Fighting 15s releases Oddzial Osmy 15mm Sci-Fi

A few months ago, Oddzial Osmy previewed some new 15mm Sci-Fi on TMP (link to original thread).  That line is now available from Fighting 15s.

The initial offering has three categories: Vistula Legion (mid-tech near-future human infantry), Non-Combatants (currently featuring a human civilian reporter crew), and Spaceworms.  The only pic available so far of the Spaceworms is in the original preview thread above.  I'll uploaded painted pictures of them shortly after they arrive - I couldn't wait to place my own order!  In the meantime, here are the infantry and reporters:

Vistula Legion Troopers

Reporter Crew

The Vistula Legion gives us another good mid tech-level Traveller style force, or it can be useful for those of you gaming the next 100-200 years of Earth's timeline.  I think the reporters are useful in many scenarios - I plan to add some to my ongoing "characters and civilians" project.  And the Spaceworms give us a great option besides "humans in rubber suits."  We look forward to seeing this line grow.

Cheers, 
Chris

REVIEW: Crusty Combat Walker and NAC Power Armour

As we mentioned earlier the latest releases from Ground Zero Games are now available for order. Jon sent me a few samples for review and here are my thoughts.

First off we have the NAC Power Armour. I know a lot of people have been waiting for resculpts of the different GZG power armour troopers and the NAC are the first ones out. They come six to a pack with two different poses and weapons (grenade launcher and rifle) and are supplied with optional jet/backpacks. What first sprang to mind when I saw them was "Gort!", followed by "Traveller!". They have a kind of retro hardsuit look that really appeals to me! The detailing is good and I like the stubby guns as well as the fact that the jetpack is optional (although I prefer it on). Only two poses is a bit disappointing though and to make matters worse the two poses that we get are very similar. I'm hoping that we might see some further addition to this line later on, providing us with more diverse weapons and poses. Also, it bears mentioning that if you're after some really bulky Heinlein-esque power armour you might want to look elsewhere as they are relatively skinny. Personally, as I have something different in mind for my UNSC, I will use them as player markers for 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars.

With all this human power armour goodness we need something alien to balance it out, and hey if it isn't Crusty heavy infantry! Again six to a pack but three different poses this time and all carrying the same heavy arc rifle. Also included are optional backpacks. These guys I'm sure will be a welcome addition to many of the Crusty forces out there as they supply some added punch. They seem to be wearing some kind of hard/power suit with large, bulky helmets. Actually the helmet design have a slight look of dog or pig to them so I could see them being used as some kind of uplift aliens as well. The detailing is good and I like the more varied poses in this pack. I've always liked the alienness of the Crusties and the design of the armour (the helmet in particular) helps reinforce this. They will most likely form the tough core in my Crusty force (that's made up of riff-raff mostly).

And of course the new Crusty combat walker! I think this is the model most people were expecting when Jon first mentioned the Crusty mecha. At twice the size of a man it has the right size and, again, it simply looks very alien. There are two models in the pack with six arms and two different sets of legs. There are four weapon arms and two with no weapons so you will be able to get a few packs of these and still have a lot of variety in your models.

It's a well detailed kit and I kept discovering little details as I looked it over, like what looks like thrusters at the back of the body. The weapons look great, I especially like the gravity gun(?). I think I will drill some holes in my walkers to add some more fine detail to it like spines and antennas.

The only complaint I have is the connection points between the limbs and the body that are very loose and jingly. While it is a fairly trivial matter I still like it when my models click together just right. Once it's assembled though it looks great on the tabletop and I look forward to seeing this guy duking it out with my Khurasan DIMOG's and Micro Panzer WarBots!


All in all a solid set of releases. I only hope we get to see more of those NAC power armoured troopers in the future!

RAFM's Imp APC Gets a Firepower Upgrade!

RAFM have announced that their Imp 15mm Sci Fi APC has got some additional firepower. The Imp will now come with two different weapons options a dual mount missile launcher (left) and a twin cannon auto gun (right) allowing the vehicle to be outfitted for different roles on the tabletop battlefield.

Triorb Invasion

Breaking new from 15mm.co.uk!

Heya Folks,

15mm.co.uk have just released the Triorbs, a brand new pack in the HOF 15mm Science Fiction range.

