+++++The Military Space Fleet of the Neo-Soviet Union unveiled it’s latest battleship, the Admiral Zhukov recently. The vessel, along with several previously unknown members of its class has now entered active service.+++++
The new Zhukov went down well at Salute, we almost sold out of the models that we took with us. It’s now available from the website.
I’ve also got ahead of myself for once and created a Starmada:X playsheet which you can find here.
SFS-1202 – Zhukov class Battleship – £7.50
The next item of our Salute releases to hit the website are our Great War Boy Scouts. Although part of our Belgian range (one figure is based specifically on a WWI photograph of a Belgian scout) the similarity in the uniforms would allow them to be used in other countries and periods.
Sculpted by Martin Baker, the three figures depict scouts of different ages (and heights) – the smallest and youngest has his knapsack on his back ready for a picnic ! Another has a despatch bag to carry messages to the front, while the oldest has a Lee-Enfield rifle and bandoliers ready to face the Hun, as in this period photograph.
All are wearing the traditional uniform of shorts, long socks and ‘lemon-squeezer’ campaign hat.
GW28-1150 – Boy Scouts (x3) – £3.25
So Salute is over, which is a relief in some ways – the last week or so got a bit manic. We had a good day, saying hello to many gaming friends from all over the country and beyond (it was great to finally meet a Swedish gamer who I’ve corresponded with for over 20 years), and of course also shifting a considerable quantity of resin and metal !
We do have a couple of post-show notices – I think there were two gentlemen who made large purchases and left a small item behind (both my fault – I put the items on the stand and obviously missed packing them into their respective bags at the end of the transactions). In both cases I spotted it almost immediately and tried to find them but they’d already disappeared into the crowd. So if you’re missing a) a Russian Aeronef torpedo group, or b) a pack of satellites, drop me an email and I’ll post them on, or find us at a subsequent show. Unfortunately I don’t have email addresses for you so can’t be proactive and contact you myself.
I’m a little behind with mail order, but should catch up by the end of the week – apologies if you’ve had to wait an extra couple of days, I was hoping to get away with no disruption but couldn’t quite manage it.
OK, onto the main business of the post – the first tranche of new releases from Salute is hitting the website this week. And the very first items are in the Small Scale Scenery range – the City Hall, stone bridges and four lighthouses.
Die Alte Stadthaus is based on Berlin’s old City Hall, but we’ve altered the overall dimensions a bit to make it an 80x80mm square which fits nicely with the sizes of our other City Block models. The real one is roughly that size but isn’t square. It’s a two-piece resin casting, with the domed tower as a separate part.
The pack of stone bridges are the same length (40mm) as the girder bridges, and come cast in metal in four different designs based on UK and European prototypes.
The four metal lighthouses are again based on real world models, two French and one each from Germany and the UK.
SSS-8107 – Alte Stadthaus – £10.00
SSS-8108 – Stone Bridges – £2.50
SSS-8109 – Phare de Calais – £2.00
SSS-8110 – Beachy Head Lighthouse – £1.50
SSS-8111 – Phare de Kermorvan – £1.25
SSS-8112 – Westerheversand Lighthouse – £1.50
And you thought we’d finished the Salute releases … actually so did we. I shall be brief here, as I still have a thousand and one jobs to do and writing long blog posts isn’t one of them ! Painting display models is, but I suspect that these will have to remain in their undercoat for Saturday.
The next Aeronef fleet to benefit from an upgrade is the German Luftschiffeflotte. We’ve replaced the three German capital ships (the Blucher and Markgraf battleships and the Moltke battlecruiser) and added a new model, the Derfflinger class battlecruiser for good measure.
And that’s not all – the Germans now have something to fly their Dreidecker fighters from with the arrival of the Weser class carrier.
VAN-301 – Blücher class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-307 – Markgraf class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-312 – Moltke class Battlecruiser – £7.00
VAN-323 – Derfflinger class Battlecruiser – £7.00
VAN-324 – Weser class Carrier – £9.00
VANFP-306 – German Carrier Pack – £22.00
The models in the existing fleet packs will be replaced by new ones (VANFP-301, 302 and 304, which will now contain one Moltke and one Derfflinger) and there’s a new carrier pack. Stocks of these, especially the Weser, will be limited to just a handful – I only started production this week – so you’ll need to be early.
That really is pretty much it for Salute, barring any more last-minute additions (which could still happen, you never know…). The Salute 2018 page has a list of all of our new releases (or will do when I add the last bits and pieces to it).
The title of this post is a bit of a misnomer, as there are no wheels visible in the photos below – they’re off being painted separately (which I discovered is so much easier…).
We present the last two models in the Centurion series – the Centurion 800, used by several mercenary groups, and the 404, currently used only by Greenwood’s Archers. Both are 8-wheelers (or, since they have twin-wheels, actually 16-wheelers) used mainly as transports but they can also be fitted with light artillery, mortar or calliope turrets – the tan 800-series is painted as a Fosters artillery carrier (or will be once I get beyond the base-coat stage).
