Have a Good One !

We’re fast approaching Christmas, just four days to go as this post is published. We’ve spent the week ploughing through the sale orders, which came in a very big flurry in the last couple of days of the promotion. We’re taking today to get all of the ones finished so far in the post, as well as a few admin tasks – it’s the end of the year, so salaries need paying, taxes settling up, accounts updated etc. As things stand, pretty much all of the orders that arrived up to and including Saturday 16th have been processed and were posted this morning – hopefully all the UK ones will reach their destination by Christmas Day, although obviously overseas customers will have to wait a little longer. We’ll also be in the workshop tomorrow trying to get a few more done, which will be posted on Saturday, but there are too many orders remaining to hope to get them all done this week. As always, we’ll be taking a well-earned rest for the period between Christmas and New Year, so any remaining outstanding orders will be dealt with as quickly as possible when we return on January 2nd. The website will still be open for new orders, but they also won’t be dealt with until the New Year.

We have some festive good news as well about our Surgeon General range. If you haven’t come across it, this is a small set of medically-themed models which we use to raise money for charity. Sales have been pretty good across the range this year, and it has allowed us to donate a further £150 to Macmillan Cancer Support. That makes £350 in total now, which is a brilliant result, so thank you to everyone that has bought anything from the Surgeon General this year. We’re looking to add a few more new items to the range in 2024.

Posted in Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment

The Brigadier gets Festive

It’s that time of year again when the Brigadier, opens his sack and, once the moths have dispersed, hands out presents to the local children. No, wait, that’s Santa! Instead, the Brigadier dons his red dress uniform, opens up his laptop and hands out discounts from the website. For one reason or another (mostly working around domestic commitments) we’re slightly later than usual, which means the sale will be short and sharp, running until midnight GMT on Sunday December 17th.

Until then, any order of £10 or over placed on the website will get 15% off by using the code BRIGADIERSANTA2023 – the offer covers almost all of our models (there are a couple of minor exceptions, see below). Unlike in previous years (on our old website) you must enter this code at the checkout – it’s not applied automatically.

The offer doesn’t cover any books, accessories (dice and bases), acrylic tokens – basically anything we don’t make ourselves, because the margins on those are tight. We’ve also excluded one or two subsets of models because they’re slow/awkward to produce. These include Iron Stars, and our 15mm and 10mm SF buildings. You can still add these items to your order, they just won’t be discounted.

Since we get a tend to get a reasonable response to our sales (or we hope we will) it means that our turnaround time on orders won’t be as quick as usual. In particular, we can’t guarantee to get orders to you for Christmas, so please bear that in mind, although we will do our best.

Don’t forget that you can buy the splendid festive version of the Brigadier in 15mm from the website.

Posted in Special Offers | 1 Comment

It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green

Given the large number of planets that humanity has colonised in the Hammer’s Slammers series, there’s surprising little sign or mention of sentient aliens in the books. One race that does materialise (literally) is the Molts from the planet Oltenia – they’re also known as Autochthons, although this simply means original inhabitants. They are bipedal, humanoid creatures with the ability to teleport which they do by tuning into the energy flows in the living rock of the planet. This talent is put to good use in their campaign of hit and run raids against the human colonisers of Oltenia, who the Molts view as unwelcome occupiers of their planet. The Oltenians struggle to contain the local populace and eventually end up hiring the Slammers to restore order (the story is At Any Price – you’ll find it in book two of the three volume compendium).

Molt figures have always been available in 25mm from Ground Zero Games, but not in the smaller scales. This week we’re rectifying that in 6mm with the release of a set of Molt figures, sculpted for us by Martin Baker (who also sculpted the 25mm ones back in 2010). There are 24 figures per pack – three each of eight sculpts, including a leader/elder with bladed weapon, gunner with captured buzzbomb and six figures with small arms (either a powergun or combat shotgun).

Molts are reptilians and have green skin which darkens as they age, and yellow-ish eyes (good luck with those in 6mm…). They don’t wear clothing, although they have adopted crossbelts, bandoliers and pouches to store ammunition – doubtless stolen from a hapless Oltenian trooper.

