Individual HOF Castings, New Armies Army, and Manufacturer Guide Update

I can't say enough about the effort 15mm.Co.Uk makes to serve our hobby.

They are unbelievably receptive to their customers' suggestions (which is what brought Danger on Outpost 32 into the gaming world). They give aspiring sculptors an outlet to refine their craft (giving us a fun variety of figures in the SHM range). And they are the only 15mm manufacturer who offers individual castings of hundreds of different figures.

Most figures in the HOF Sci Fi range are offered in 10-packs and as individuals when they are released. But somehow, the earlier Ion Age-style figures were never offered this way. That has now been corrected - we can now purchase individual castings of the Retained Knights and Muster Infantry.

Offering these figures as individual castings is brilliant. Suppose you're looking to start another army, but can't decide which figures to use? You can buy a few castings from this range, see if they match well with your theme, and even try some experimental paint schemes without adding to your pile of unpainted lead. It also works well if you want to round out your existing squads and platoons - the forces we build don't always match retail packs figure-for-figure. Or, especially in the case of the Retained sculpts, you might only need five or six figures for a small skirmish game like In The Emperor's Name or Mutants & Death Ray Guns. You can do that, thanks to 15mm.Co.Uk and their devotion to the hobby. 

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The Armies Army RUSK concept is developing into a complete product range.

Keith scored a major hit with his original infantry pack, and they've now been expanded with command, support weapon figures, heavy weapon teams, and MULE support vehicles. The command pack includes a medic ,a GRID/COMMS operator, three leaders, and a Kommisoner figure.

The support weapons pack includes two gatling gunners with loaders, an ATGM launcher team, a plasma gunner, and and a sniper figure. I like the variety of weapons in this pack.

The heavy weapon teams include three gun mounts, three shields, three different weapons, and three two-man gun crews.

Then we have four different MULES based on a common platform. This is the basic MULE, used as a battlefield logistics support vehicle. Three different weapon variants are currently available, and Keith is working on a few more versions. And I imagine we'll see quite a few custom variants made by customers in the coming months... this thing is just screaming to be converted!

The entire Armies Army range is available from Black Hat Figures.

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Speaking of Black Hat Figures... they actually have three separate ranges available that could be of interest to readers of this site. There's the Armies Army goodies, the ex-Green Eyed Minis Tolero and Yetis mentioned last week, and their signature Martian Empires VSF range.

We haven't talked about VSF much on this site. But it's certainly an interest to many of us. Yet somehow, this range has never been featured in the 15mm Manufacturer Directory on the right side of this page. I've updated that, and added a few more companies that we haven't mentioned before.

Peter Pig used to have a larger sci-fi range (the Phug aliens went to Moonfleet Miniatures), but still carry a nice little selection of - stop me if this sounds familiar - VSF Martians. They also have the most expansive range of 15mm conversion heads available today, including some very desirable beret heads for making elite commando units.

Trench 2114 has developed a very original and detailed setting for their games. Think of it as post-post-apocalypse; the fires burned, the civilizations fragmented, but then came back together and are engaged in full-scale war for the surviving resources. But the figures would be good in any setting, from Weird War 2 to post-apocalypse to gothic sci-fi. The website is still in its infancy, but already offers a couple packs of interesting figures and a standalone set of game rules. There don't seem to be many good pictures of their figures, so I've stolen these from Tom Crandall at Miniature Review.

Clockwork Goblin Minis is another newcomer in the 15mm field. But their Weird War 2 figures and walkers definitely belong on these pages - once again, they could be useful in many different science fiction periods and settings.

Please let me know if we're missing anyone else in the directory! I know there are at least three more out there with Kickstarter projects (Dreamforge Games, Grinning Skull and our own Eli's Loud Ninja) - they will be added as soon as product is ready to order.

Cheers,

Chris