Slava Ukraini!

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Tony

The New Ukrianian Army was formed from the core of the Zaporoskiye Brigade when their commander, Colonel Orlyk, decided to retire to his homeworld of New Ukrainia and emulated Alois Hammer by taking most of his troops with him. After he was elected president, he amalgamated the Zaporoskiyes with the existing local NU troops to form a very powerful standing army.

The regiment went through a significant re-equipment programme; their older equipment (Bizons, Kunitsa and Rosomakhas) were passed onto some of the more under-equipped NUA regulars. The newer tanks (Bars MBTs and the BMP infantry carriers) were refitted with new turrets and systems purchased from the Aurorean arms manufacturer SNCCA (Société Nationale des Constructions Chars du Aurore) and a number of new vehicles were developed by the fledgling indigenous NU arms industry; local firms built the chassis, which were then mated with imported turrets and weapon systems.

We have six new models in this first phase of New Ukrainian models; three tank types (light, medium and heavy) along with a tank destroyer, MICV and tracked jeep. We recommend our Neo-Soviet Guards figures for NU infantry. There will be more vehicles to come soon. An updated detachment list for the New Ukrainians will also be available very shortly.

HS15-3901 – Vyriz Medium Tank – £8.50
HS15-3902 – Bulava Heavy Tank – £9.00
HS15-3903 – Zhalo Light Tank – £6.00
HS15-3904 – Shershnem Tank Destroyer – £6.00
HS15-3905 – Yastrub MICV – £8.50
SF15-1210 – Polevka Tracked Jeep – £4.00

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

Bifurcating Monorail

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Tony

I had a couple of days off last week so we’re a bit behind, hence today’s new release coming out a few days late (the paint on the ones in the pictures is barely dry…).

When the 6mm Monorail was released we had some requests for a Y-track piece that allowed junctions to be created – so here it is. You get two in a pack for £3.00. The track is designed with gaps so that trains can pass through it.

Also in 6mm, we have a new small 2-legged Mech – the Ridgway, an AmRep design. It comes in 3 versions with long-barreled heavy cannon, plasma cannon or missiles. There’s also a troop of six in a pack (two of each).

B300-1105 – Monorail Track Junction (x2) – £3.00
SF300-209a – Ridgway with Heavy Cannon – £1.50
SF300-209b – Ridgway with Plasma Cannon – £1.50
SF300-209c – Ridgway with Missiles – £1.50
IC-216 – Ridgway Troop – £8.00

Posted in 6mm SF, New Releases | 1 Comment

What lay beneath – part 1

Posted on September 16, 2020 by Phil

I seem to be playing catchup with long abandoned 15mm building projects at the moment. So here is another one!

Several years ago I had a bit of an accident whilst casting one of our advanced buildings. It certainly didn’t turn out as planned. After discovering the house in a box this week I finally got around to having a look at what was beneath the surface of the model.

It came apart quite easily (much of the surface of the building was very thin) revealing – well this. A picture is better than me trying to describe it.

The texture within was far better than I could have hoped for and is certainly very useable.

So what caused it – a lab experiment gone badly wrong, an alien invasion or simply a badly blocked toilet…..?

Posted in 15mm SF, Painting and Modelling | Comments Off on What lay beneath – part 1

Rome, Sweet Rome

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Tony

We have a pair of new additions to the Roman buildings in our Small Scale Scenery range this week.

First we have a 1/1000th rendition of the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome. Roman basilicas were public buildings that served a variety of purposes, and this example is a particularly large and impressive edifice with a distinctive roof design, and was almost 100m long. The original building is still partially standing in Rome today.

Our second release is a set of Roman barracks buildings designed to match up with our existing Roman Fort set. It consists of over 20 metal buildings – 12 barracks blocks, six stables, two granaries and several administrative and utility buildings. The photo shows the buildings in the barracks pack while the CGI image shows a possible layout of a fort using the two sets combined.

SSS-8160 – Roman Barracks – £10.00
SSS-8161 – Basilica – £7.50

Posted in New Releases, Small Scale Scenery | 1 Comment

Mixing things up

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Phil

Against all the odds there has actually been a bit more progress on my little 15mm township. Based on past performance this post is several years ahead of schedule.

The majority of the buildings that I’m planning to use will come from either our Desert Dwellings or Desert Domes ranges. However I thought that it would be interesting to see how easily buildings from our other ranges could be made to fit into the town as well.

The first one that I chose is the Large Garage from our Advanced Buildings – because I like it the best.

As the surface of the garage is quite smooth with rounded corners I wasn’t sure that my approach of using a variety of washes to paint it would work that well. So before anything else it got a spray of textured paint to add a bit more detail to the surface. The paint in question was just something that I found in a local shop. It’s from the Stone range from makeityours.co.uk.

Apparently it gives the “natural look and feel of stone”. I’m not too sure about that but it does give a nice splattered look to the model rather the normal gritty finish of similar sprays.

The rest of the model was mostly bits and bobs from different ranges. The walls are from the 6mm Desert Buildings with part of a JumpGate used as the arch. The two storage containers are tanker wagons from the 6mm monorail sets.

So all in all I’m happy with the results – it fits in nicely with the other buildings. And it didn’t actually take very long – a little over a day from start to finish (again very unusual for me).

