Warbot III new and free in orders until 24th April plus news

Spring is upon us!  Yes, the winter is near done even in Scotland (some ruddy strong storms hit us as you might recall) and with it something a lot of wargamers have been looking forward to and marking on their calendars nears….the Spring Mega Event.  The event begins on Thursday 27th March 2025 and will have more than fifty new releases as well as the blanket discount across our huge array of ranges.  Full details when the time comes.

Advancing over scrub ground as a walker alongside the Star Mercs of the HOF 15mm Science Fiction Range.

Until 24th April 2025 the new AS031 Warbot III model is automatically put into every order shipped out from us. You need do nothing but place an order for anything which is physical (so no Digital Download only orders sorry), as many orders as you wish, of any value you want and you can also order Warbot III itself and you will still get one free included.  When we say free we mean it.  Auto in every package sent out.  

AS031 Warbot III:  This code contains all the parts to assemble one any scale use four legged robot armed with a missile pod and two rotary cannons.  A resin body and two sets of legs with two identical metal cannons. It is 40mm across and 25mm to tallest point. 

We will be pretty quiet for the next two weeks as we get ready for the Spring Mega Event and as always we thank you for your custom and support of an independent and family owned business.  This spring is going to be a 28mm, 15mm and 6mm blast!

Thanks for your Time.

The Ion Age - Afara Strider 15mm mecha early supporter offers now live!

The Afara mecha is now here. Great for any 15mm sci-fi system. What a reaction to the concept art and story of our first 15mm mecha kit from the start of this week! If you missed it on our blog and want to see the diagram page full size please go HERE to read it and download the image. From now until Monday 25th July we at The Ion Age are delighted to have Early Supporter Offers on the Afara with all orders containing one or more of these codes being shipped out worldwide once the offer period ends. Place as many orders as you like and remember every order earns Reward Points on your account with our website plus a free IMP35 Cybernetic Retained Knight miniature worth 0.60GBP. Existing customers who have been storing up their Reward Points CAN use them for discounts upon their early supporter orders for even bigger savings. Excellent! 

Go to our Early Supporters Page now or read on for details here.

What is the Afara Strider?

The Afara is our first 15mm mecha and it is a light mecha cast entirely in high quality grey tone resin and supplied in kit form. These kits are easy to assemble from eight or nine pieces with a high degree of posing due to the sockets into which feet, legs and arms fit. Once assembled the Afara stands approx 55mm in height or about three times our typical human sized miniature. There are three variants under the code IAF128 each with its own battlefield role from troop support to anti-armour and close combat. Here is the release information on the codes:

IAF128A Afara Strider 26WA 

One resin 15mm mecha kit for an Afara Strider armed with a Valerin 15Mw Laser Cannon arm and Anda 60mm Missile shoulder pod.

IAF128B Afara Strider 26WC 

One resin 15mm mecha kit for an Afara Strider equipped for close combat with an Octa Sword, separate Shield and Anda 60mm Missile shoulder pod.

IAF128C Afara Strider 26WB 

One resin 15mm mecha kit for an Afara Strider armed with a Bodkin Howitzer arm and Hermit 50mm Grenade Launcher shoulder pod.

What are the Early Supporter Offers?

We have several offers for you that all give you a saving off the above release prices which will be online after the 25th of June 2016. Here are the offers:

Single Strider

Purchase any single IAF128 Afara Strider and save 10% off release price! 9.00GBP per kit

Trio of Striders

Purchase the set of three different IAF128 Afara Striders and save 15% off release price! 

25.50GBP (release price 30.00GBP)

Strider Bumper Box

Purchase the Bumper Box and get the following: Three of each of the three Afara variants saving 15% off each, an additional random Afara for just 3.50GBP and this bundle is free worldwide shipping automatically. Fantastic value. 80.00GBP (release price 100.00GBP)

Where does this new model fit in The Ion Age?