They don’t have a regular organisation like human forces, instead they are arranged in ‘Themes’ (their equivalent to a detachment in the rules). Individuals are classified by their age and experience, from Adolescents through to Elders, and are armed with a selection of small arms, hand weapons or explosives. The Crucible gives details of how to generate a Theme, with differing numbers of each category and armament. The rules were originally written to handle Molt warriors as individuals – but this was using 25mm figures. If you don’t want to have to deal with single 6mm figures, we’d suggest using the rules as written but grouping the Molts on bases of 3-4 figures as we have and treating each base as you would a single 25mm figure.

HS6-4670 – Molt Warriors (x24) – £3.00

Posted in 6mm SF, Hammer's Slammers, New Releases | 1 Comment

An Epic Scenario

You may (or may not) remember that back in 2016, we were involved in the successful Kickstarter for Polyversal, a 6mm SF miniatures game from Collins Epic Wargames.

Byron from CEW has just published the first new scenario for the game, which features amongst the combatants our Ridgway walkers. You can find it on his Google drive here, or click on the image below. The files include some background fiction (Byron recommends that you read this first) and a feedback form, and we know he’d appreciate your thoughts on it.

Posted in 6mm SF, Polyversal | Comments Off on An Epic Scenario

Slammers Update

Since the new website came online, we’ve been putting a lot of effort into updating some of the content of our various ranges – it was always something we wanted to do but put off until the new site was ready (after all, what would be the point of updating the old one when it was due to be retired ?). In particular, we’ve been looking closely at the Hammer’s Slammers part of the website, setting unique pages for as many of the different armies and mercenary units as we can and listing all of the different model options for each one. Hopefully this will make life easier for new gamers to find their way around and pick the correct vehicles and infantry units for their forces.

To this end, we’ve also created some new pre-packaged detachment packs to make things really easy – just pick a detachment that takes your fancy and you’ll get a complete force ready to put on the table (once you’ve painted it of course !). We’ve concentrated on the forces derived from the stand-alone novel The Forlorn Hope. Strictly speaking this isn’t a Hammer’s Slammers story (the Slammers don’t appear in it) but since it deals with the adventures of another mercenary unit it fits right in, and David Drake was happy for it to be considered part of the Slammerverse as far as the game is concerned.

It deals with the fortunes of Fasolini’s Company on the planet Cecach, caught between the forces of the Federals (who they are fighting for) and the religious zealot Republicans. It brings some interesting equipment to the table, such as Fasolini’s tracked support guns, the huge Kastenwagen personnel carrier and the Henschel Eisenfaust laser tank. There are detachment lists available for the Fasolinis, Federals and Republicans including regular troops and garrison units, plus a new mercenary unit, Podele’s Lions.

You can find dedicated sections for Forlorn Hope in both 6mm and 15mm on the website. Each of these has sections for Fasolini’s Company, Podele’s Lions and the two indigenous Cecach forces. We’ve also added detachment packs for each force which cover all of their options on the lists. Each pack makes up a complete detachment with vehicles and infantry as appropriate, plus in the 15mm packs you also get tank crew, vehicle stowage, right down to bases for the infantry.

HSD15-301 – Fasolini Company Detachment (410CGS Guns) – £43.00
HSD15-301q – Fasolini Company Detachment (440CGS Quad Guns) – £43.00
HSD15-302 – Fasolini Support Detachment – £24.00
HSD15-901 – Cecach Republican Commando Detachment – £45.00
HSD15-902 – Cecach Republican Mechanised PzGren Detachment – £68.00
HSD15-903 – Cecach Republican Infantry Detachment – £43.00
HSD15-904 – Cecach Republican Mechanised Infantry Detachment – £48.00
HSD15-905 – Cecach Republican Armoured Detachment – £91.00
HSD15-1301 – Cecach Federal Garrison Detachment – £82.00
HSD15-1302 – Cecach Federal Mechanised Garrison Detachment – £92.00
HSD15-1303 – Cecach Federal Infantry Morale Detachment – £58.00
HSD15-1304 – Cecach Federal Mechanised ‘Intruder’ Detachment – £81.00
HSD15-801 – Podele’s Lions Heavy Infantry Detachment – £45.00
HSD15-802 – Podele’s Lions Panzer Grenadier Detachment – £52.00
HSD15-803 – Podele’s Lions Panzer Detachment – £71.00
HSD15-804 – Podele’s Lions Assault Panzer Detachment – £105.00