HS15-2214 – Centurion 800 – £12.00
HS15-2215 – Centurion 404 – £12.00
Stuff is coming online very late here, but Phil delivered a couple of crucial moulds at the start of this week. Amongst other things, they contained a series of 15mm turrets for the various new vehicles that we’ll have on Saturday. There are some turrets designed to fit certain vehicles, others which are more general purpose and other specifically intended to fill roles in certain Slammers detachments.
The Falchion tank now has two options, a tank turret and light artillery turret, while the Broadsword gets a twin turret option with gatling or railguns. The collection of smaller turrets can be used on the Odyssey, Catapult or Fauchard hulls (as can many others from our existing range). On Saturday we’ll probably take a mix-and-match approach, where you buy a vehicle hull and pick a turret. I’ll worry about creating product codes for every variant afterwards…
Some of you may have seen this rather unhappy photo I posted on our Facebook page last week, showing our centrifuge with its guts hanging out. The motor had packed up at the most inopportune moment, as these things tend to do. Fortunately, a) we have a spare at the workshop (a legacy of the last time the centrifuge chose to pack up) and b) I had my tools in the car, so I was able to replace the motor. It took the best part of six hours to get it up and running again, so I lost virtually a full day’s work in the run up to the biggest show of the year.
I’ve done my best to make up the time, but with effectively only two working days left until Salute (Friday is set-up day) it’s obvious that I’m not quite going to get everything done that I planned to. Something has to give, so I’ve made the decision that unless some sort of miracle happens and Thursday becomes 28 hours long, we will not be bringing the Land Ironclads range with us on Saturday. LI is a large range that needs quite a bit of restocking and I just don’t see that I’m going to have time. If you were planning to buy any Land Ironclads from us, send us an email before Thursday lunchtime and I’ll do my best to accommodate.
Today was my last full day of casting stock (I have a little more to do on Thursday) and I’m almost done with new releases, just a couple of bits left to cast plus replenishing existing 6mm stocks. I don’t think I’ve ever used as much resin as I have in the last month, Centurions are big beasts…
After two lots of wheeled vehicles, it’s time for the treadheads to get in on the action. I posted a picture of a hybrid Lightning Division tank that I’d created by combining the turret and hull from two different Neo-Soviet models along with the gun barrel and secondary turret from the Kurt blower. We’re going to make this an official release (with the caveat that it does need a little minor modelling work to assemble) as the Krauss, so we’ll have a few of these at Salute.
Now onto proper brand new models, we have two light tracked AFVs, again for the early Lightning Division detachment lists. The Falchion light tank has a 6cm railgun, and there’s also a light artillery version. The Fauchard light APC comes in several configurations, including a twin light mortar turret which is still in service in the later LD lists. I’m still waiting on the turret mould for the Falchion, but you can see a hull below next to a Fauchard with mortar turret. The lower picture shows the differences between the lower-hulled tank and the APC with vision ports.
These two vehicles are also useful for several other Slammers units including the Nonesuch National Guard and Guardforce O’Higgins.
HS15-1713 – Krauss Heavy Tank – £9.00
HS15-1714 – Falchion Light Tank – £7.50
HS15-1714a – Falchion Light Artillery – £7.50
HS15-1715 – Fauchard Light APC – £7.00
HS15-1715a – Fauchard Mortar Carrier -£7.50
Revealed at the latest Victory Day fly-past, the Neo-Soviet Union have unveiled their latest starship, the Marshal Zhukov. Armed with the same standard Mass Accelerator turrets as other Neo-Soviet capital ships, the Zhukov also has a heavier Mass Driver main cannon in a fixed forward position under the prow. First deployment is scheduled for April 14th, with full operational capability later in the month.
SFS-1202 – Marshal Zhukov class Battleship – £7.50
Following on from the vehicles previewed earlier today, we have more wheels (lots and lots of wheels !). This time it’s the large Centurion family of heavy transporter vehicles, which range from the rather dumpy Centurion 400 to the huge 4H6 artillery transporter, which is the size of an HGV.
Each has between four and ten sets of twin wheels for respectable cross-country performance and can be armed with anything from a machine-gun on a hatch to a 20cm rocket-assisted artillery piece in a massive turret. The largest can carry a full platoon of infantry in comfort, and tow an anti-tank gun. What they aren’t however, is front-line fighting vehicles – their armour is modest at best.
As with the other wheeled vehicles, we’re still finalising the exact turret configurations. And the prices may change as I do a final breakdown of the costs – there is a lot of metal and resin in all of these models…
HS15-2211 – Centurion 400 – £9.00
HS15-2212 – Centurion 202 – £10.00
HS15-2213 – Centurion 204 – £11.00
HS15-2216 – Centurion 4F6 – £17.50
HS15-2217 – Centurion 4H6 Artillery Hog – £20.00
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