During games of Patrol Angis there are vehicles deployed using the Callsign Taranis expansion book. Walking vehicles such as the Afara Strider are included in the rules with stats for play in the book too. In vehicle only platoons of three striders they are deployed as light or medium vehicles in opposition to Espaten Portable Weapon platforms or Adder Combat Carsand Lifters. They can take on a Mullo armoured fighting vehicle but they are no match for the mighty Taranis main battle tank. Afara's in the field supported by lances of Retained Knightscan deal with some serious odds such as the Canlastrian encroachment on the Everian Temple on Gatsby III during the Prydian Army's liberation of the planet. With its great mobility and moderate firepower the Afara is a welcome addition to any force. 

Go HERE for the Early Supporter Offers

We hope you enjoy these offers and that our entry into the next category of 15mm scale vehicles can be a part of your 15mm science fiction wargaming collection. Here are some two scale images for you and remember you can ask any question you like by sending it toinfo@theionage.com and we will do our best to answer it.

Thanks for Reading,

GBS

Wulfshaede Miniatures - AI Mech Faction Kickstarter

Our friend Sean Harrison has kicked off his own project to get some of his own creative designs out into the world. Sean has sculpted 15mm projects for Loud ninja Games (Yan'drassi) and ClearHorizon Miniatures and in other scales for many different companies, including Games Workshop and Privateer Press. He is a master of the craft and is skilled in sculpting, model making, and even the production side of the process (molding and casting). 

This extensive knowledge and my own personal experiences with his work, as well as the endorsement of my friend and fellow miniatures maker, Harold Crossley (ClearHorizon Miniatures), leaves me with absolutely no doubt that this project will be a giant win for its backers. 

Eli Arndt
Loud Ninja Games

Wulfshéade MIniatures 15mm Sci-fi

The AI Mech faction is the start of a new range of 15mm science-fiction models in the style of my favorite modellers; Kow Yokoyama, Makoto Kobayashi and Kazuhisa Kondo.

The range will be expanded in the future with both new and larger models. I also have planned Kickstarters for several other Alien races, some of which are already being sculpted.

The models will be cast in metal, the larger Heavy Support Tank in resin.

Here's a pic with a size comparison of each mech body next to one of Clearhorizon's Helldiver miniatures.

To read more about the project and to look at all the models involved, visit the Kickstarter page - HERE

The Taranis Enters the Field

IAF100 Taranis Tracked Main Battle Tanks 5 Variants now released!

Gavin and his team have had a lot of news coming out for the Ion Age lately. The excitement over the Taranis and the door it opens for The Ion Age has not died down and today marks the release of this amazing tank system and its associated robots. 

There is a lot to tell and so I decided to post Gavin's own words on he subject...

"With the completion of one of the most titanic in scale armourers works ever seen in the Prydian Precinct the complex plans for the lethal weapon of war that would become the Taranis Main Battle Tank were set into motion. The Targa Works would go on to produce such vehicles as the Adder Combat Car and Lifter series and the medium weight Mullo Armoured Fighting Vehicle but these were side and later projects compared to Taranis. Named after an ancient old earth deity a god of war from the isles of mist and rain the Taranis was created to be the mailed fist that would allow the regiments of the Barons and the Throne to continue to expand into space and systems lost during the thousand year old Aldan Crucible detonation. In 4294IC documents retrieved by Starvaulters during an investigation of the ruins of Newbury IV were decoded and artificed. It had taken a decade since their retrieval to decode the records which dated from the time of the great Resource Wars of twenty first century earth. The designs they contained were for a war machine that was the ultimate evolution of a century of tank warfare. Dutifully recorded they were sent out with the Ark Ships into the void. A monster of death this tank was doom incarnate and once updated with the technology Prydia now possessed they were further modified to be able to function in environments far more varied than one planet could have offered. Taranis would be a weapon capable of winning any war against men or the feared Khanate."