The Triorbs are classic bad guys, evil machines, perhaps even hailing from Mars with their technicolour eyes and gun mount all swathed in robes. Great for gaming on the red planet, or retro 1950's pulp gaming too. Henchmen or other nastiness in the forces of your alien empire.  Each Triborb is armed with a belt mounted heat beam and is approx 14mm tall.  Suitable for use with Alien Squad Leader and many more systems.

Martians?  Droids?  Retro 1950's gaming joy?  Denizens of the pulp red planet?  Or something else?  Add them to your alien forces today!

The Triorbs come as a pack of ten miniatures in a mix of three poses and can also be purchased as single castings.

You can buy the pack here

Or the single figures here

Thanks for Reading,

Alexander Scott.

Ground Zero Games - new releases available

Ground Zero Games has made the new releases from the Colours convention available to everyone: 

Crusty Combat Walkers (link)

Resculpted NAC Power Armor (link)

Heavy Crusty Infantry in Environment Suits (link)

I know I'll be placing an order soon - I can easily put all three releases into immediate service.  I'll use the Heavy Crusties as command teams for my current army.  And if the new NAC PA minis are a taste of what's to eventually come for all Tuffleyverse factions, we'll be watching very closely.

Cheers,

Chris

Review - Critical Mass Games Kaamados Dominion Buildings

A few weeks ago, Critical Mass Games released the Kaamados Dominion building range. I'd been hoping for a range of alien terrain since the current 15mm Sci Fi boom started, and that's exactly what these delivered. My wife bought two of them for me on their release date (happy birthday to me!). They arrived quickly, and I was very impressed by what I held.

The buildings look great on the Critical Mass website. They were even better when I had them in my hands. Big, chunky, and clearly not made by anyone from Earth. The size is impressive - the two buildings I have are just right for my 2' x 2' table.

It took me a few weeks to decide on the right color scheme, but I finally painted them over the weekend:

I ended up using a cheap copper metallic spray paint as a basecoat. The color looks great on my Red Planet terrain set... it looks like they belong to this type of environment. I painted the hatches and windows silver, painted the bases to match my terrain, and applied a black wash between the panel segments and over the hatches. I still haven't painted the interiors, but there is plenty of detail that can be picked out.

For now, these buildings will belong to my Micropanzer Krystrial aliens. But they could be used for quite a few other sci-fi roles. GZG's Sci-Fi Egyptians could guard them from the human Assault Teams; Rebel Scourge or 15mm.Co.Uk Automatons could use them in a 15mm Necron role, or they could even fit in with the 1978 Battlestar Galactica aesthetic using Astro Minis' Sybots. Even if you play exclusively with humans, these could be the remnants of some ancient civilization on some distant world.

If you're looking to add any kind of alien terrain to your collections, you could do far worse than these buildings!

Cheers,

Chris K.

Ground Zero Games to produce Tomorrow's War minis!

From Shawn at Ambush Alley Games:

Ambush Alley Games is proud to announce that it is working closely with Ground Zero Games to produce a licensed line of Tomorrow’s War 15mm science fiction figures. More details will follow soon, but Shawn Carpenter had these comments at Fall Recruits, where AAG and Osprey debuted Tomorrow’s War to a general gaming audience:

“I can’t say how excited I am to have the opportunity to work with one of the pioneers of the ‘15mm SF Revolution.’ I’m proud to have Jon Tuffley (owner of Ground Zero Games miniatures) working on figures to directly support our Tomorrow’s War background. Don’t worry, though, the figures we’re working on will be perfectly usable in other backgrounds, too. They’ll be the sort of well-designed military SF figures that are the norm for GZG, so they’ll be at home in any hard military SF setting you drop them into.”

Watch the Ambush Alley Games website and forum for further news.


I think this is a major announcement for all 15mm sci-fi gamers.  Everything GZG produces is top-notch... and if any figures are produced on some of the Tomorrow's War artwork, we're in for a real treat.  Stay tuned to the Dropship for more news.

Cheers,
Chris

Review - Rebel Minis Command Packs

Rebel Minis recently added command packs for three major infantry groups - Earthforce Marines, Titan Marines, and Earthforce Droptroopers. Of these, only the Droptroopers had a command pose included with the infantry packs, so these were welcome additions. I quickly ordered some of each, since I use all three lines pretty regularly. They arrived VERY quickly - I've never had any complaints about Rebel's service or shipping times.

