbit (if any). If more than one station orbits a planet, this is suffixed by a Greek letter (thus satisfying both schools of classicists !). For example – Perseus-II-Beta, or Sirius-IV-Kappa. The stations generally adopt a more familiar name for day-to-day use which can range from straightforward (‘Mars Central’) to the more prosaic (‘Heaven’s Gate’).

The station designated Gliese-III-Alpha is known by its crew as Pioneer station. No-one else much cares what it’s called, as it is a remote research station studying the four uninhabitable planets of the Gliese-876 system. It spends much of the time looking for exploitable minerals on the two rocky planets, or useful gases in the upper atmospheres of Gliese 876b and 876c, the two gas giants.

It’s generally a quiet life onboard the Pioneer. Roughly half of the small crew are scientists, concentrating on their research, while the others are dedicated to keeping the station running – maintenance, admin, medical and so on. Many have dual roles – a couple of the research team have rudimentary training as physicians and form the station’s medical department, while the maintenance team also double up as the logistics crew when the supply shuttle makes its monthly rendezvous.

Today we’re introducing some of the station’s crew as our first venture into 28mm SF figures. As with the station itself, these are all 3D prints sculpted by David Sheff. We are offering them in two scales – 32mm heroic scale, or slightly smaller 28mm versions which will match better with ranges such as Stargrave. Prices for the two sizes are the same since the difference in the amount of resin used is negligible.

The first four comprise two members of the research team – Michael Straight is a geologist, while Dr Whitman is a chemist studying the atmospheres of 876b and 876c, also doubling as the senior medic on the station.

Helen Shackleton is the shift leader of maintenance crew A and an expert on the station’s life support system. Bullneck Thompson is a member of her team, particularly valued when heavy lifting is required.

SF28-201 – Michael Straight – £4.00
SF28-202 – Dr W Whitman – £4.00
SF28-203 – Helen Shackleton – £4.00
SF28-204 – Barry “Bullneck” Thompson – £4.00

Posted in 28mm SF, 3D Print, New Releases, Pioneer Station | 2 Comments

House of Healing

Every space station needs a medical centre to keep the crew in tip-top shape. It’s too expensive to keep a full-time doctor on the payroll, so members of the crew with basic medical training are aided by state of the art diagnostic beds.

The diagnostic equipment is built into a quadrant-shaped unit so that the beds can be arranged as a four berth island, two can be placed back to back against a wall or a single bed can sit in a corner. There are two in the Medical Centre pack, and you can buy extras.

The set also includes equipment trollies, a gurney and mobile crash cart and, for the times when the beds can’t cope, a pair of bodybags.

SF28-730 – Medical Centre – £18.00
SF28-731 – Diagnostic Bed – £6.75
SF28-732 – Medical Trollies – £2.00
SF28-733 – Gurney – £3.00
SF28-734 – Crash Cart – £2.00
SF28-735 – Body Bags – £2.50

Models designed by David Sheff, produced under licence. Background image by Handiwork Games.

Posted in 28mm SF, 3D Print, New Releases, Pioneer Station | 1 Comment

Broadside, and Reasons to Be There

Our next show is our local one, Broadside in Gillingham, Kent on Saturday June 14th.

We’ll have as much stock as we can, but we should sound a note of caution; our show stocks, especially Imperial Skies and spaceship fleet packs, were severely depleted at Salute. For a variety of reasons we might not be able to completely restock before Broadside, so if there’s something that you specifically wanted to pick up then it might be an idea to order it in advance. You can do this via the website using the Pickup at Show shipping option so that you don’t pay any postage. You can choose to pay for it in advance, or on the day using the Cash on Collection payment option.

We will have stocks of our new releases, particularly the 28mm Space Station scenery sets, which should have even more options by the time that the show arrives.

If you wanted reasons to come to the show (beyond the fact that we are there, which should really be enough on its own !), we can give you several. Firstly, The Werelords will be putting on a Hammer’s Slammers game again, although this year it will be in 6mm. Tony has been putting in overtime making a load of new scenery for the day, so you can come along, have a look and meet John Treadaway, author of the rules. Secondly, our club Maidstone Wargames Society will be there with their Battlezone game, which is an homage to the classic 1980s video game. This is a participation game so you can join in and blast some tanks back into their constituent pixels !

And apparently some chap called Dan Abnett will be there – we’re told he’s written a book or two…

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Orange America

During the period that Imperial Skies covers (late C.19th/early C.20th), three foreign powers had colonies in South America. We covered the British and French colonial fleets stationed in the Guianas, and today we complete the set with a small Dutch flotilla based in Dutch Suriname.

