Rebel Minis release Shalur Mercenary Pack

Rebel Minis is definitely turning into the go-to place for space opera forces! Here's the latest faction, hot on the heels of the Brog, Pangalactic Legion, and Vott armies. From the announcement:

Rebel Minis is proud to announce the newest release in our 15mm Sci-Fi line, The Shalur Mercenaries. The Shalur Mercenaries are Android Mercenaries. These Mercs-for-Hire will take any job if the price is right! Sculpted by PF, these are highly detailed and a must for any Sci-Fi gamer.Painted by Jason Moore!

The Shalur Mercenaries Infantry Pack contains 21 models has an SRP of $10.95.

 

The Shalur Mercenaries Command/Heavy Weapons contains 6 models has an SRP of $3.99

You can see these and our whole 15mm line at Rebelminis.com or Check out our blog at http://rebelminis.blogspot.com/ 

As Always, thank you for your support! 

These are easily among my favorite of PF's sculpts. They are absolutely perfect for an ultra-tech army, especially one that might also be controlling a force of primitive aliens or mechanized forces. They would also be ideal bad guys for Space Hulk/Guncrawl-type games.

Cheers,

Chris

Wired West, Pacific Federation, Power Armor, and Giant Lizards

If you've been following the development of Krazy Ivan's Wired West buildings, or if you're just looking to add some Firefly-themed buildings to your terrain collection, they are now available from GameCraft Minis.

Ivan designed a complete range of modular two-story buildings - complete with billboard-style signs and covered sidewalks. They are designed so that the roof and second story are removable, and you can fill them with apartments, saloons, jail cells, surgical clinics, terraforming research labs, or whatever else you can imagine. 

I could easily see colonists adopting this building style, especially for "early setup" of their settlements. The modular nature implies that these would be inexpensive and flexible, and they are a practical way to combine workspaces with living quarters. One of my own gaming settings is a moon terraformed for metal mining - primarily copper and titanium. I can see a moon like that having a single, centralized, wealthy spaceport (easily represented by GameCraft's Tomorrow's War buildings) distantly surrounded by a handful of mining settlements made with these buildings. I would just need to turn one of these buildings into a grav-train station, make sure both sets of buildings are painted in a way that they could be related (yet not identical), and have numerous tabletop options for a linked campaign setting.

I hope this trend of 1:100 Science Fiction MDF terrain continues. While they may never be as detailed as pewter or resin castings, they are a great way to quickly (and cheaply) build a dense battlefield for 15mm games.

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After teasing us with previews for the past few weeks, Brigade Models has released the first items in the Pacific Federation vehicle range. 

First up is the Cougar MBT. I like the turret weapon - it implies a higher level of technology than we've seen on many recent 15mm vehicles.

The Wombat APC follows the same general shape and style as the Cougar, but trades the massive turret for a smaller IFV-style version. It also adds troop access points to the main body - and it looks like passengers may be able to fire from overhead hatches. 

They're designed for a terrestrial faction, but I think the PacFed vehicles will end up serving in quite a few alien forces. I've been thinking about different armored vehicles to use with my Rebel Minis Pangalactic Legion and Khurasan Minis Jasmine Throne Foreign Battalion - these might fit the bill.

Keep an eye on the PacFed range - the Minigwal recon vehicle and Ocelot light tank won't be far behind these two vehicles.

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Khurasan Miniatures has added two new packs to the End Times post-apocalyptic range. 

The Government Forces in Power Armor now have command and heavy weapon figures available. 

While designed primarily to enforce the will of wasteland overlords, it's been pointed out that the Government Power Armor are ideal 15mm proxies for Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines - especially with the bare-headed leader. And if you don't see the resemblance in the catalog picture, take a look at Jeff Racel's use of the Crimson Fist chapter colors on the infantry figures. They're a pretty darn good option for the aspiring 40K-in-15mm gamers out there.

Also joining (or trying to eat) the Government Forces on the wastelands is the Mojave Pilgrim. These venomous beasts are regularly seen at lengths of 50' or more, as shown by this specimen:

Lots of potential with a monster like this, especially in games like Mutants & Death Ray Guns. The Pilgrim could be a complete opposing force by itself in a 15mm post-apocalyptic skirmish game!