Overall, Martin Baker did a pretty good job sculpting these minis. They are the same quality as their infantry predecessors in terms of detail, scale, proportion, and quality of casting. And they are holding the same assault weapons as the infantry - no sci-fantasy officers holding swords and pistols here. Each pack includes three poses - and here's the one of the two minor complaints I have. The command packs for three different forces each come with the exact same poses. One mini is standing and holding a tablet-style electronic device. I really like these... they can be scanners, communication/network interfaces, or even controllers for drones or remote demolitions. Then there are two team leader sculpts making hand signals - one is standing, one is kneeling.

This is the other small complaint I have. The Droptroopers infantry pack includes a kneeling trooper. The Earthforce infantry pack doesn't, but you can find a kneeling trooper in the gun team pack. But there isn't currently a pose of Titan Marines kneeling with assault weapons - in a squad, this leader will be the only trooper who isn't standing. But that's fairly nitpicky - it's a testament to these packs if these are the only faults I see!

Overall, these should be just what everyone has been waiting for to round out their fireteams and squads. There may still be room for "high command" figures, but Rebel Minis did a great job of creating leaders for these three ranges.

Cheers,
Chris K.

Review: CorSec Engineering Omni-Stand and dice docks

The Omni-Stand system.

A couple of days ago I found a small package from CorSec Engineering waiting for me as I got home. It contained review copies of a few of their products, the most intriguing being their Omni-Stand system - a new type of detachable and re-attachable flying stand. There were also a few different dice docks and their new plasma/flamer template(s) for 5150: Star Army in the package.

First off, "who are CorSec Engineering?" some of you might think. It's a fairly young company and so far they are mostly known in spaceship gaming gaming circles because of their space gaming mats, flying stands and other space/naval themed products. However, Jonathan is also an avid 15mm gamer and he has a long list of future products he would like to make. Besides gaming aides like tokens and templates they have roads and a corridor system is in the works and further down the line we will hopefully see some futuristic urban terrain for 15mm terrain as well! Jonathan is sure to point out that this is a fair bit off though, so don't start holding your breath quite yet.

Over to the review!

As I was most curious about the Omni-Stand lets start there. I was planning to try them out on a couple of GZG VTOL gunships, but then I remembered that I hadn't actually ordered them yet. So for this article I used one of my EDF battleships as a stand in, but it applies just as well to 15mm gaming. Imagine it being a nice big hovertank and you'll be fine. Anyway...

Being a starship gamer I've battled with this problem before; should I simply glue the flying stands to the model, meaning they will be that much more cumbersome to transport, or should I leave them un-glued, meaning that the model will (at best) not be that stable and tend to swivel around - that is if it's even possible to detach and re-attach the stand at all. I used to glue mine, but as got more and more models it was simply not practical any more. So I started thinking about alternatives. I've experimented with inserting magnets in the top of the stand and in the model and while that does kind of work it doesn't feel entirely secure. And if you have any kind of scenic base (like for a hovertank!) you can pretty much forget about it as it will probably weigh too much for the magnets to cope. Another solution I had been considering was using some kind of screw mechanism and fasten it that way but my experiments have all lead to a rather unsightly clump underneath the model.

The mount glued to the model.

Now CorSec Engineering has released a much more refined version of the screw mechanism than I ever managed to come up with. They call it the Omni-Stand and it consists of the acrylic base itself, the metal peg and the actual mount which is also metal. The peg connects to the base and the mount by way of the screws at either end. So you glue the mount to the model and then simply screw the stand together (if you don't understand what I'm on about here's a video)! It's very sturdy and infinitely reusable. One thing I was worried about at first was that you would have to be very careful how you glued the mount to the model to be sure the base was aligned in the right position when you screwed it on. This little problem has been solved by adding small rubber "washers" to both ends of the stand which allows you to perfectly adjust the model each time you mount it. It's a small thing, but it shows that quite a bit of thought has been put into this system.

As you can see the mount is discrete and doesn't interfere much with the design of the model.

There we go. Ready for some paint!

It's also worth mentioning that there are several different additions to the stands, like the telescoping rod and the different magnet additions.

The only thing that might put some people off this product is the fact that the peg is metal and not transparent acrylic. It's not a problem at all if you paint your stands but if you prefer the clear look you might want to think a twice about it. To me the benefits with this system far outweighs this fact and I think it's a small price to pay to be able to dissasemble and re-assemble your flying stands this easily. I might come across like some telemarketer here, but I really like these things! If you want to see more just check out the homepage, especially the tutorials.

