Green and Pleasant Land

The world of Rallance IV couldn’t be more ideal for colonisation. Located slap in the middle of its G3V-type star’s Goldilocks zone, the upright rotation and near circular orbit give it steady weather patterns with little in the way of seasonal variation. The two major continents encircle 75% of the equator, resulting in a vast area of prime agricultural land with a temperate climate.

The original colonists arrived on the huge Pathfinder class explorer ship Elcano, with everything they needed to get started. Unlike very early colonies, which were founded in very spartan conditions, the Rallance pioneers had it relatively easy. They were provided with a plethora of supplies to build their accommodation and fast-track a rural, agrarian society.

The holds of the Elcano contained a series of prefabricated buildings in kit form, manufactured by multi-system conglomerate Thunberg-Haalland. These consisted of standardised external frames, with a skin of ribbed carbon-fibre panels between each one. Each one came with detailed instructions, fixings and even tools in a self-contained kit. External fittings such as ventilation and aircon could be placed as required, along with doors and windows, simply by cutting a hole in the skin. Movable internal dividers allowed the occupants to customise their living space. Compared to previous colonies these represented relative luxury. In a nod to their Scandinavian roots, T-H had even provided the skin panels in multiple colours, mimicking the look of a Norwegian coastal town, and breaking up the drab grey of other fledgling colonies. Most inhabited buildings were built on raised platforms – the abundant rains sometimes led to minor localised flooding, and it also discouraged some of the more enthusiastic indigenous wildlife from making nocturnal visits.

The T-H prefabricated building system proved to be so successful that once the colony became established and began to create its own industrial base, a plant was built to build more kits under license. Outside of the capital city, Avelour, which has begun to see more advanced high rise construction, most new building is still based on the T-H system. Homes, farms, shops, even small industrial units still utilise the same basic set of components.

So all of that preamble brings us to our new release this week. Six new 6mm buildings in a range which we’re calling the Agricultural Colony (or Agri Colony when we’re too lazy to type the whole thing). The initial batch consists of three homesteads on raised platforms, and three assorted utility buildings of various sizes. There’s also a pack with two of each homestead and one each of the utility buildings.

All of these will be available at Joy of Six next weekend (there may not be time to create huge amounts of stock by then, but hopefully we’ll have enough).

We already have the first couple of buildings ready for a second wave of releases – we might have a few of those in stock at Jo6, you never know…

BP300-1301 – Agri Colony Pack – £16.00
B300-1301 – Small Homestead-1 – £2.00
B300-1302 – Small Homestead-2 – £2.00
B300-1303 – Garage – £1.00
B300-1304 – Barn – £2.50
B300-1305 – Homestead-3 – £3.00
B300-1306 – Shed – £0.60

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

Joy of Six 2023

Our next show is coming up soon – the Joy of Six 2023 is (as the name might suggest) dedicated to one of the smaller scales – 6mm (or 1/300th, 1/285th etc). It’s run by Baccus, one of the leading names in historical 6mm gaming, at Hallam University in Sheffield. This year’s event is on Sunday July 2nd.

This being 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 and individual models
  • Full range of 6mm Iron Cow models, including a full range of army and company packs and individual models
  • Full selection of building/scenery models of all types, including packs and individual buildings
  • Full range of Squadron Commander fighters, both individual and blister packs
  • The complete 2mm Small Scale Scenery range
  • The complete 1/700th Coastal 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 2nd.

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.

Posted in 1-700th Scenery, 6mm SF, Shows, Small Scale Scenery, Squadron Commander | 1 Comment

Scaling Down

We’ve had a couple of enquiries about 15mm versions of our WWI vehicles, so Phil’s been having a play with the printer settings…

Berliet CBA in 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.

So we’ve decided to add these to the website – they’re under the existing 28mm Great War range but in their own section at the bottom of the page. So far there are three, which we’ve been specifically asked for so we’ve done test prints – we’ll add more as and when we can do test runs to make sure that other models will print at the smaller scale. But if anyone wants a specific vehicle rescaled that we haven’t done yet, email us and we’ll have a go for you.

Berliet CBA, Model-T Ambulance and destroyed Mk.IV tank.

GW15-102d – Destroyed Mark IV Male Tank – £10.00
GW15-202 – Ford Model-T Ambulance – £5.00
GW15-401 – Berliet CBA Truck – £7.00

Posted in 3D Print, Great War | 1 Comment

Bases are back again!

After a v-e-r-y long hiatus, we’ve managed to get hold of new stock of the hex-base flying stands again. 13000 of the little blighters turned up at the end of last week (proof is in the picture below) to finally replenish our stocks. We’ve put them back on the website (links below), and we’ll update the fleet pack/squadron pack listings as soon as possible so that we can include them again.