Academy Auto-Trainer Series 52, New Glastonbury, 4335IC 

The five different tracked variants of our mighty Taranis Type 40 Tracked Main Battle Tank are now released! Designed by industry legend Bob Naismith this tank is a large resin and white metal kit in 15mm scale suitable not only for space opera settings but also near future or many other wargaming genres. There are five different variants (A,B,C,D and E) of IAF100 Taranis Tracked Main Battle Tank so please read on for each of them: 

IAF100A Taranis Tracked MBT Cannon Turret 

This is the core type of tracked Taranis the main battle tank with projectile turret. It is composed of seven resin and white metal pieces which are the upper hull, the lower hull, right and left tracks sections, projectile cannon turret as well as the main gun and the sponson gun. It is easy to assemble and is designed to be used for wargaming and thus it is durable. Assembled this vehicle is just over 90mm long and 60mm wide. We offer the choice of purchasing one kit or on the drop down menu the purchase of three with a saving of 10% on screen. Price 20.00GBP. Go HERE. 

IAF100B Taranis Tracked MBT Command Turret 

This is the platoon command type of tracked Taranis with projectile turret with additional rotary weapon and comms suite. It is composed of seven resin and white metal pieces which are the upper hull, the lower hull, right and left tracks sections, projectile cannon command turret as well as the main gun and the sponson gun. It is easy to assemble and is designed to be used for wargaming and thus it is durable. Assembled this vehicle is just over 90mm long and 60mm wide. We offer the choice of purchasing one kit or on the drop down menu the purchase of three with a saving of 10% on screen. Price 20.00GBP. Go HERE. 

IAF100C Taranis Tracked MBT SPB Energy Turret 

This is a Taranis main battle tank with an energy weapon turret featuring a small cabin for a crewman. It is composed of six resin and white metal pieces which are the upper hull, the lower hull, right and left tracks sections and SPB energy weapon turret. It is easy to assemble and is designed to be used for wargaming and thus it is durable. Assembled this vehicle is just over 90mm long and 60mm wide. We offer the choice of purchasing one kit or on the drop down menu the purchase of three with a saving of 10% on screen. Price 20.00GBP. GoHERE. 

IAF100D Taranis Tracked MBT Siege Turret 

This is a Taranis main battle tank with a double weapon turret for close in destruction. It is composed of six resin and white metal pieces which are the upper hull, the lower hull, right and left tracks sections, siege double turret as well as the sponson gun. It is easy to assemble and is designed to be used for wargaming and thus it is durable. Assembled this vehicle is just over 90mm long and 60mm wide. We offer the choice of purchasing one kit or on the drop down menu the purchase of three with a saving of 10% on screen. Price 20.00GBP. GoHERE. 

IAF100E Taranis Tracked APC 

This is a Taranis tank with a re-purposed function as a super heavy Armoured Personnel Carrier capable of carrying two squads or more into battle. It is composed of five resin and white metal pieces which are the lower hull, the APC upper hull, left and right track sections and the sponson gun. It is easy to assemble and is designed to be used for wargaming and thus it is durable. Assembled this vehicle is just over 90mm long and 60mm wide. We offer the choice of purchasing one kit or on the drop down menu the purchase of three with a saving of 10% on screen. Price 20.00GBP Go HERE. 

Here are pictures of all the IAF100 variants as their parts with under laying scale in 1cm squares for you to look at. All of these images and more are on the web pages for the tanks.

The Tracked Taranis Tank is a big, big model. Sometimes its hard to tell this from photographs so here is a special image showing IAF100D next to four, yes FOUR Adder Combat Cars which combined have the same table 'footprint' as the Taranis. 

Taranis Tanks make use of a screen of Drones acting as a defensive, offensive, repair group controlled by the tank itself. These are shown on table as IAF081 Taranis Running Drones and these can be seen HERE on our website as a pack and as singles. If you would like to read more about the Taranis in the fictional setting of The Ion Age please visit our blog and this INFORMATION BURST article. Its a great read and hints at what will be coming as miniatures in the months ahead. 

This is our last release of the month so if you missed out on the offers now is your chance and you get your Reward Points on your account with us and of course the monthly free miniature in your package currently IMP26 Female Nox Trooper. 

