Kickstarter Hellenistic Judeans

Local New Zealand 3D printing business Potbelly Miniatures along with Triguard Miniatures have launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and fill some specific holes in the 28mm miniatures market; starting with Hellenistic Judeans. They believe this military/nationality is poorly-served by current manufacturers so they are looking at doing a range that covers the period from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander right through to the destruction of the Temple by the Roman Empire.

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Kings of War Day At The AWC

Kings of War has been getting a reasonable following in Auckland over the last 12-18 months with the Second Edition (pub. 2015) and the Auckland Wargaming Club is looking at hosting a 1-day KoW Game Day in December featuring 2 ‘teams’ (Good vs. Evil) in a 2 round (game) format (full details at the link). I’ve been a bit missing in action with gaming of late, so hoping this might be a small incentive to get back into things. Recently got hold of the new second edition rule book and first look suggest the mechanics are largely as claimed and fairly simple and straight forward… Continue reading “Kings of War Day At The AWC”

Valdemar Miniatures

I was recently contacted by Valdemar Miniatures – and looking at their website they look to have a pretty stunning series of products. Including 3D Printed ships suitable for Viking Longships and small Medieval Cogs. They describe their figures as 25mm (1/72nd) so they may or may not be a tad smaller than other 28mm manufacturers like the Perrys, Foundry, Artizan, etc. However they produce two ranges of medieval figures, one which is their premium range, what they call “Museum Quality”. Continue reading “Valdemar Miniatures”

Work Begins On Rorke’s Drift

Well its been much longer than planned and to get things along I have enlisted my mate Kieran (6mm Wargaming) to build my Rorke’s Drift Models and Base Board for me. I have been inspired by the SSWG’s (Southend & Shoeburyness Wargames Group) wonderful demo game from several years ago (you can see a full set of photos here, it was at Salute 2006 in the UK and I believe has been at shows prior to that), and they still reuse it regularly today (see this blog post from 2011). So Kieran has completed assembly of the buildings and we’ve done two mock-ups of the layout…

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Rorke’s Drift Arrives!

My Warlord GamesRorke’s Drift” box set arrived today… It’s an impressive beast- it was part of their pre-order special on the new Anglo-Zulu War range that’s the premier of their new strategic partnership with Empress Miniatures. At the time I resisted the urge to get the full “Horns of the Buffalo – Rorke’s Drift Collectors Set” which is an absolutely huge collection of toys! This set is the first of their collaborations planned with Empress Miniatures – so you get a swag of Warlord Games plastic figures and terrain pieces, some Empress Miniatures speciality metal figs, and a pair of “4Ground” laser-cut plywood building kitsets of the storehouse and hospital. Continue reading “Rorke’s Drift Arrives!”

I Couldn’t Resist Indus

I recently stumbled across Indus Miniatures – and when they announced a 20% off ‘Thanks Giving‘ Sale I couldn’t resist getting a few – even though they are aimed at the Indian 18th Century to Mutiny era rather than the later NWF (North-West Frontier). Still the quality of the greens looks nice in these pics, and some of the figs are designed to be fairly generic – for example the Irregular Cavalry or Pindari are described as “meant to represent the Irregular troops serving in India for the Princes, Mughals, Europeans, Sikhs etc. They can be used from 1700 till 1850’s. They probably can be used for other time frames as they are quite generic“. Continue reading “I Couldn’t Resist Indus”

A Wonderful 28mm Château d’Hougoumont

I’ve recently been talking to Tony Won (a wargamer & historian in Belgium) about various things Dutch-Belgian and Hundred Days related – Tony is a bit of a Hundred Days expert with 30 years effort on the subject, but is also a wargamer who obviously has some very nice models in his collection.

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Chitty Chitty Bus Bus!

A month or two ago I was lucky enough to pick up this Corgi Transport Through The Ages collectors set from a wargamer in Australia. It is a Limited Edition Military Transport Set consisting of an A.E.C. Omnibus and a Model-T Ford Ambulance. They are nominally about 1/56th scale so in theory ideal for 28mm figures and will be ideal for use with my World War I forces in the Middle East & Africa (ANZACs & Colonial British) and the Ambulance should be useful for the Eastern Front too (for my Russians). The bus is actually from Flanders 1914 and the BEF but I’m sure I can fudge it into some scenarios in other theatres somewhere! Perhaps the Russians had omnibuses?

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Najewitz Modellbau Buildings Arrive

Over the past 18 months I’ve regularly looked at the models buildings and wagons (and the Berlin Tram) by Najewitz Modellbau in Germany – they look fantastic in the photos and I’ve always been keen to take the plunge – however the description of the material has always had me a bit wary – the wagons & tram and some of the smaller scale buildings being laser cut Finnpappe which they describe as “…no word for it in English dictionary is a product made of ground wood pulp. To say it is cardboard is the wrong title for it. It´s more similar to MDF, quasi ‘MDF-light’.” However the larger 1/72nd and 28mm buildings are kitsets of a resin material, the type isn’t clearly specified on the website – but I took the plunge recently and ended up ordering a selection of the 1/72nd scale buildings…

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Empress 1840’s New Zealand Wars Māori and Colonial Figures

Roly over at “Dressing The Lines” has got his first batch of NZ Wars figures done, and I must say they are looking pretty smashing! He’s done a great job of them and also of giving the bases a New Zealand touch with ferns and tussock-like grass! Roly is planning to experiment with using a suitably modified “Sharp Practice” for his games, however this requires a reasonable number of figures (i.e. dozens to 100+), and Roly has the luxury of another gamer at hand doing the same period. I have been rather procrastinating over ordering some of the Empress Miniatures figures as I’ve been undecided about what rules to use – however I’ve pretty much decided on initially trying SDS (“Song of Drums & Shakos” – a variant of “Song of Blades & Heroes“), which will allow interesting games with just 6-30 figures a side… Needless to say Roly’s efforts are a much needed prompt to get organised and order some figures! The photo is a small lower resolution one of some of his figures – Make sure you check out the full set of photos at Roly’s Dressing The Lines blog… Continue reading “Empress 1840’s New Zealand Wars Māori and Colonial Figures”

Custom Moulding: Replicate Your Scratchbuilds!

Fidelis Models USA

A friend just pointed out the following Model Distributor who offers a nice service casting custom models for people who supply an original master. They say “Send us your scratchbuilt master model and we will make an RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) rubber mold of your model. We can then make approximately 75-100 copies of the master before the mold begins to deteriorate.” With a cost of as little as US$8 for each subsequent resin casting of the mould this could well be a fine option for those people wanting to churn out several dozen copies of an original figure or model – although the initial mould creation does cost around US$175. Check it out at the Fidelis Models Website…

When You’ve Stuffed Up Varnishing That Model!

Olive OilTry out the suggestion from the “Nice Manners For A Thief” blog’s “How to save your dipped models from the dreaded Dullcote Frost“. Frosting (or that whitish build-up on model s0 is usually caused by a combination of poorly mixed and/or old varnish and temperature – varnish is quite fussy about the latter and if it’s too cold to too hot when you spray or brush on the varnish in will ‘frost up’… HSHP’s article specifically deals with the issue occurring when using the dipping technique, but the general rule applies for all varnish jobs gone bad… Well with keeping this little tip in the memory banks.