Different dice docks (I like the orange mine dock!) with some of my 15mm minis for scale.

The dice docks are made mostly to mark book keeping dice on the tabletop so you don't pick them up by mistake and work as intended. There are also dice docks made to use with the Omni-Stand and while these have been made mostly with starship gaming in mind I can see how having a gravtank's hit points etc displayed right there on the stand could come in handy.

Plasma/flamer template.

The plasma/flamer template for 5150: Star Army is made up of a three inch acrylic template to place at the point of impact and a set of ten one inch long 'puzzle pieces' that you can lay out along the lane of fire. In the 5150 rules these weapons create effects that remain on table so you need some way of marking it. This set provides a quick way of doing that. I don't know how common these weapons are in the game, but this seems like a nifty solution!

"Burn Earther scum!!"

For us 15mm gamers I think CorSec is definitely a company to keep an eye on. There aren't all that many non-affiliated companies out there making gaming aides in general and especially not for 15mm. Their selection might be a bit limited at the moment but it will grow with time. Jonathan told me that the problem they're facing is the fractured nature of 15mm gaming which makes it hard to know where to focus their resources. He is eagerly waiting to see what happens with Tomorrow's War and if that will help unite our community. Also, I'm sure Jonathan and the others at CorSec would appreciate any input you have. Let your voice be heard in the comments!

Cataloging Non-Military Humans in 15mm

Since these posts have proven to be extremely helpful to our readers, I thought I'd take a look at some of the options we have to field rogues, pirates, adventurers, and civilians in our 15mm games. 15mm Sci Fi is extremely popular in army-vs-army games right now, especially with this year seeing the release of Gruntz, 5150:Star Army, and Tomorrow's War. But 15mm also gives us a good variety of minis to use in narrative skirmish games. Rules like Salvage Crew, Mutants and Death Ray Guns, AE Bounty, and In The Emperor's Name favor a handful of characters instead of a uniformed army. These can be used to create bustling star ports, research and mining colonies, or any other setting that doesn't call for an attack by a platoon of mechanised infantry.

The largest variety can probably be found at 15mm.Co.Uk:

• Laserburn has dozens of them under the Adventurers and Star Soldiers, Starship Crews, Mercenaries headings. And since these are available as single castings, you can inexpensively collect a wide variety of these minis. They even have some nice civilian vehicles available.
• The HOF Humanity range offers Cultists, Rim Mercenaries, Post-Apoc Warriors, Starfighter Crews, Trators, and Refugees.

Ground Zero Games has a pretty sizeable catalog as well:

• There are nine different packs available under the Civilians and Colonists range. Several more packs available if you're looking for humans in zero-gee suits.
• Under the Human Characters category we find the extremely popular "Free Trader" crew packs A and B, as well as the excellent Ravager packs.

RAFM has a few interesting packs on the ex-Citadel Traveller page:

• Space Vixens
• Space Pirates
• Guerillas
• Crewmen
• The Support Staff pack might also be worth a look for character minis, but these are mostly aliens and droids.

Rebel Minis has an eclectic mix of non-uniformed humans:

• Titan Scouts
• Gun Clerics
• Black Widow Mercs
• Under the Gangs, Gunmen, and More range you'll find Post-Apoc Riders, Motorcycle Gangs, Post-Apoc Gangers, Post Apoc Survivalists, and many more. While these aren't typical sci-fi minis, many will still work with the right paint job.
• While you're at Rebel's website, check out the modern lines too. Again, the right paint scheme can make almost any mini work for 15mm sci fi.

Khurasan Minis normally has quite a few options in their post-apoc and Arkham Horror ranges, but those aren't available this summer. But we can still get:

• DPLS Space Crew
• Heroes of Sepulvedan Resistance and Villains of the Sepulvedan Control Forces. If you've never seen these minis in person, you won't believe they are 15mm!

Highlander Studios has some entertaining options in their Gideon's Dust range.

Kremlin Minis has a few great character minis, especially Commander Vortan and Commissar Kang.

Splintered Light Minis has their own version of a 15mm freighter crew. And don't forget... just because these minis are sculpted to resemble a certain popular sci-fi show and movie, a different paint scheme could yield entirely different characters.