Thanks for Reading.


GBS

Ion Age Planetary Militia Gets Some Heavy Support

Hey All,

So, we're a little late getting this posted, but as they say, "better late than never".

Last week, the good folks at The Ion Age released two wonderful, new battlesuits to accompany their planetary militia figures. The Steornede battlesuits come in two variety - missile and cannon- armed. The weapon pods are universally mounted, so it also stands to reason a little mix and match might be had if you wanted to diversify your loud outs. They would also work nicely as robots, if you universe does not include piloted battlesuits.

For full details on the models you can read about them, the militia and more- HERE

Would You Like Fries With That?

The Ion Age's New Service Droid

This month the folks at the Ion Age bring us a special miniature with a bit of whimsy. The Happy Burger Bot is a characterful serving robot representing a galactic franchise with a standard of quality in both product and service.

The Happy Burger Bot is available free with any order through the month of March 2015. It may be purchased separately or in multiples as well. 

For more information on this playful special miniatures, go - HERE 

Post Apocalyptic Warriors, Beasts, and Robots

All kinds of new releases this week.

Eleven items were released by The Scene today - they have promised 100 new items by November. The Wasteland Warriors range of post-apocalyptic mutants are reinforced with two different War Walkers.

The Zombie Hunters/Survivors range adds this mounted figure.

Three new packs were added to the popular Heavy Battle Robots range, and will be very useful for everyone converting them into not-Space Marines. All three packs include separate arms - one pack is Heavy Weapons, another Hand Weapons/Guns, and finally Hand Weapons and Power Fists. 

A new category has been added to The Scene's figure ranges - Alien Beasts. Three creatures are now available. And finally, two remastered buildings have been added to the Desert Dwellings range.

*     *     *     *     *

15mm.Co.Uk also has a variety of alien creatures - released under the SHM Range. Here are the Nessite and the Slurmite (the latter may have a fondness for highly addictive beverages):

And the furry Avarep Cobra (which might be a useful Ysalamiri for Star Wars games), along with the Galdor Burrower.

It's a nice little variety of creatures. I can imagine playing games where Nessites can appear out of water terrain, and Avarep Cobras can jump out of tree bases.

*     *     *     *     *

Splintered Light Minis is one of the finest producers of 15mm fantasy minis on the market. David's figures are always worth a look - many would be ideal primitives in mixed-technology games, and even hard SF gamers could put some of his beasts to use. While he's always had a couple packs of sci-fi minis (which don't resemble the crew of a famous smuggling vessel in any way...), David surprised everyone this week by unveiling an expansive post apocalptic range.

All four packs were inspired by the novel Through the Fury to the Dawn, which was written by David's brother-in-law. I hadn't heard of it until seeing these figures, and it's very tempting to pick up a book when I know there are perfect figures to wargame the setting. David released packs for Survivors (including the book's seven main characters), Zombies, Gangers, and Giant Ants.

And these figures certainly wouldn't be restricted to the setting within the book - they would mix extremely well with post-apocalyptic and horror figures from Rebel Minis, Highlander Studios, Khurasan, and the Wasteland Warriors mentioned above from The Scene.

Cheers,

Chris

New Release - Mega Minis 15mm Demo Bot

A little late in getting this out, but still worth mentioning. Mega Minis has release their lovely Demo Bot in 15mm. A faithful reproduction of the original 28mm version, this robot would make a fine addition to any science fiction board.

It comes with an assortment of arm options so that you can weaponize it or field it as a simple utility bot.

If you are a multi-scale gamer, fear not as this gigantic bot is perfectly suitable for use with your 28mm minis as shown below.

Review GZG New Releases – Humanoid Bots, NAC and UNSC

Jon over at Ground Zero Games was kind enough to provide the Dropship Crew with samples of his latest releases.

