Moving halfway round the world from the two previous releases, the next model to be released is the Rangatira class Dreadnought. With its distinctive twin engine nacelles, the Rangatiras bring heavy firepower to the PacFed fleet.
SFS-700 – Rangatira class Dreadnought – £8.00
Don’t forget that we’re on holiday until the 8th of May – you can still place orders, and we’ll deal with them on our return.
The next Salute model is another German spaceship, the Bodensee class carrier. The Germans have lacked a heavy carrier class in their fleet, and they finally get one in the shape of this twin-hulled vessel.
SFS-310 – Bodensee class Carrier – £8.00
Don’t forget that we’re on holiday until the 8th of May – you can still place orders, and we’ll deal with them on our return.
Today we’re starting to add our new releases from Salute to the website. The first model, purely because it has the first SKU code, is the German Munich battleship. This fills the gap between the Pomerania dreadnought and the Thuringen battlecruiser. It has the same heavy gun mounts as the Pomerania fitted amidships, and a large stabilising fin.
SFS-304 – Munich class Battleship – £8.00
Don’t forget that we’re on holiday until the 8th of May – you can still place orders, and we’ll deal with them on our return.
After the rigours of Salute, we’re having a short break at Brigade to take advantage of the two upcoming bank holidays. We’ll be off next week (May 1st to 5th), returning on the 9th after the Coronation bank holiday. The website will remain open, but no orders will be processed until we get back. All orders up to April 23rd* have already been completed, and we’re pretty confident that we can finish anything else we currently have outstanding before we go.
*UPDATE – we’ve just finished the week with an empty order queue – all orders up to 3pm on Friday 28th April have either already been sent, or will be posted tomorrow. This includes EU orders – they’ve been sent to the shipping hub for distribution. We can safely go on holiday without leaving a backlog behind 🙂
We will be starting to add the new releases from Salute to the website next week – you’ll be able to order them immediately and we’ll deal with the orders after the holiday.
This is the last one, just in the nick of time! We’re just about to load up the van and set off for the ExCel.
We’ve been working on a 15mm version of our 6mm monorail scenery set for a while, in particular looking for an affordable way to represent the track – and we think we’ve cracked it at last.
We’ve hit on the idea of using narrow plastic cable trunking – remove the top and you’re left with a ‘U’ shaped channel which is flexible, easy to paint and is self-adhesive, making it a doddle to stick to a base. We sprayed ours with grey primer, then silver spray and gave it a black wash – job done! It’s available in the UK from Screwfix, Wickes and also online from eBay and Amazon. And it’s very inexpensive – just a few pounds for a 2 metre length. We’re planning to bring a few lengths with us on Saturday, cut down to 1m long so they’re easier to carry home on the train afterwards! We’ll do a full write-up after the panic of the show is over.
So we’ve made four resin carriages that fit this track – an engine, passenger carriage, flat car and an independent armed scout car. We hope to put together some package deals as well although they aren’t yet finalised.
B15-1130 – Monorail Engine – £10.00
B15-1131 – Passenger Carriage – £10.00
B15-1133 – Flat Car – £9.00
B15-1137 – Scout Car – £12.00
B15-1101 – Track (1m length) – £2.50
Our Imperial Skies South American project is nearing the end, with just three of the smaller nations left to be released. But besides the ten independent states on the continent, in the time of Imperial Skies there were three significant European colonies still in existence – Dutch Suriname, French Guiana and British Guyana. We thought it might be fun to create some specific models to represent the forces stationed in these far flung outposts.
For Salute we have British and French overseas territory fleets, representing older vessels which are no longer up to front line European service, but still can be useful flying the flag abroad.
The British get the Colony class battleship (top) and Commonwealth class battle cruiser. Escort is provided by a re-designed Rawalpindi cruiser plus three smaller vessels.
The French get the much larger but ungainly Ocean class battleship, along with the Arquebuse cruiser and smaller craft.