Stan Johansen Miniatures offers an Adventurers pack.

I hope this catalog helps to inspire your games. Even if you are fighting platoon-vs-platoon, a handful of these minis would be great hostages, bystanders, or objectives. But if you're playing narrative games, you'll want to paint up as many of these as you can. There are quite a few unique alien minis out there too, and we may cover them in a follow up article. I've set a personal goal to do between 3 and 5 of these every week to support my 15mm In The Emperor's Name campaigns!

Cheers,
Chris

The Department - final week of fundraising

This was sent to us by the people behind The Deparment - the noir-style skirmish game we previewed last month:

The Kickstarter drive is entering its final week. We’ve raised over $2000 for the game so far. A big thanks to everyone who has already pledged, but we still need more pledges to reach our funding goal.

Kickstarter uses all or nothing funding, so if we fail to make our funding goal, no money changes hands and the game will not be produced.

We’ve got a lot of great rewards such as T-shirts and posters, not to mention signed, numbered copies of the rules. Our lead illustrator, Dave Powell will even draw your face into the final game artwork.

All backers will be acknowledged in the rules. So if you like Goalsystem or investigation gaming, consider backing the project.

For more information, see their website: link.

SPOTLIGHT: 15mm.co.uk

The Dropship recently caught up with Gavin Syme of 15mm.co.uk to find out more about the company and get a peek at some forthcoming releases.

HOF74 Cultist Heavy Weapons

First off, how did you get into Table Top Wargaming?

I have been involved with the wargaming hobby on and off for most of my life. Aside from breaks for university and jobs outside of the hobby, I have been playing since I was a wee lad. I lived in Nottingham in the 1980s and got into it through my father so, in addition to Citadel and TSR games and figures, I had a lot of smaller scale ancients and fantasy from other makers. You could say I was steeped in the hobby and I have been penning rules and other materials since then.

Can you tell us how 15mm.co.uk got started and how running the business has changed over the years?

Back in 2005 after some discussion I decided that taking Alternative Armies sizeable 15mm ranges and moving them into a separate space of their own was the right thing to do. Hence 15mm.co.uk was born. It has subsequently been proven that this was the right thing to do since 15mm.co.uk has grown and grown over the years and gamers like the focus on one scale. How has running the business changed? Well we have started publishing our own titles away from Alternative Armies and we are doing more and more direct business with customers rather than through retailers. The evolution of the internet and blogging has changed our approach as well. Excellent blogs such as this one and sites such as TMP have allowed us to actually 'speak' to gamers and now we get much more feedback than we used to. Even five years ago this technology did not exist and I for one am really enjoying being able to speak to customers who have invested in 15mm.co.uk.

What are your general plans for 15mm.co.uk in relation to Science Fiction and your sci-fi ranges like HOF, SHM and Laserburn?

We intend to keep on trucking! Our general plans are to make more miniatures for our science fiction ranges and also to offer more content for them on www.barking-irons.co.uk our online magazine site. Our biggest 15mm science fiction range is HOF which is known the world over and now has about one hundred different packs in its ranks. We are going to focus on infantry and aliens in this range just as we have been doing with the Octopods, the Zidhe and specialist packs like our Starfighter Crew and Droids. We currently have no plans to produce more miniatures for the classic Laserburn range and from what our customers tell us they are happy with the large selection of types already in that range. The SHM range was my own idea and its sole ambition is to give designers who are starting out the chance to get some of their designs into production - Designs that most makers would not consider as single miniatures. I have hundreds of messages of support in this, and yes we are producing more oddities for your sci-fi armies this year!

SHM Krators group shot

What are your general plans for rule sets such as Alien Squad Leader (ASQL), USE ME and Laserburn?

I think that rules systems are the heart and soul of 15mm science fiction gaming. We all love miniatures but some of us really love rules too and since 2005 I have been trying to get more and more titles released on to our site. Alien Squad Leader (ASQL) is one of the finest honed rules sets on the market, unique in its mechanics and in its approach to gaming too. Alex Self, author of ASQL, and I have discussed the future of the game and while I cannot go into details he is still very much behind his 'baby'. You can get into ASQL on its own yahoo group here. Currently we have no plans to produce more material for Laserburn but this might change in the future.

