Return to Show Business

The Brigade stand will soon be open for business as we commence our show calendar for 2023. We’ll be at one of our more local shows, Cavalier in Tonbridge, on the 26th of this month. We’ll then be making our belated debut at Hammerhead in Newark the following weekend (assuming Tony doesn’t get Covid again this year…). You can click on the images below to get more info’ on each event.

Tunrbridge Wells Wargames Society

As always we welcome orders to be collected at the show, either paid in advance or on the day. We need these sooner rather than later – this is especially true for Hammerhead, since there’s only a few days between shows so any spare casting time that week will likely be taken up by restocking. You can either send us an email with your order and pay on the day, or alternatively you can place an order via the website (using the Collect in Person shipping option to avoid shipping charges) and pay in advance. We’ll be taking cash and credit cards on the day.

Posted in Shows | 1 Comment

The Fleet from Deepest, Darkest Peru

After four weeks, it seems that there’s some progress on the Royal Mail situation. We can (in theory) send standard airmail parcels again, although the last time we tried they still wouldn’t accept them at the local Post Office. However, we’ve been in touch with the Post Office via Twitter and they’ve confirmed that they should now be accepting them, so (fingers crossed) we’ll finally be able to get everything outstanding sent on Saturday.

Anyway…

The great South American Imperial Skies adventure continues this week with the release of the eight vessels of the Cuerpo Aeronáutico del Perú. With their distinctive livery in the colours of the national flag, the CAP is one of the more capable air fleets on the continent.

The Peruvian fleet pack contains one of each capital ship, two Huáscar cruisers, two Aguirre destroyers and two Sanchez Carillon frigates. The Torpedo/Rocket Squadron has an Atahualpa class Torpedo Cruiser and four Alianzia Rocket Boats.

The fleet has a tradition of ‘toasting’ its victories with a particular citrus-based spread made from local oranges. It is kept supplied by a small armada of specialised transport vessels with giant vats of the substance. These tankers also ply the Atlantic trade routes, keeping the British Empire furnished with one of its favourite comestibles (which they strangely only eat at breakfast).

VANFP-1401 – Peruvian Fleet Pack – £23.00
VANFP-1411 – Peruvian Torpedo/Rocket Squadron – £5.50
VAN-1401 – Sanchez Carillon class Frigate – £1.25
VAN-1402 – Huáscar class Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-1403 – Almirante Grau class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-1404 – Independencia class Battlecruiser – £8.00
VAN-1405 – Atahualpa class Torpedo Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-1406 – Aguirre class Destroyer – £1.75
VAN-1407 – Manco class Capac Monitor – £1.75
VAN-1408 – Alianzia class Rocket Boat – £0.75
VAN-5020 – Pastuzo class Marmalade Sloop – £4.00

Please look after this fleet. Thank you.

Posted in Imperial Skies, New Releases | 1 Comment

Visions of China

Following on from the release of the 15mm versions last year, today sees the release of three 6mm Han Chinese vehicles – the same trio of wheeled tank, APC and scout car. The Hammer’s Slammers story that they are taken from, The Warrior, sees them fighting in a region of paddy fields and marshland, which is why they are equipped with wide balloon tyres to better negotiate the terrain.

These vehicles are used by the Han Black Banner Brigade, an elite armoured formation. Also in the works are large 8×8 trucks used by the People’s Militia infantry units, including an 18-round rocket launcher unit. This will give two contrasting options for Han forces and tactics – the laser-armed armoured vehicles of the Guards, or human wave attacks from the truck-borne militia. We’re currently working with John Treadaway on new playsheets for the Han – in fact, play-testing is happening next week.

HS6-501 – ZTZ-81 8×8 Laser Tank – £1.00
HS6-502 – ZSL-94 8×8 APC – £1.00
HS6-503 – CSK-27 Lìliàng 4×4 Scout Car – £0.50

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

Austin-Kegresse Half-track Armoured Car

First (because we know you all look forward to it so much…) is this week’s Royal Mail SNAFU update. The news is that they’ve started to unbung the backlog of existing parcels, so anything already in the system should be starting to move. However, they’re still not accepting any new overseas items, so we can’t post the ones we have backed up. But it seems that the end is in sight – I spoke to the postmaster at our local post office and she was hopeful that services might resume in the next few days.

Now onto this week’s new release, two further additions to our range of WWI 3D-printed vehicles.

The Russian army made extensive use of armoured cars throughout WW1. Initially these were supplied by the British Austin company with approximately 170 delivered between 1914 and 1916.