As you can see, these didn’t make it to the far end of the painting queue in time (excuse the rubbish photos), so they’ll have to be finished off after Salute to make them website ready. But the stock is all in place, which is what really matters.
VAN-108 – British Overseas Fleet – £23.00
VAN-406 – French 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
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
We drop down a scale to 6mm today, with some new buildings for our Moonbase set. There are four in total – a Hydroponics lab with overlapping framed glass domes; Nuclear Waste Storage silos; a Reactor building, and a simple radar base. All available individually, or there’s a new Moonbase pack containing all of these (three nuclear silos) and the Medical Centre.
BP300-602 – Moonbase Pack #2 – £15.00
B300-607 – Hydroponics Centre – £4.00
B300-608 – Nuclear Waste Silo – £2.00
B300-609 – Reactor Building – £1.50
B300-610 – Radar Dish – £1.25
The next two additions to our Salute line-up this year are again spaceships. To accompany the Munich battleship, the Germans also get the Bodensee carrier, a large twin-hulled vessel.
Meanwhile, in the low orbits above the other side of the globe, the Pacific Federation have just started receiving the Rangatira class dreadnought to take on the new Indonesian Irians.
SFS-310 – Bodensee class Carrier – £8.00
SFS-700 – Rangatira class Dreadnought – 8.00
We’ll have more Salute previews coming this week, as fast as things get painted! At least casting of the new models is well ahead of the painting, so stock shouldn’t be a problem.
In the meantime, here’s a comprehensive list of what ranges we will (and won’t) be bringing on Saturday so you can plan your spending.
We won’t be bringing anything from the Land Ironclads or Iron Stars ranges unless pre-ordered. Please also note that we no longer carry the Crom’s Anvil figures since their transfer to their new owners, CP Models.
Tomorrow is the absolute last chance to get an order in – we only have one casting day left before the show. Don’t forget that you can use the Collect in Person option on the website to make an order that way without being charged postage.
This is our second batch of releases for Salute – we’re a bit behind with the painting this year, so there could well be a last minute flurry of posts next week as things progress !
First though, we’ve had a couple of queries about placing orders for the show through the website. It’s straightforward enough – just go to the Shipping Destination page on our website and change the option to ‘Collect in Person’; the icon looks like this:
You can then add items to the shopping basket, checkout and pay as normal, but you won’t be charged any shipping costs (UK VAT will be charged at 20%). We need any orders as soon as possible, please – next Wednesday (the 19th) at the absolute latest.
When we released the new 15mm Han Chinese trucks recently, we mentioned that not everything originally planned for that release had made the cut. Well, everything is now ready to go so we thought we’d add them to our Salute 50 lineup.
The MV-701 truck is often used to tow a large 4-wheel trailer to increase its already generous load. This will be available as a set (truck plus trailer) or on its own if you fancied pairing it with a different towing vehicle.
Adding significant firepower to the Han Guard units is the Huolóng variant of the ZSL-95 8×8 APC. Equipped with the same hypersonic missiles as the PHL-18 truck-mounted system, it provides long-range anti-tank support to Han Guard units. The launcher is a flush, pop-up system that, when closed, gives the vehicle a similar profile to a regular APC.
And these are probably our favourites of today’s bunch; in the Hammer’s Slammers story The Warrior, Han officers are noted as riding around on “three-wheeled scooters”. We extrapolated this description a bit and turned them into some meatier vehicles, a bit like a Can-Am Spyder (two wheels at the front looks a lot cooler). They are available as a pack of four trikes with infantry crew in helmets, and there’s a separate officer figure in peaked cap.
HS15-502a – ZSL-95A Huolóng Missile APC – £8.00
HS15-504 – MV-701 truck plus Trailer – £10.00
HS15-504b – Trailer Only – £3.00
HS15-560 – Trikes plus Crew (x4) – £6.00
HS15-560a – Command Trike – £1.50
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