USE ME stands for 'Ultra Simple Engine for Miniature Engagements' and it does what it says on the tin. I am very grateful to this blog for supporting us in the launch of USE ME 15mm Science Fiction, and being in part responsible for its print run selling out twice last year and this year. In addition to the free files I have produced with optional rules for everything from hive minds to droids to the weather we have more USE ME files coming this year. While I'm focusing on sci-fi I can say that in addition to UM006 Starship Battles we have my own Zombie rules set coming and Omer Golan's Post Apocalypse rules set too. More on these on this blog when the time comes! As an additional bit of information, the playtesting of mine and Bob Minadeo's HOF Fire-Team rules went very well and after a hiatus 15mm.co.uk intends on putting these unique grid based sci-fi rules out after the next few USE ME titles.

How do you think the hobby looks now compared to when you started out?

The hobby has changed a lot since 15mm.co.uk began and even more since I got involved with Alternative Armies in the 1990's. Wargaming was and still is a social hobby among friends at clubs and in private homes but the means by which we play has changed. The wide network of gaming stores has largely gone as have the distributors; replaced with the internet. The hobby is now more direct. Ten years ago I virtually never spoke to customers directly except at shows like Salute, now its a daily occurrence. Blogs, forums, groups and so on now occupy some of my time and they never did before. More recently the movement towards electronic publishing has made big inroads to the printed book part of the hobby. Indeed while we primarily publish in paper we have begun issuing e-books (currently the first few USE ME titles with more to follow).

A special mention must be given to the whole revolution in 15mm science fiction gaming that has taken place in the last few years. I think that 15mm.co.uk had a hand it in but its a lot more than just us. From a sub-set to a genre of gaming in its own right 15mm sci-fi has gone from strength and shows no sign of slowing. It has way more miniatures and sets of rules than it did in 2005.

So in conclusion I would say the hobby is a lot more open and fun now.

Gavin Syme

A Little Look at some Rebel Minis

During the last week or so, a number of anticipated parcels arrived in the letterbox. One of the first was from Rebel Minis. Along with the Earth Force Armoured Troops (MAEF8) and Earth Force Droptroopers (RMDT1) – both excellent packs of figures and I need to get more of them. And if I could paint them half as well as Jeff Racel has done, as seen on TMP, I would be a happy man! – I picked up some other figures that might be of interest.

There has been a lot of talk about ‘In the Emperor’s Name’ recently, a Dark Future version of the FUBAR family of one page rules-with-setting. Now, I’m not a fan of the 28mm Dark Future wargame rules, produced by a certain large, UK based company, but having had the opportunity of playing the role-playing game, ‘Dark Heresy’, I found myself quite enjoying the film-noirishness of the setting. With that idea floating about in my head, I picked up a pack each of the Titan Scouts (RMTS1) and the Earth Force Gun Clerics (RMGC1).

The great-coated Gun Clerics come in a pack of 8 – two each of four poses, two male and two female – and appear fairly static. As such, they are ideal for characters in a skirmish-level game, characters in a role-playing game, or for converting into officer types. With a round of plastic card and some Green Stuff, an outrageously wide-brimmed hat could be built on, or with a simple head-swap, a Russian Senior Officer’s head could be added, for that distinctive Inquisitor or General look. Alternatively, removing the guns and adding mechanical paraphernalia could create a passable Techpriest.

Straight out of the bag, these figures could be detectives, or agents, or sinister villains, or even Cult leaders. With a little bit of modification, their versatility increases.

The Titan Scouts look rather malevolent. Great, dynamic poses but the bald heads and blank-eyed goggles just make them look sinister. I assume that the goggles are some form of Light Intensifier or I/R eyewear to enable the Scouts to sneak around. As figures, I really like them. As character types, or as Morlocks or Underhive denizens, they look perfect. Alternatively, they could be cultists or Aftermath survivalists. I’m thinking pale, or white, skin and blues and blacks for their jump suites. Perhaps silver or gloss black lenses on their eyewear.

Along with the Scouts and Gun Clerics, I also picked up a pack of Gang Task Force figures (RMGTF1) from the Gangs, Gunmen, Hostages and More range. These guys were a bit of a punt for me, but I’m quite pleased with them.