The largest vessel is the Van Ghent class light battleship, which is preferred to the smaller De Ruyter cruisers because of its longer range and endurance, although several of the latter are also based in the main Dutch base in Paramaribo. Also found on colonial policing duty in the Suriname flotilla are Crijnssen class destroyers and Onversaagd class frigates, both older types.

Suriname is rich in a number of natural resources, so there is a steady stream of merchant traffic transporting all manner of goods. In particular, Suriname has significant amounts of bauxite, a type of aluminium ore, which is shipped back to Europe and used in the production of lightweight airship frames. As part of this release we also have a pair of small Dutch merchants – the Zaandam freighter and Batavia Bauxite Carrier.

Our Imperial Skies South America project is finally nearing its conclusion – after today’s release we have just one more country left to complete the set, and we promise you’ll be seeing the Venezuelans very shortly.

VANF-1012 – Dutch Suriname Flotilla – £14.00
VANF-5010 – Dutch Bauxite Convoy – £14.00
VAN-1006 – van Ghent class Light Battleship – £7.50
VAN-1007 – Crijnssen class Destroyer – £2.00
VAN-1008 – Onversaagd class Frigate – £1.50
VAN-5021 – Zaandam class Merchant – £2.00
VAN-5022 – Batavia class Bauxite Carrier – £1.50

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Research Laboratory

After a break over the weekend, the next room we’re visiting in the space station is the Research lab – who knows what goes on in here !

There’s a cleverly designed HiberPod with occupant – the pod opens and closes and can stand upright or lie flat. The occupant comes out so the pod can also be left empty.

There are a number of lab benches with assorted clutter on them including microscopes, test tubes, someone’s note book and coffee cup – and what on earth has escaped from the last of the sample containers … ?

There are analysis devices for testing, err, stuff, and a sample cart.

And there’s the T-Pod and its controller console. No, we don’t know what the ‘T’ stands for either…

SF28-710 – Research Laboratory – £35.00
SF28-711 – HiberPod – £8.00
SF28-712 – Lab Analysis Device 1 – £3.50
SF28-713 – Lab Analysis Device 2 – £3.50
SF28-714 – Lab Benches – £12.50
SF28-715 – Lab Stools – £2.00
SF28-716 – Sample Cart – £2.50
SF28-717 – T-Pod – £9.50
SF28-718 – T-Pod Controller – £3.50

Models designed by David Sheff, produced under licence. Background image by Handiwork Games.

Posted in 28mm SF, 3D Print, New Releases, Pioneer Station, Salute 52 (2025) | 1 Comment

Command Centre

Today the 28mm range moves onto the first of our interior scenery sets. We’re collecting these under the banner of The Space Station since that’s what they depict – the various parts of a large space station (it can be one of our range of stations in our spaceship range if you like, or something else altogether). Of course they don’t have to be used just for space stations – they can be the inside of a spaceship, a research station on a distant moon or just rooms in an ordinary building on the surface of a mundane planet.

We’re starting with the Command Centre. This has a variety of command consoles, computer servers, room dividers and a nifty holo-table for directing operations. In the tradition of 1980s classic sci-fi, most of the command screens are old fashioned CRT monitors and the servers have tape drives !

SF28-700 – Command Centre – £35.00
SF28-701 – Holo-table – £5.00
SF28-702 – Command Console and Chair – £7.00
SF28-703 – Corner Console – £6.00
SF28-704 – Console Desk – £5.00
SF28-705 – Server – £3.00
SF28-706 – Room Dividers – £15.00

Models designed by David Sheff, produced under licence. Background image by Handiwork Games.

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“You need that shiftin’ ?”

If you need something shifting, then the 25th century equivalent of a forklift is the power loader. This is a large exo-skeleton with hydraulic claws at the end of two arms, and the ability to lift very large weights*. Designed by the Guiyang Huánglóng Hydraulics Development Co., this type can be found in docks, ports, spaces stations and on board larger ships in the cargo hold.

Ably sculpted by David Sheff, this is a multipart model which is 3D printed in grey resin, and has just arrived on the website in the growing 28mm SF range. It comes complete with a separate power-supply/APU which connects to the back for charging.

SF28-104 – PL-899 Yeren Power Loader – £20.00

*Apparently they’re also good for knocking alien queens out of airlocks, or so we’re told.

Posted in 28mm SF, 3D Print, New Releases, Pioneer Station, Salute 52 (2025) | 1 Comment