HSD6-301 – Fasolini Company Detachment (410CGS Guns) – £7.25
HSD6-301q – Fasolini Company Detachment (440CGS Quad Guns) – £7.25
HSD6-901 – Cecach Republican Commando Detachment – £5.75
HSD6-902 – Cecach Republican Mechanised PzGren Detachment – £10.00
HSD6-903 – Cecach Republican Infantry Detachment – £6.25
HSD6-904 – Cecach Republican Mechanised Infantry Detachment – £6.75
HSD6-905 – Cecach Republican Armoured Detachment – £11.50
HSD6-1301 – Cecach Federal Garrison Detachment – £10.50
HSD6-1302 – Cecach Federal Mechanised Garrison Detachment – £11.50
HSD6-1303 – Cecach Federal Infantry Morale Detachment – £8.00
HSD6-1304 – Cecach Federal Mechanised ‘Intruder’ Detachment – £11.00
HSD6-801 – Podele’s Lions Heavy Infantry Detachment – £6.25
HSD6-802 – Podele’s Lions Panzer Grenadier Detachment – £7.00
HSD6-803 – Podele’s Lions Panzer Detachment – £9.75
HSD6-804 – Podele’s Lions Assault Panzer Detachment – £12.00

Posted in 15mm SF, 6mm SF, Hammer's Slammers | 1 Comment

A Sluggish Expansion

Phil Page, our friend at Slug Industries, has a Kickstarter running to expand his 1/300th Medieval village. We’re pleased to see that it’s already reached it’s target, but you still have a couple of weeks to jump on board and pick up some beautifully detailed micro-Medieval buildings.

If you missed his initial KS for the first part of the village (which includes a very nifty laser-cut partially constructed barn), we still have a small number of sets left on our website (you won’t find them anywhere else).

Posted in Slug Industries | Comments Off on A Sluggish Expansion

Agricultural Additions

We launched our new Agricultural Colony back in the bright days of the summer, and it’s been one of the more popular styles of 6mm buildings that we’ve come up with. So we felt it was time to expand the colony a bit with some new designs from the factories of Thunberg-Haalland.

We have a new large homestead building (imaginatively name Homestead-4), large enough to be home to one of the families of colonisers on Rallance-IV. As with other homestead designs it sits on a raised platform to keep it away from minor flooding and local critters.

The second new design is a larger building with several sections that can be configured as a headquarters for the local council, public community centre, or just a set of offices for the local branch of T-H. It could even be pressed into service as a monorail station if you remove the rear set of steps. During development it was dubbed The Pavilion, for reasons that now elude us, but the name has stuck.

B300-1310 – The Pavilion – £6.00
B300-1311 – Homestead-4 – £3.50

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

Defending the Roads

We’ve added another pair of models to our 1/700th range of coastal forts. These are both Henrician Device Forts, built by Henry VIIIth and funded by an order from the King known as a ‘device’. These were mostly built across the South coast to counter the threat from the Spanish, although some were built in Wales and as far north as Hull on the East coast. They varied in size and design from small artillery blockhouses to large castles such as Deal and Walmer.

This week’s pair are from Dorset, and overlook the Weymouth Harbour and Portland Roads anchorages. Sandsfoot Castle (also known as Weymouth Castle) is a smallish rectangular blockhouse with an octagonal gun platform at one end. Sadly it’s in a state of disrepair nowadays, with much of the stone taken for other building projects when it fell into disuse in the C.17th.

Portland Castle is further south on the Isle of Portland. It’s a fan-shaped artillery castle which housed around a dozen guns, and was still used during the Napoleonic wars. After repairs to the foundations, today it’s considered on of the best preserved of Henry’s forts.