In 1916 the Russians planned to manufacture their own vehicles to a similar design. However due to the Revolution the first of these was not finished until March 1918. Twelve of the hulls were mounted on a halftrack chassis using a continuous rubber track track designed by Adolph Kégresse. The resulting vehicle was therefore known as the Austin-Kégresse.

Completed too late for service in WW1, the halftracks were used in both the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War.

GW28-501 – Austin-Kegresse Armoured Car – £18.00
GW28-501d – Destroyed Austin-Kegresse Armoured Car – £18.00

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

Hotel Hobbies

So, the latest from Royal Mail as far as sending overseas parcels goes is … err … no change. Although there is some light at the end of the tunnel as RM have started accepting overseas letters again (anything without a customs declaration) so the system is beginning to move at last. We’ll keep you posted…

Town Centre Budget Hotel (l) and Modern Courtyard Hotel (r)

To end the week we have a pair of contrasting hotels in our 1/1000th (2mm) Small Scale Scenery range, both based on ones around the Brigade HQ in Maidstone, and both sculpted by Phil. The first we’ve designated a Modern Courtyard Hotel – it’s a large modern brick-built building based around a central open area. Every decent sized town has at least one like this on the outskirts, used as a venue for business conferences and weddings.

The second is more modest – we’ve called it the Town Centre Budget Hotel. It belongs to a hotel chain that specialises in cheap and cheerful stays with a clean bed, bathroom and no frills, but at a sensible price. Exactly the sort of place we use when going to shows. This one has an unusual design, and an interesting colour scheme to boot.

SSS-8198 – Modern Courtyard Hotel – £4.00
SSS-8199 – Town Centre Budget Hotel – £1.50

Posted in New Releases, Shipping Stories, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment

Heavy Fire Support

First, an update (of sorts) on the overseas mail situation – essentially, there’s no change. Royal Mail are still asking customers not to post overseas items (Post Offices aren’t even accepting them) so we can’t send anything outside the UK apart from EU orders, which are unaffected. Items already in the system are subject to delays, and tracking data isn’t working either. Basically the whole system is FUBAR. The latest Royal Mail update is here, while there’s a BBC article on the effect it’s having here. We are processing orders and getting them ready for sending, so as soon as things get back to normal we will be able to send them out. There’s not much more we can say – this is entirely out of our control 🙁

Next is our slightly delayed new release – we’ve had some settled (if rather chilly) weather today so we could get out and take the necessary photos. So, this week our Neo-Soviet army gets a number of new fire support options in 15mm.

First up are three heavy anti-tank guns. The 2A77 ‘Tesak’ combines the 22cm DS Railgun from the Mammont Super Heavy Tank with a robust carriage capable of handling the high recoil forces of such a large gun. The 2m high armoured gun shield allows the crew to load and aim the gun in relative safety, although the weapon does lose one of the traditional advantages of towed weapons, that of low profile and reduced visibility. The 2A77G mounts the GSh-3-60 heavy gatling on the same carriage, while the 2A77L variant employs a high-energy particle cannon. The former has not been successful as a mobile weapon system, simply due to the difficulty of supplying sufficient ammunition to a weapon with a high fire rate. However, in static positions where supplies can be stockpiled, it has proved to be highly effective against light and medium armoured targets.

(l-r) Gatling, DS Gun and Particle Cannon towed weapons

As a towing vehicle for the 2A77 family we have the ASO-420 ‘Gornostay’ tracked truck, a version of the Polevka light truck with an extended cargo bed and roof hatch.

We also have three support variants of the venerable Kunitsa tracked APC. Each mounts a turreted weapon system over the rear of the troop compartment on place of the top hatch. The three variants are the 9P259 ‘Teterev’ anti-tank missile system, the ZSU-30-6 air defence gun system and the 12-barrelled 9K156 multiple rocket launcher system.

SF15-1203b – Kunitsa ‘Teterev’ AT Missile Vehicle – £8.50
SF15-1203c – Kunitsa ZSU-30-6 Air Defence – £8.50
SF15-1203d – Kunitsa 9K156 MRLS – £8.50
SF15-1215 – Gornostay Tracked Truck – £4.50
SF15-1216 – 2A77 ‘Tesak’ Towed Railgun – £6.00
SF15-1216a – 2A77G Towed Gatling – £6.00
SF15-1216b – 2A77L Towed Particle Cannon – £6.00

Posted in 15mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

Hacked!

Not us, fortunately, but it appears that the Royal Mail have been hit by a cyber attack that has severely affected their ability to ship parcels overseas. The current advice is not to send any new packages until the situation is resolved, and any that are already in the system could be delayed. It also seems to have knocked out any tracking details, so we can’t even find out where parcels have got to.