Posted in 15mm SF, Painting and Modelling | Comments Off on Mixing things up

Looks Like We’ve Got Us a Convoy

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Tony

Today sees the release of new redesigned versions of our British Aeronef merchant vessels. The old models of the Pearless, Orama and Shillito have been replaced by new sculpts, all featuring resin hulls with metal parts – and looking much smarter with lots more detail, cargo cranes etc. The Orama, the largest of the vessels, has also been renamed the Frampton. These vessels play an important role plying the trade routes between Britain and the rest of the Empire.

There is also a fleet pack with two of each design plus a pair of escorting Osprey patrol Nef.

VANFP-5001 – British Merchant Convoy – £22.50
VAN-5005 – Pearless class Bulk Merchant Vessel – £4.00
VAN-5007 – Frampton class Bulk Freighter – £6.00
VAN-5008 – Shillito class Freighter – £3.00

Look out for more merchant Nef later in the year.

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

Jump They Say

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Tony

This week, we have these very handy Jump Gates – ideal for spaceship games as objectives or deployment markers. Each one is a three part casting – the panels/fins are separate from the rings, and they’re interchangeable so you can swap them round. You get one of each type per pack, enough to make three complete jump gates. The post is cast as part of the ring so you just need to stick it into the supplied plastic base.

If you haven’t already come across it, Mike Hutchinson’s new game A Billions Suns (due for release by Osprey early in 2021) allows play across multiple tables, using jump points to navigate – we’d like to think that these would be perfect for that.

As promised last week, we have fleet scale versions of the new Yenpalo fighters ready to go. These come in the usual packs of 12 of each type. The hex paneling has come out, even at this scale (it has, really – the photos don’t show it very well…) – we’d recommend using quite thin paint for them to avoid clogging the detail, I went with a purple wash straight over the undercoat followed by a quick drybrush.

SFS-1160 – Shynil Light Interceptor (x12) – £1.50
SFS-1161 – Axopo Heavy Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-6007 – Jump Gates (x3) – £6.00

Posted in New Releases, Spaceships | 1 Comment

Final Tally

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Tony

Last weekend saw the end of the discount/charity donation period for our new Yenpalo 15mm vehicles and figures. And since those were the last of our planned Salute 2020 lineup, we thought it was time to work out the final total that we’ve collected for the HEROES NHS charity. Overall the sale of our Salute models has raised £194.69 towards helping NHS staff, of which £135 has already been donated. We’ve rounded the total up to £200 and today we donated a further £65.

Thanks to everyone who’s contributing by purchased any of the models along the way, we only expected to raise a small amount so £200 is a decent total.

Posted in Salute 2020, Updates and General Waffle | Comments Off on Final Tally

Alien Aces

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Tony

This week releases bring some new fighters for our Squadron Commander game. The Yenpalo receive a pair of craft, the Shynil Light Interceptor and the Axopo Heavy Fighter. They have distinctive hexagonal thermal-resistant paneling and closed down cockpits with only a very small vision slit – is has to be assumed that the Yenpalo pilots use sophisticated sensors for flight and combat rather than simple visuals.

Unlike most human fighter craft, both Yenpalo fighter types have miniature jump engines and can operate independently of parent craft. Hit and run missions on merchant shipping are becoming more and more common in recent months; small groups of Yenpalo fighters jump in very close to a convoy, fire off a few volleys and jump out again before defending fighters can be scrambled. Often little physical damage is caused, but the psychological effects can be tremendous.

Both are available singly, or in flights of four.

To answer the question that I know will be coming from spaceship gamers – yes, we have fleet scale versions in the works, due to be released very soon. And if anyone wonders where the names come from – well, we use an online password generator and just keep hitting ‘refresh’ until something jumps out at us…

SCR-1101 – Shynil class Light Interceptor – £2.50
SCP-1101 – Shynil Flight – £9.00
SCR-1102 – Axopo class Heavy Fighter – £2.50
SCP-1102 – Axopo Flight – £9.00

We’ve also been scrying in the Brigade crystal ball; we have a round dozen releases planned from now until November, when the traditional pre-Christmas sale gets underway. Of those, the current plan has four Aeronef, three 6mm, two Spaceship, two Small Scale Scenery and one 15mm releases. Of course no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, so things could change, but we thought you’d like to know…

Posted in New Releases, Squadron Commander | 2 Comments

A Time of Prosperity

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Tony

We’re back in 15mm again today, with some brand new Hammer’s Slammers vehicles. One of the more memorable stories in the series is Rolling Hot, which deals with the campaign on the planet of Prosperity and particularly the story of Captain June Ranson and the relief of the siege of the city of Kohang by a scratch column of Slammers’ armour. That story can be found in volume two of The Complete Hammer’s Slammers:

A number of different vehicles pop up in the book – the civilian Cyclos we released a month ago come from this particular story. The climax of the tale is a large armoured engagement between the Slammers and a battalion of Prosperity Nationalist light tanks, and our first release of the week is the Colonial Light Tank with a variety of weapon options including light artillery, air defence and a tank destroyer with a remote railgun.

Also mentioned is a Marine ‘amphibious landing vehicle’ with machine-gun armament. This has resulted in the Pioneer class APC, an amphibious tracked vehicle with a variety of light weapons.

Finally for this week, the Consie Rebels have a powergun on a cruciform mount. It turns out that the standard 8-barrel Calliope mount also fits this base nicely to create a fixed AA weapon.

HS15-3801 – Colonial Light Tank – £8.00
HS15-3801a – Colonial Engineering Tank – £8.25
HS15-3802 – Pioneer Amphibious APC – £8.00
HS15-3803 – Powergun on Cruciform Mount – £4.00
HS15-3803a – Calliope on Cruciform Mount – £4.00

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