Happy Days 🙂

ACC-001 – Clear plastic flying stand (pack of 10) – £2.00
ACC-002 – Black plastic flying stand (pack of 10) – £2.00

Posted in Accessories, Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment

Roman Repositories

The Small Scale Scenery continues to grow – we’ve now hit product code 200 ! This week we have a pair of Roman releases from the early C.4th, both from Trier (known by the Romans as Augusta Treverorum) in the Rhineland, Germany.

The first is the Basilica of Constantine, also known as the Aula Palatina. A basilica was a general purpose public building used for holding courts, meetings and other public functions. They varied in size and grandeur depending on the size of the town. We already make the massive Basilica Maxentius in Rome, but this one is a slightly smaller offering. The building was later consecrated as the Church of the Redeemer within the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland. The building still stands, although it has been modified and then restored over the centuries – it was also badly damaged during an air raid in 1944 and repaired after the war. So although it’s 1700+ years old, it could be used by Cold War gamers as part of a Germany city in the path of the advancing Warsaw Pact armies.

The second part of the release is this pair of warehouses or horrea. The original examples in Trier no longer exist above ground, the buildings were incorporated into a Benedictine abbey and then a vineyard was cultivated on the site. But remnants still exist in the cellar of a wine merchant later built on top of the foundations. Originally there were two warehouses separated by a courtyard – our pack consists of this model, and we’ve also included a single free-standing warehouse in the pack just because we thought it might be useful. These models would make great objective for a game where both sides are after the grain and other foodstuffs stored inside.

Much of the research for these models came from the chance acquisition of a book of Imperial Roman Architecture, purchased for the princely sum of £2 from a second-hand bookshop in Faversham ! This book has loads of other useful reference information; Trier (also the birthplace of Karl Marx) is particularly fertile ground. So expect our Roman city to keep growing.

SSS-8200 – Basilica of Constantine – £3.50
SSS-8201 – Roman Warehouses – £5.00

Posted in New Releases, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment

Armoured Car Parade

To show solidarity with the Czarist government, a squadron of Royal Naval Air Service armoured cars was dispatched to Russia in 1915. Not being entirely sure how best to use their British friends the Russians sent the unit to the Caucasus Front where they saw service against the Turkish army. The squadron was originally equipped with Lanchester armoured cars which soon proved unsuitable in the harsh terrain. To supplement the Lanchesters, a lightweight armoured car was developed using the Ford Model T. This had an armoured cab for the driver and an open back with space for a rear firing Maxim machine gun.

Nine of these were built with at least six seeing service with the RNAS. The cars gave excellent service with their ability to traverse terrain unsuitable for the heavier vehicles. The majority of them were lost by the spring of 1917.

The Jeffery Quad truck had been designed to meet US army requirements in 1913. It was used extensively by the US, British and French armies during WW1. From 1914 a variety of experimental armoured cars were developed using the chassis of the Quad truck. The third of these featured a tall hull with a pair of circular turrets and was known by the US Ordinance Corps as “Armoured Car No 1”. This vehicle was possibly used by the US army on the Mexican border in 1916.

GW28-101 – Model T Armoured Car – £6.50
GW28-204 – Jeffery Armoured Car No 1 – £14.00

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

Making Tracks

We promised to write an article on making track for our new 15mm Monorail cars, and here it is. As you’ll see, it’s a really straightforward process.

The track itself is made from mini cable trunking – ours came from Screwfix in the UK. It’s 12x8mm trunking (Screwfix product code 73354, made by Tower), sold in 2m lengths for the princely sum of £3.99 at the time we wrote this. You can probably get a similar product in other DiY stores (Wickes certainly sell it) and a quick search of both Amazon and eBay turned up a number of options, although buying it from a mail order supplier is more expensive and it’s generally cut down into shorter lengths for posting.

We can’t help with suppliers overseas, but hopefully a similar product should be available. If anyone finds a reliable source in their country, let us know and we’ll update this page with the information.

So, onto the build. You’ll need a baseboard for the track to keep it upright on the table – we used a piece of 3mm MDF (actually the backing board from a broken picture frame) roughly 70cm long, and cut into ~10cm wide strips, using a jigsaw to make the edges a bit more irregular. In hindsight this was probably a bit too wide, they could have been half the width and would still have been stable. You might want to smooth the edges with some sandpaper, or if you have a small power sander you can go the whole hog and bevel the edges to blend into the table.