Like the Gun Clerics, the Task Force members are in fairly static poses –standie aboutie as Mark calls them – which works for a couple of them, but is an opportunity missed for the aiming figure (middle of the group) and the drawing figure (extreme right). For these two, something a little more dynamic, perhaps semi crouched like the Titan Scouts, would have really set this group off. As they are, they are well-detailed, functional figures that will make good characters, guards or general NPCs. I’m thinking of modifying the shotgun-armed guy (second from left) by turning his gun into a laser carbine just to SciFi him a bit.

And finally, the Post Apoc Riders (RMPAR1). A thread about mounted modern or post apocalypse riders appeared on TMP late last year/early this year, around the time the film “The Postman” was on release in US cinemas. As threads go, this one flourished and then faded. A little while later Rebel Minis announced the release of their Post Apoc Riders. There was little response from the TMP-o-sphere, which rather surprised me, as it seemed to fill a niche.

Curious, I ordered a pack. I received five riders and five horses. Three of the riders have their rifles with the barrel up, one is attempting to fire from the saddle, and one is resting his rifle across his saddle. These are very nice figures with a lot of character and detail and I’m really pleased with them.

The horses, of which there are also five, are all of one pose and, to be honest, I think they are a little on the average side – undeveloped withers, undeveloped shoulders, saddle blanket too large, neck out of scale. Now, there will be some who won’t be worried as a horse has a leg at each corner, a hay addiction, and is there purely to move people around. Personally, I would try and track down some American Civil War horses and swap them in – I’ve painted an awful lot of horses for my Renaissance armies and bad horses do bug me a little. Alternatively, we could say that these are horse-analogs – ponis, if you will – and paint them with stripes, or add horns, or otherwise modify them to show that they only look a little like horses, they aren’t really horses.

Having said all that, the riders are really worth the price of admission and I will be buying a couple more sets, I think. I have discovered that, with no modification, I could easily mount the riders on a number of alternate rides –


GZG’s New Israeli gravbike


15mm.co.uk’s Asgard Hunting Lizard (MSM45L)

15mm.co.uk's Laserburn Jetbike (207a)


In all, a great selection of figures from Rebel Miniatures and I'm looking forward to painting them up.

- David

GZG at COLOURS 2011

This just in from Jon at Ground Zero Games:

................................

COLOURS 2011:

Next weekend (10th/11th Sept) we will be at NEWBURY RACECOURSE for COLOURS. We'll be in our usual spot, just to the right of the main public entrance. This week I'm working flat-out to get enough stock made for the show, so as explained on the front page of our online store, there won't be any orders mailed out this week - but I'll be catching up on them as quickly as possible once the show is over.

Now, there are several bits of info that are relevant to this show:

1) There SHOULD, if the Gods of Mouldmaking are kind, be some NEW 15mm items out in time for the show. These should include the first of the long-awaited NEW-SCULPT NAC POWER ARMOUR, plus some new items for the CRUSTIES - some "heavy" infantry in armoured suits, and an all-new Crusty medium combat walker about 32mm tall, which will be supplied with several arm, leg and weapon variants!
Production of these will be right down to the wire before I load the van, so there won't be any details of them online before the show - you'll just have to come along and see them! Once the show is over, I'll get them up on the store for mailorder as soon as possible.

2) An apology to the Vacc-Heads (FT fans) out there - I had really, really meant to have the FT JAPANESE fleet ready for re-release in time for this show, but it hasn't happened. With luck and a following wind, I may get them done before SELWG, or at least by WARFARE at the end of the show year.

3) Some very GOOD NEWS for those of you able to make it to the show - remember how I had said that Games Expo, back in June, would be the last chance to get our stuff at the old pre-increase prices? Well, my intention was to re-label and re-price everything in the show stock and displays over the summer, so that by Colours they would all match the new website prices..... but, as usual everything has taken longer and been busier than expected, with much more mailorder over the summer than usual, and the bottom line is that I haven't been able to do it yet - so at COLOURS, VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING WILL STILL BE AT THE PRE-INCREASE PRICES for what I hope will be one last time! This means that most items we have with us will be something like 10%-20% less than the current website prices, and in the case of the already-discounted boxed deals you'll be making anything up to a 30% saving!
I MUST get the re-pricing done before the next show (SELWG), so this really will be the last and only opportunity at the old prices - DON'T MISS IT!

Right, I'm getting back to making moulds and casting stock, hope to see lots of you there next weekend!

Jon, Sunday 4th Sept.
http://www.gzg.com/