B700-196 – Portland Castle – £3.00
B700-197 – Sandsfoot Castle – £2.00

Posted in 1-700th Coastal Forts, New Releases | 1 Comment

Living in the Pits

At the Joy of Six show earlier this year, someone asked if we had any photos of our 6mm Sunken Dwellings in use on a table. The answer was, no, we hadn’t – we had never found the time to paint some and build them into a piece of scenery. So over the summer, Tony cast up a set (incidentally, they’ve all just been remoulded) and built a small mesa with them dug into the surface.

The original idea for the buildings came from a famous sci-fi film franchise (you all know that) but not so well known is that the film was itself inspired by the underground dwellings of the Berbers in Matmata, Tunisia where filming took place. Our range consists of four different designs, all of which are cast in square or rectangular resin blocks exactly 25mm deep. The idea is that you can make a piece of scenery from 25mm polystyrene or insulation foam by cutting holes in it and dropping the buildings in – we figured square holes would be easier to cut than circles or random shapes. The edges can be disguised with whatever you use for texturing the foam surface.

Tony started by painting the buildings – they were undercoated with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed Terminatus Stone. Doors and details were then picked out in various colours.

The hill was cut from normal white insulation polystyrene, and then a base was cut from 5mm foamex roughly 5mm bigger all round. Positions for the four buildings were marked with a sharpie and cut out, test fitting as we went – you want the fit to be as tight as possible with no gaps. The hill edge was bevelled and shaped with a knife and the base edge also bevelled before they were stuck together with glue gun adhesive (a non-solvent type so it doesn’t attack the foam).

A couple of buildings were added around the edge of the hill. One of our Loading Bay models was cut in half, the main door end was used as an entrance to what is obviously an underground cave network and the other end, which I was originally going to discard (which is why it’s not fully painted in the photo !), became a bunker/observation position. Positions were cut into the hill for these and they were glued in place.

Once all this was done, several conventional buildings were added to the surface and then then the whole thing was textured. This was done with a mixture of household emulsion paint, PVA glue and sand (clean bird cage sand from a pet shop). We had some emulsion mixed at a DiY store to match Army Painter’s Skeleton Bone, so that all of our base colours are the same. This was then washed with Citadel Seraphim Sepia shade and drybrushed bone. We added some awnings made from cheap (rough) paper towels soaked in PVA, with supports made from paper clip wire. After that it was just a matter of painting in a few details, varnishing and then adding various grass tufts in dry, arid desert colours.

So that’s it – welcome to life in The Pits. The mesa matches the rest of the terrain we built for a game at the Maidstone Wargames Society Open Day last year and should see action soon.

Posted in 6mm SF, Painting and Modelling | 3 Comments

Chain (Print at) Home

Digging into the vaults, we’ve unearthed some more STL files which we’ve added to our list of print-at-home items so, as before, we’re adding them to the website for very modest amounts. These are all modelled at 1/1000th scale to match our Small Scale Scenery range, but you can obviously resize them to other scales.

One of the most popular pieces is the Chain Home set, depicting a full installation of the British early war radar system. The set includes the transmitter and receiver towers (of which four of each are needed) plus several ancillary buildings and bunkers.

We also have our Airship Mooring Tower, perfect for tethering your Imperial Skies vessels. The model is based the one at Cardington Airfield, but similar designs were seen across the world. There are two versions, with and without the building at the base.

The next item is Wardenclyffe Tower, also known as the Tesla Tower. It was designed and built by Nikola Tesla on Long Island, New York to test his theories of wireless communication and power transmission, but never went fully into operation as his funding ran out. The tower has long been demolished, but it’s still possible to see the outline of the concrete tower base in satellite images.

Finally for this week is this gigantic cantilever shipbuilding crane similar to the ones still found on the Clyde in Scotland, which would be a great addition to any dockyard scene.

STL-103 – Airship Mooring Tower – £1.20
STL-105 – Airship Mooring Tower with Base Building – £1.20
STL-106 – Tesla Tower – £1.20
STL-108 – Titan Crane – £1.20
STL-502 – Chain Home Installation – £5.00

The files are supplied ‘as-is’, we haven’t added any supports.

Posted in 3D Print, New Releases, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment