Back to the Grindstone

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Tony

We’re back from our holidays and up and running again. We’ve hit the order backlog pretty hard already – 23 orders went out this morning and we’ll be at the centrifuge again tomorrow clearing more.

Our next show – in fact our last for this year – is RE-PLAY 2025 at the Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham, Kent. Last year we were squeezed in between a former Argentine 105mm howitzer and the nose of a Harrier, so it’s certainly an atmospheric location for a wargames show. There are a number of games, both demonstration and participation, along with several other trade stands – the RE website doesn’t list all of these, but you can see them on the museum’s Facebook page.

Because we only have a small stand we may not be able to fit everything on (although we’ll bring as much as we can). If you want something specific, you can order it in advance from the website using the ‘Collect at Show’ shipping option, and either pay in advance or on the day.

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Turkish Delight

Posted on September 20, 2024 by Tony

As mentioned last week, it’s holiday time here at Brigade once again. Tony’s off to take in the delights of the old Ottoman Empire, perhaps taking in some inspiration for our Imperial Skies fleet or exploring the various Roman and Greek ruins for the Small Scale Scenery range (he’s not far from the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, below). As a consequence the workshop is now closed until we return on September 30th. The website remains open for orders, and these will be dealt with when we get back.

All orders up to #13301 have been shipped – apologies if your order number is after that, we just ran out of time to finish everything, but you’ll be put in the queue (which we’ll handle on a ‘first-in, first-out’ basis upon our return).

Temple image by AlexanderVanLoon, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Count(er)ing the Cost

Posted on September 18, 2024 by Tony

We mentioned that we would have something new for Hammer’s Slammers players, and here it is. We used to stock sets of acrylic laser cut counters for The Crucible ruleset, with markers for orders, damage, suppression and missiles. Rising costs have made it difficult for us to offer these at a sensible price, but we have a new solution. We have new sets of counters in full-colour printed MDF, made for us by the folks at Warbases. The set contains over 70 counters which come on two sheets – 18 order tokens, 21 damage markers, 18 suppression markers and 17 missiles. And they’re £5 cheaper than the original acrylic set !

HSC-010 – Hammer’s Slammers Tokens – £15.00

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Colours 2024

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Tony

Just a reminder that we’re off to Colours in Newbury tomorrow. There’s no release today, but we’re picking up something new (and quite exciting for Hammer’s Slammers players) at the show tomorrow so that will be available on the day, and we’ll get it onto the website early next week hopefully. We’re on stand A37 on the ground floor (map below).

And some advance notice – it’s holiday time soon. Once Colours is out of the way we’ll be tidying up any outstanding orders, then the last day in the workshop will be Wednesday 18th, and we’ll be posting out orders the next day. We won’t then be returning to the workshop until Monday 30th September, so although the website will remain open, no orders will be processed until then.

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Harbour Lights

Posted on September 6, 2024 by Tony

First up, it’s last call for any orders for Colours – you can place the order via the website, or just send us a list and pay on the day.

New this week we have some additions to the 1/700th Coastal range. At the suggestion of a customer at a recent show, we’ve scaled up our Harbour Walls to 1/700th, which is a such an obviously useful thing to do that we should have thought of it ourselves ! The pack contains eight resin parts – two L-pieces (one of each hand – 78mm long), two straight pieces (71mm long), two short angled pieces (one 30° and the other 45°) and two rounded end pieces.

In addition, we have a couple of period lighthouses to guide your ships home. The first is the 19th century Phare de Kermorvan from Finistere in Brittany, an unusual square design. The second is the C.17th octagonal Flamborough Head light house, built from chalk on the Yorkshire coast.

B700-052 – Harbour Walls – £8.00
B700-111 – Phare de Kermorvan – £1.75
B700-218 – Flamborough Head Lighthouse – £1.50

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Back to the Bunker

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Tony

Today sees the return of another old favourite. Our 15mm Bunker has been out of production for a while, but while it’s been away we’ve given it a revamp. The previously empty interior has been spruced up with the addition of a central command console, weapon and equipment lockers and benches arrayed around the walls. The roof is separate so you can get to the inside to paint all the details.

We don’t usually take 15mm buildings to shows, but we’ll have a couple of these at Colours in case anybody wants one.

B15-1001 – Bunker – £10.00

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Colours 2024

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Tony

After the cancellation of the luckless Hereward and SELWG shows, our penultimate outing of the year is Colours 2024 at Newbury racecourse on September 14th. We’re on stand A37, which looks pretty much like the same place as last year, downstairs near the coffee outlet.

If you’d like to place an order for collection then you can either send us a list via the contact form (which we’ve now knocked the gremlins out of and is checked far more regularly) or place it via the website using the ‘Collect at Show’ shipping option.

