We’ve just made our first donation to the Macmillan Cancer Support charity, money raised from the sale of models in the Surgeon General range which we set up at the end of last year.
We’re really pleased with this start – and the range is a permanent fixture, so the models will continue to raise money. Don’t forget that we added two new models to the range last week, the Naib and Aamir ambulances for our 15mm Sincanmo Federation.
Our 15mm Sincanmo Federation Dune Buggies came out at the end of last year, with over a dozen vehicles in three configurations. Today we have some new options, including a couple that fall under our Surgeon General fundraiser range.
The first two are 6×6 and half-track ambulances with fully enclosed rear cabs. They could also be used as command vehicles or troop carriers if you wish. 50% of the ex-VAT sale price of each model sold will be donated to the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.
Accompanying these is a new version of the Qaadi 4×4 with three different equipment options – a twin buzzbomb launcher, mortar or recovery crane.
HS15-2902d – Naib 6×6 Ambulance – £7.00
HS15-2903d – Aamir Half-track Ambulance – £7.00
HS15-2904d – Qaadi 4×4 Buzzbomb Car – £6.00
HS15-2904e – Qaadi 4×4 Mortar Carrier – £6.00
HS15-2904f – Qaadi 4×4 Recovery – £6.25
New this week are three German spaceships, replacements for older models. The new versions all have resin hulls with metal parts, so are easy to assemble and base.
The three ships are the Magdeburg battleship and the Dortmund and Thüringen battlecruisers, which join the existing Pomerania dreadnought and Zugspitze carrier. Each can be found in one of the three German Squadron packs; the Magdeburg is in the Fleet Pack, the Dortmund in the Patrol Group and the Thüringen (two of them) in the Heavy Squadron.
SFS-301 – Magdeburg class Battleship – £6.00
SFS-302 – Dortmund class Battlecruiser – £5.50
SFS-303 – Thüringen class Battlecruiser – £6.00
Today we have a themed set of releases for one of Europe’s major trading centres, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The port sits at the end of the Elbe estuary, and is probably 50 or so kilometres from the North Sea. The river is a good kilometre or more wide until it reaches the city, making it an ideal sheltered anchorage.
Phil has created five buildings from the city in our 1/1000th Small Scale Scenery range of various types and sizes. First is the Kaispeicher B Warehouse, a huge Gothic building in the heart of the harbour area. Today it’s a museum with a shop and restaurant.
The tallest building in this set of releases is a huge water tower (Wasserturm) – nowadays it’s been converted into a rather unique hotel.
The largest building overall is a brewery grain elevator with distinctive half-hipped roof. It comes with a separate small office building.
Looking more like a government building, this dome is in fact the North entrance to the Old Elbe Tunnel (Alter Elbtunnel, or St. Pauli Elbe Tunnel) which opened in 1911. It handles not only pedestrian traffic but vehicles as well, using elevators to take them from street level down 24m to the tunnel. The South entrance building is similar but less impressive, lacking the domed roof (although whether it once had a dome which has since been removed we don’t know).
Finally, this is a Water Level Tower, used to show the current state of the tides.
SSS-8180 – Hamburg Kaispeicher B Warehouse – £3.50
SSS-8181 – Hamburg Water Tower – £2.50
SSS-8182 – Hamburg Grain Elevator Building – £5.00
SSS-8183 – Hamburg Elbe Tunnel Building – £1.50
SSS-8184 – Hamburg Water Level Tower – £1.50
This COVID nonsense can really get lost, I’ve had enough now. I’ve stopped feeling ill, fatigue now seems to be a more of an issue, along with a touch of vertigo. I made a brief jaunt to the workshop at the end of last week, mainly to empty the car (still loaded with everything from the abortive Hammerhead trip). I did manage to finish up a few orders and they, along with the ones that were still left unsent from last week, have made it to the post office. This includes all orders bound for the EU, which have been shipped off to the distribution centre.
Yesterday I cleared the last of the orders that had been hanging around for a week or more, so they’re being posted today. So, still with a slight degree of trepidation, we can declare ourselves open for business again. The website has been switched back on and is ready for new orders.
All being well, we can get our new releases back on track too – there are spaceships, some cracking German buildings and more 15mm Hammer’s Slammers lined up.
A few years ago I got a bad dose of ‘flu over the winter, which took a while to recover from. When I finally did get back I was faced with a mountain of orders that had built up while I was away, so I had to work very hard for several weeks to clear them – not what I needed at the time.
I’m not making the same mistake twice, so I’ve briefly disabled the website shopping cart until I’m able to return to the workshop. It will hopefully only be for a few days, I no longer feel like death-warmed-up and I’m hoping to get back there later in the week (the first job will be to empty the car – it’s still loaded with everything for the stand following our aborted trip to Hammerhead).
Not great news this morning, unfortunately. Having packed the car yesterday ready for Hammerhead, I felt increasingly rough overnight. I’ve just taken a COVID test and, as I feared, it’s positive 🙁
So obviously we won’t be able to make the show tomorrow, which is absolutely gutting, given how long we’ve been on the reserve list.
We’ll be in touch with anyone that placed an order for collection and and arrange to post it to you, but we may not be able to do that straightaway since I’m going to have to isolate for at least five days. There’s also going to be a knock on effect to mail orders, I have a bag full ready to send but can’t go to the post office.
Returning to stock today are the 15mm etched brass Turret Baskets – three sets of four baskets in different sizes to keep your tank crew’s kit in. Click on either picture to go straight to the website.
You might also notice a few items have gone out of stock recently. These are some older models (mostly Imperial Skies), ones that we don’t usually sell many of, that we’ve been muddling along with using less than perfect moulds. We’ve had a couple of time-consuming orders recently that have finally persuaded us withdraw these until we can get new moulds made (and in most cases redesign them). There are also some resin models – mainly 10mm and 15mm buildings – that also need remoulding, so again these will show as out of stock until the new moulds are made. Resin moulds are easier to make so hopefully this process won’t take as long.
On the plus side, the 15mm Neo-Soviet BMP-BM and the NUA Yastrub are both back in stock – I remoulded those before Christmas but hadn’t realised that they were still showing as out of stock !
When we started the 1/700 range of scenery it was just intended as a small number of coastal forts that might be useful for naval gamers. There was never any intention to make it as extensive as the Small Scale Scenery range which is now rapidly approaching 200 items. The thought of managing two large ranges in what are reasonably similar scales was just too much for us to contemplate.
Nevertheless, we have had a few requests for other items in that scale, so we have widened the brief a little and released a set of houses and other small buildings. You get 28 different resin models, including houses, barns and the odd inn. They’re mainly suitable for European coastlines but with a bit of paint and imagination could be repurposed for other regions. They should be ideal for populating the coastal regions on your tables, in between the various forts.
B700-006 – European Houses – £10.00
It’s less than two weeks until our first show of the year, and our first outing to Hammerhead at Newark Showground. This seems like an ideal time to post a reminder about any pre-orders you wish to place.
The current stock plan is as follows:
We won’t be bringing anything from the Land Ironclads, Iron Stars or 10mm SF 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.
If you want to be certain of getting a particular item, or require large numbers of a single item, we are as always happy to take pre-orders. 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.
The great news for us is that our PayPal account is finally working normally again. So we’ll start getting our new releases back on schedule at the end of the week, and maybe we’ll even be able to sneak some forthcoming items onto the stand on the 5th.
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