More details here: BBC News – Royal Mail hit by Russia-linked ransomware attack

For the moment we’re going to follow the advice and not send any more overseas parcels by Royal Mail until things sort themselves out – we’ll try to contact everyone affected. If you’re waiting for something from us that’s already been despatched, you may have to be patient. And this of course is on top of the backlog caused by the industrial action before Christmas.

We will still get orders packed and ready to go, so as soon as the issue is sorted we’ll be able to get them posted.

It doesn’t affect orders to the EU as we use a different carrier for these. Unfortunately for small and medium parcels there are no viable alternatives to Royal Mail, UPS/FedEx/DHL etc are all too expensive for the sizes of package we send out.

For UK customers at least things are on the up, the mail system is on the way back to normal, so we’ll still be shipping those out as usual.

Just to round off this cheery bulletin of almost non-stop bad news, this week’s new release has been slightly delayed. The weather has been a bit rubbish so we haven’t been able to get the models finished and photographed for the website. The moulds etc are all ready to go, so given a patch of clear weather we can get them varnished, photos taken and have them on the website early next week.

Posted in Shipping Stories, Updates and General Waffle | Comments Off on Hacked!

Slugged

We’re starting off the New Year with something a little different. Phil Page, our friend from Kentish outfit Slug Industries, recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for his superbly designed and sculpted 6mm Medieval Village. Although the Kickstarter is over, we’ve got hold of the last few sets that Phil has made and can offer them through our website.

The set includes everything in the picture below. The buildings are a mix of resin castings and laser-cut MDF, while the figures (supplied by MicroWorld Games) are metal. We have just eight sets, so don’t hang about !

SLUG-001 – Medieval Village Box Set – £90.00

Posted in New Releases, Slug Industries | 1 Comment

Farewell to 2022

… thank goodness – it’s been an ‘interesting’ year (as in ‘may you live in interesting times‘). Both of us have been off to see the Medical Officer at various times, which has disrupted our release schedule over the year, caused us to close our website (for the first time ever) and even cost us our first appearance at the Hammerhead show back in March. But let’s not dwell on that.

Imperial Skies found a new audience thanks to the release of Osprey’s Castles in the Sky which saw record sales for that range (and increased sales of the Imperial Skies rulebook). We had hoped to finish the South American project in 2022, but only managed to release the Uruguayans and Paraguayans, so that will now spill over into 2023. We still have Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela to go, finishing off with British, French and Dutch colonial vessels. After that, the plan is to return to Europe and revisit some of the existing fleets that haven’t already seen an update, and introduce some new ones.

Prototype Peruvian Fleet

Hammer’s Slammers saw new forces in both 6mm (Sincanmo) and 15mm (Han Chinese). The 6mm Han (including new infantry figures) will appear in the first part of 2023, the 15mm counterparts will get some reinforcements, then we’ll be concentrating on their opponents from the story The Warrior, the Hindi Army, in both scales. As always we’ll also be working on more sci-fi buildings and scenery.

6mm Han Chinese

Things were quieter in the spaceships range, our plans there were particularly disrupted. We did manage to release three impressive new space stations and several capital ships for the Germans and PacFed. We’re hoping to make more progress next year – we have plans for a whole new fleet, plus the redesign/replacement of another existing one. But then, both of those were initially scheduled for 2022…

We have no idea how things will go in the Small Scale Scenery range – that one is very much made up on the hoof, if either of us come across an interesting building somewhere then we go off and make it. This year saw 20+ new items, ranging from the tiny Portland and Sandsfoot Device Forts up to Phil’s magnificent Krzyztopor Castle. Expect more random fare in 2023.

We introduced our own 3D-printing capability, which has been put to good use with the licensed range of 28mm Great War vehicles – there are more of these to come over the next year.

Next year’s release schedule has been written up to Salute in April – the first seven weeks of the year are scheduled to see releases in seven different ranges. After that it’s a bit fluid, we’ll be winging it as usual, so who knows what else is to come…

Happy New Year !

Phil and Tony

Posted in Previews, Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment

So Here It Is, Merry Christmas !

So that’s it – we’re finished for the year. The workshop has been locked up and will remain closed until January 3rd. All orders to December 22nd have been packed and will be posted tomorrow, although when they’ll arrive is anyone’s guess – the post is a bit of a mess in the UK right now. The website remains open, so you can place orders, but we won’t be tackling them until we return.

Have a great Christmas everyone (and if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I’m sure you’ll enjoy a well-earned break anyway).

Phil and Tony

Merry Xmas 2022

Posted in Updates and General Waffle | 1 Comment