Now remove the lid from your trunking (discard this, you won’t need it) and cut it to length. We found it easiest to cut it slightly overlong and trim it down after fitting. Remove the backing from the self-adhesive strip and press it down firmly – make sure that you get this right first time, as it sticks really well and you’re unlikely to be able to peel it off and reposition it.

That’s assembly done – we told you it was easy – so it’s on to painting. We sprayed it with generic silver paint from Poundland, but because the plastic is slightly shiny and flexible we gave it a good coat of Halfords’ grey primer first so that it had a good surface to stick to. After this had dried we gave it a black wash to tone down the chromium-plated, too-clean look. You can use your favourite commercial shade, but since this used quite a lot we mixed some up from cheap black acrylic hobby paint thinned with Johnson’s acrylic floor varnish.

All that’s left is to texture the base (this is the point where we wished we’d made the baseboards narrower!). We used a mix of sand, PVA glue and household emulsion paint – sand for texture, the paint for colour and the PVA helps it stick and also stops it cracking like a dry river bed. Then just finish it off to match your game boards with flock, grass tufts, bushes etc.

And that’s it for your basic track lengths. We’ve yet to try anything complicated like curves – the trunking isn’t really very flexible and tends to twist, but it might be possible to use an industrial heat gun to soften and bend it. The next step will be coming up with pillars for an elevated monorail, and figuring out the design for a station.

Posted in 15mm SF, Painting and Modelling | Comments Off on Making Tracks

Buzzard Off !

With the Salute releases all safely on the website, we have something brand new this week. Small but perfectly formed, these are Neo-Soviet Kanyuk (buzzard) class Strikeboats. We’ve gone for a mid-green colour scheme inspired by some of the early Soyuz spacecraft. In A Billions Suns terms they would be classed as Gunboats.

While we were updating the Neo-Soviet page, we’ve added two new fleet packs, imaginatively named Fleet Pack #2 and Fleet Pack #3. The first, led by a Gagarin dreadnought, is one we’ve been taking to shows for a while but for some reason it’s never made it onto the website. It also contains three Slava cruisers, four Yerevan destroyers and three Burun missile corvettes. The second has a Zhukov battleship, a Lazarev battlecruiser plus escorts (including a pack of the new Kanyuks).

SFS-1262 – Kanyuk Strikeboat (x12) – £2.00
SFSP-1203 – Neo-Soviet Fleet Pack #2 – £23.00
SFSP-1204 – Neo-Soviet Fleet Pack #3 – £23.00

Now’s a good time to remind you about our next show – Broadside in Gillingham, Kent on June 10th. Advance orders are always welcome, you can place them on the website using the Collect in Person option, or simply email us and pay on the day.

Posted in New Releases, Spaceships | 1 Comment

La Flotte Française d’Outre-mer

Our second overseas territories fleet is the Gallic force based in French Guiana. Composed again of older second-line vessels (fewer turrets, more barbettes), the craft patrol the environs of the Guianese territory for pirates and smugglers, and occasional incursions by the British if they decide it’s time to test out the French defences.

The Océan class dreadnoughts, despite their venerability, are still large and formidable opponents; the rest of the vessels are showing their age and are noticeably slower than more recent additions to the French fleet.

VAN-405 – French Overseas Fleet – £23.00

VAN-422 – Océan class Dreadnought – £8.50
VAN-423 – Arquebuse class Cruiser – £2.75
VAN-424 – Bisson class Destroyer – £2.25
VAN-425 – Laperouse class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-426 – Colonial Patrol Boats (x3) – £2.00

Posted in Imperial Skies, New Releases | 1 Comment

A New Life Awaits You in the Overseas Colonies

“A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.”

As part of our South American project, as well as the ten independent states we wanted to do something to cover the three European colonies on the mainland. We worked on the idea of the fleets stationed in the Overseas territories being composed of older, second-line vessels. No longer up to service against the latest enemy craft, but with enough miles left in their hulls to perform a valuable role patrolling the borders of far-flung provinces.

The first of these, the British Overseas Fleet, is responsible for the settlement in British Guyana, as well as the Falkland Islands. There are six craft altogether – a battleship and battle cruiser, three escort vessels and a redesigned Rawalpindi class cruiser. Of course, given how much of the world map was pink at that time, these vessels could be found in many other places all over the world.

VAN-108 – British Overseas Fleet – £23.00

VAN-131 – Colony class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-132 – Commonwealth class Battlecruiser – £8.00
VAN-104 – Rawalpindi Class Colonial Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-133 – Cairo class Destroyer – £2.25
VAN-134 – Tribal class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-135 – Natal class Corvette – £0.75

Posted in Imperial Skies, New Releases | 1 Comment