Ion Age News and Sneak Peaks

By Eli

Gavin and the blokes at The Ion Age are steadily working hard to bankrupt us all and have some really cool new project on the boil. Today's post previews two exciting new developments.

The first of these is a set of 15mm separate weapons for conversions, modelling and such. These are patterned after the weapons sculpted on the Ion Age miniatures and will allow you to customize characters, or even bring other figures into your Ion Age universe. I personally think they make great kit for any space opera style troops and will surely be picking up a few packs.

There will be three different packs for this addition - 

IAF025 15mm Retained Conversion Pack

IAF026 15mm Muster Conversion Pack

IAF027 15mm Khanate Legion Conversion Pack

For more information on these, read HERE.

Now, on to the second sneak peak and this is a monster!

As if the concept art wasn't cool enough, Gavin has let spill preview picks of EVERY one of the initial variants of the Duxis battlesuit. There are simply too many pictures and delicious details to show here, so I've cherry-picked a few of my favorites and you can go HERE to read more.

The Road To Gencon 2014

PART ONE - PROJECT OUTLINE 

By Paul, Maurice, and Aaron

WHAT?

Some time ago, three illustrious (notorious!) game mongers bought armies for Critical Mass Games’ rules system: Critical Mass. Given the wide range of games we play, we haven’t assembled or painted them, much less play a game using CMG’s excellent-looking rules.  To rectify this, we’ve decided to use the tried and tested ‘tale of three gamers’ model, in which we progress through the various phases of readying our forces and playing games.  All of this will be in preparation for demoing the game at Gencon 2014 in Indianapolis, IN.

Dramatis Personae:

Paul - Kaamados Dominion

Maurice - Praesentia

Aaron - Protolenes

Da’ PLAN

We’ll paint a set amount (or close to) of points each month. The month will conclude with one or more games using the forces available to us.

This process will culminate in a scenario presented at Gencon and an After Action Report post-Gencon.

Each month, each player will write one article detailing their progress for the month. These articles should be posted at a rate of one per week, with the final week being the battle report for whatever games are played using those forces.

TIMELINE

January -  List Discussion and Introductions.

February - 500 points of painted models

March - 750 points of painted models

April - 1,000 points of painted models

May - 1,250 points of painted models

June - 1,500 points of painted models

July - 1,500 points of painted models and Gencon preview

August - NO REPORTS - GENCON MONTH

September - After Action Report

So, with that, we’re on our way!  Please keep a look out for our first army spotlight next week here on Dropship Horizon and on our personal blogs.

New Ion Age

First of all, let me apologize to the folks at The Ion Age for missing a couple of releases. The holidays got all kinds of crazy and I am afraid I lost track. So, this is a bit of a makeup post.

This month's (January) unique miniature is - 

The Winter Musterman is the white metal 15mm miniature in the above image and until 1st February 2013 he is FREE in each and every order placed with us at the rate of one per order placed.  After that date he will be retired and replaced by the next free miniature and of course you earn reward points on all orders too. Read more - HERE.

On to a few things missed..

IAF017 Ellen and Ripley

Two unique character miniatures to lead your Retained Knights. Female personalities for your IAF016 Retained Post Delta perhaps? Perfect for battling aliens! Read full details HERE.

IAF022 Muster 1st Patrol

The Patrol is a vast number of regiments of troopers who all have time served combat experience and act as a front time aid to Retained Knights and also in their own right.  This squad of ten brand new white metal 15mm poses is composed of a low ranking officer with Moth Pistol, several poses of trooper with Moth Rifle, with Tumbler SMG and a couple of with heavier weapons the Anvil 888 and Charlatan 22mm Launcher.  Wearing Aketon armour and Patrol helmets this is a central squad for a patrol platoon.  As always this code can be bought as a pack or as single miniatures or select the three packs and save 10% option on the page.  Go HERE.

And we'll finish up with a bit of a preview...

I know it's a lot to take in, but here you go.

They Came in The New Year

Sale on Alien Greys from 15mm.co.uk

Happy New Year from 15mm.co.uk!

This is the last week of the Festive Offers from us and we want to go out on a bang.  Until the 8th January 2014 you can buy all of our 15mm Grey Alien packs at 15% off.  The prices are changed on the website and you can read more on our BLOG.  The Greys are one of our best selling ranges and we plan on expanding them this year the blog post makes some questions so if you are interested in telling us what you would like to see then comment there please.  Go to our Festive Offers page HERE to see the Greys on offer.

Happy New Year!

From the Folks at Brigade Models.

We hope you all had a splendid Christmas and are recovering well from the excesses of New Year’s Eve.

A few hours later than expected (I was a bit under the weather yesterday which kept me away from the keyboard), we’re happy to announce our New Year Sale. As in previous years, it’s a straightforward 15% discount off everything that we make – no minimum order, just 15% off everything. There are one or things it doesn’t apply to – essentially anything that we don’t make ourselves (so dice and bases, any rulebooks, the Shapeways range) on which our margins are much narrower.

The sale will run until the end of the month – midnight GMT on January 31st – so there’s no rush, you have a month to get your orders in.

Read more - HERE

Have a great 2014 !

Alien Trees - Tutorial

By: Umpapa
From: http://umpapas.blogspot.com/

Many people have asked how I made the tree visible in the pictures.

 

1. chose the colors : purple (instead of brown) and orange (instead of green) with blue detailing. It goes well with my beloved fur of Kilrathi / Kzin /Felids .
2. Find (preferably in late summer) tiny cones.
3. You may try to put the additional steel nail to the bottom of  bottom of bigger of cones.
4. Push gently 2 cm steel nails into spraying board.
5. Hot glue nails and cones.
6 Spray the cheapest strong color, may be automotive, in my case - orange, only the side and top, not too much - make sure the paint does not get between the petals cones, so that there is some natural shadow.
7. Optional zenithal highlighting: from the top you can spray a bit of lighter colour, such as yellow.
8. Gently pull the nails out of boards with a narrow pliers .
9. Hot glue nails and cones to weights  - the steel nuts and to some cardboard. Position cone standing vertically on "tuber" glue, nails and bolts. Wait till cool. Take care that weights were at ground level, at the bottom. As a result, trees can be stored in standard containers lined magnetic foil.
10. With glue gun form successive layers of hot glue (preferably colored , but can be transparent): roots , trunk folds, branches. Let congeal on the carton. Once cooled, gently peel-away /cut from cardboard.
11. Optionally you may scratch the surface of the trunk with a file.
12. Paint gluetrunk, f.ex. violet . Lighten. Black wash.
13. Colorize grains of rice or wheat with a contrasting color, f.ex. ultramarine. After drying wet grains in glue and stick between the petals cones, creating exotic fruit or flowers.
14. Lacquer spray.