First up, and the most interest to me, is SG15-V16 Humanoid ‘Bots. These are 3 different humanoid-styled servant robots. Jon describes them in his news feed as “the offspring of an illicit liason between C-3PO and Gort with a strong dash of Hajime Sorayama thrown in for good measure.” I think the picture below illustrates this point!

There are two well proportioned human-sized "male" and "female" bots, but the gem of the 3 is a larger cargo-handling bot who’s exterior plating closely resembles the armour of GZG’s New Israeli range (perhaps it’s a product of the NI arms industry!?!).

I’ve been crying out for more 15mm humanoid robots and these guys certainly fit the bill. These could be used as anything from casual bystanders in colony space port to murderous Fabricated Human Simulants for the game The Department. The pack contains 6 figures (2 each of the 3 different bots) and is £3.00 inc. VAT.

Next up is SG15-A22 NAC Power Armour with Hand Weapons. This is the second pack of the newly re-sculpted NAC power armour and contains 6  figures (3 each of two, quite similar, poses) with hand weapons, supplied with separate (optional) assault jump packs - pack contains 3 "standard" jump-packs, 2 jump-packs with over-shoulder micromissile clusters, and one command jump-pack with sensor/comms systems.

As you can see from the pictures above, these new sculpts compare well with the older NAC PA sculpts but are a little but thinner and have different integral back packs. You can particularly see the benefits of the resculpt in the details on the legs of the new figures. You can see our review of the first pack here. The weapons and pose options available also expands the possibility of fielding larger power armoured forces without the same few poses repeated over and over. The pack contains 6 figures plus 2 sprues of jump-packs: £3.00 inc. VAT.

Lastly we have SG15-U26 UNSC Light Troopers with GMS(P) light portable anti-armour missiles. This pack contains 8 figures, four each in prone and kneeling poses, all with single-shot missile tubes in firing positions.

The prone figure is the same that which is currently supplied in pack U24 and Jon will probably revise U24 into a different figure mix in due course. Pack contains 8 figures (4 each of 2 different) and is £3.00 inc. VAT.

All in all some nice, useful, releases. That said what I, and many other 15mm sci fi gamers, really want to see is what GZG are going to produce as part of the official figure line for Tomorrow’s War!  But we may need to be patient... Jon has a Christmas Sale on at the moment so what better excuse to pick up some GZG stocking fillers!

Cataloguing non-biological life in 15mm

Following up on a previous post, Dropship Horizon's technologists have been busy cataloguing non-biological life in the known universe. Researchers have identified several manufacturers of the drones, cyborgs, droids, etc. including:

• Astro Miniatures’ Sybots
• Battlestations’ Bot Marines 
• Blue Moon Manufacturing Robot Legion Skirmishers and Legionaires 
• Critical Mass Games merc Drone Walkers and Blockheads  and Praesentia RAL infantry 
• Ground Zero Games’ Remotes, Drones and Bots 
• 15mm.co.uk Automata, Cyborgs and Polymorphs, Robots, Droids and Laserburn robots and droids 
• Irregular Miniatures Battle Droid 
• Khurasan Miniatures Mekanoid Meleebots and Riflebots  as well as the Server Robot in the DPLS Crew
• Kremlin Miniatures Cyberian Death Commandos, Zomborgs and Cyber-ninjas 
• Traveller Miniatures security bots and support droids (in the support Support Staff pack) 
• The Scene battle robots and heavy battle robots 

As previously mentioned, there is a shortage of generic androids in the style of Star Wars or I Robot - get sculpting guys!

Edit - there is an interesting discussion over on the TMP 15mm message board on the subject of robots, bots and borgs in 15mm.

These ARE The Droids You're Looking For

15mm.co.uk continues to expand your science fiction horizons with an offering of new droids. Three new droids of the small utility sort are included in their HOF70 pack. These are available as either a full pack (4.00GBP) or as singles (0.40GBP each).

They have even come up with some new rules for their USE ME rules. Simply email sales@15mm.co.uk and ask for ‘USE ME Droids’ to get it by return attachment.

Check them out!

-Eli