Newbury Racecourse

We’ll have our usual array of ranges as follows –

  • Celtos – Decent stock of all individual figures (no army or unit packs)
  • Aeronef/Imperial Skies – A full range of fleet packs; a good selection of individual capital ships in blisters; rulebooks and accessories for Imperial Skies
  • Small Scale Scenery – the full range of all models
  • Spaceships – full range of fleet packs; a good selection of individual capital ships in blisters
  • Hammer’s Slammers – rulebooks; the full range of 15mm models; a selection of 6mm detachment packs (no 15mm detachment packs)
  • 15mm SF – full range of 15mm vehicles, figure packs and accessories (no buildings)
  • 6mm SF – full range of army packs, company packs and building packs (no individual models or buildings)
  • Great War Belgians – full range of figures
  • Great War Vehicles (15mm and 28mm) – we’ll bring a selection, but if you want anything specific or multiples then please order in advance
  • Squadron Commander – full range of blister packs (no individual models)
  • 6mm WW2 Belgians – full range
  • 1/700th Scenery – full range
  • We will not be able to bring any 10mm SF buildings, Iron Stars or Land Ironclads miniatures unless ordered in advance.
Image of Newbury Racecourse by RacingKel via Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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Steller Freight

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Tony

Today’s offerings are a pair of freighters to add to our burgeoning spaceship merchant fleet. The Auberon is a general purpose freighter with three large cargo holds, each of which can be pressurised or left open to vacuum as required.

The Umbriel uses the same main drive package and keel as the Auberon, but replaces the cargo holds with a single large fuel tank primarily designed for holding a hydrogen/helium mix scooped from the upper atmosphere of gas giants. This is transported to orbital processing plants where it is separated and purified ready for use as fuel.

SFS-5028 – Auberon Freighter – £3.00
SFS-5029 – Umbriel Tanker – £3.00

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The Great White Admiral

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Tony

For the last year or two our Imperial Skies releases have mostly been concentrated on the South American project, where we’ve added fleets for almost every country in that great continent (almost – there’s one more to go, Venezuela, and they’re nearly ready). But in those two years, the great aerial fleets of the rest of the world haven’t been idle, continuing the arms race around the globe.

And today’s new release is a great example, as we debut the latest US battleship, the USS Rogers class. Built in the same Coyote Flats airship yards near Fort Worth as the Texas class, the familial resemblance to the earlier vessel is readily apparent. But the Rogers class is more heavily armed with a pair of two-storey superimposed main turrets fore and aft. Secondary armament is concentrated in four oval turrets, located on the superstructure corners. These are mounted low on the ship to allow a battery of quick-firing small calibre guns in the superstructure to fire over them – although their traverse is restricted by their placement deep in the sloped sides, so their utility must be limited.

The lead ship of the class is named for Vice-Admiral Jonathan E. Rogers, who distinguished himself particularly in actions in the Pacific, but also during the Spanish-American War and various conflicts in South America in his early career. He led the US First Air Fleet both in war against the Japanese and in peacetime when it acquired the moniker ‘The Great White Fleet’ during a series of courtesy visits to allied nations around the world. During a brief visit to Great Britain he was dubbed ‘The Great White Admiral’ by British newspapers, a nickname which stuck when he returned to the US. He remains in command of the First Fleet to this day.

VAN-225 – Rogers class Battleship – £8.00

Posted in Aeronef, Imperial Skies, New Releases | 1 Comment

The Monstrous Sisters

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Tony

Today we have a new addition to the stable of Centurions, the multi-wheeled campaign vehicles used by many mercenary forces in the Hammerverse. Centurions are large and roomy, allowing detachments to travel in relative comfort with plenty of space for equipment and supplies. They’re not generally supposed to go anywhere near the action, with infantry carrier variants disgorging their troops behind the lines, and any armed variants are mostly used as support vehicles, either air defence or artillery. You can read more about the history of the Centurion here.

15mm Centurion Gorgon

However, the Hellenic Heliodorus Regiment decided to go one further. Working with manufacturers JTTF Industries, they removed the turrets from three surplus C4H6 Hog artillery vehicles and, after modifying and reinforcing the turret rings, paired them with turrets taken from a trio of damaged Rheinmetall RA16A2 Helheims, dubiously obtained through the grey market. As well as a pair of massive gatling coil guns, these are also armed with twin launchers for the Heliodorus’ Gerakiou variant of the ubiquitous Kestrel anti-tank missile. The resulting variant is known as the C4G6 Gorgon, and the three vehicles (now named Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa by the crews) have proved to be very effective in urban actions supporting the regiment’s infantry. After the success of the conversions, JTTF are now rumoured to be marketing other heavily armed versions of the Centurion.

6mm Centurion Gorgon

The Gorgon is available in both 6mm and 15mm.

HS15-2218 – Centurion C4G6 Gorgon – £20.00
HS6-2218 – Centurion C4G6 Gorgon – £2.50

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