Cheers,
Chris

Medics, Tomorrow Black, Sahadeen Platoons, and more

Some news and new releases from around the 15mm community:

New Releases:

• 15mm.Co.Uk have officially released the HOF Human Medical Team featured in this blog's last few posts. 
• Highlander Studios has taken over sales of the Tomorrow Black sci-horror/post-apocalyptic figure range sculpted (and formerly sold) by Battle Miniatures Emporium. The Abomination Collection is available as an assorted pack of vicious-looking things, and the Death Digger is available separately.
• Rebel Minis now offers a platoon pack of the popular Sahadeen infantry figures. Rebel's platoon packs are a great value - perfect starter packs for any new 15mm army.

News and Previews:

• Brigade Models has been teasing us with pictures of their upcoming Neo-Soviet, Pacific Federation, and resculpted/upscaled ONESS/German vehicles, along with some additional 15mm buildings. If you aren't a regular reader of their official blog, head over there and take a look!
• ArtCrime Productions shows us production castings of their upcoming Hadai figures.
• Armies Army presents greens of their Kickstarter-funded Commonwealth Troopers.

• Darkest Star Games has been showing teaser pics of the upcoming Anime-inspired Spec-Sec mecha, along with a few additions to the Colony 15 range.
• Rebel Minis shows off a few upcoming additions to the PF-sculpted Brog Empire range

• Zombiesmith are running a 15% off sale through February 14th.

The Medics Get A New Ride

Last night I showed you my shiny new HOF Combat Medic team from 15mm.Co.Uk. But how can I get these great new Medics to where they are needed most? There are plenty of great 15mm personnel and cargo movers that could serve in the role of battlefield ambulance... Zac suggested GZG Hover Trucks in last night's comments, but I had already selected my vehicle. Here's the Ravenstar Studios Jackal - Ambulance Variant.

Review - HOF Combat Medics from 15mm.Co.Uk

If you ordered science fiction minis from 15mm.Co.Uk in the past few weeks, you probably noticed a little Christmas gift in your shipment. I received mine last week (along with the Star Vikings and a few other items, but more about them later). For those of you who weren't able to take advantage of the free special - they will soon be available in the HOF Humanity range. And they are definitely worth adding to your collection.

GZG Review - New and Preview

Hello all,

This is the first in a few posts that have been a long-time coming. Jon from Ground Zero Games was kind enough to send me some samples and previews of some of his recently (and not so) released miniatures, for the purposes of review. Life got in the way but has calmed some, so here they are.

TW-DP1 DPRG Sample Pack

The DPRG Army Sample Pack contains two of the above fire teams, each containing two MGs, one leader, and two rifles. These figures were created as part of the partnership between Ambush Alley and GZG for the Tomorrow's War miniatures rules.

The details on these figures are as sharp and crisp as any of then ewer GZG figures and the casts had little to no flash or mold lines. These figures are wearing a swept back sort of helmet with visor and light body armor in the form of a solid chest piece with a flexible lower armor. Weapons are a nice combination of sleek and functional similar to many of the weapons seen in modern science fiction movies where real guns have been put into makeup and made to look like future weapons.

I feel that these troopers are well suited to everything from next generation warfare all the way into the more far-flung but grittier settings like Aliens. The helmets, visors, and ribbed armor even make them suitable for 1970s/early 80's science fiction such as Traveller or Star Frontiers. 

TW-RA1 RA Sample Pack

Another of the Tomorrow's War packs, TW-RA1 is structured identically as the above pack save that it represents a different faction. One again, two MGs, a leader, and two rifles.

These figures are a bit more hard scifi or what some people might refer to as speculative future figures and appear much more connected to current views of and designs for future warriors. They are depicted wearing a modern style helmet with monocular optics and some sort of head-mounted camera/light. Body armor is a segmented body piece and reinforced arm and leg fatigues with protective pads and guards. The weapons are much more "familiar" looking with the MGs looking like something off today's battlefield and the assault rifles a sleek, compact model with a forward grip.

Once again, the quality of these miniatures is very nice. Crisp details, minimal/no flash and no mold lines.

The next couple of reviews are for upcoming releases. These were sent to me without any heads-up and were a very happy surprise.

UNSC/H Hardsuited Infantry

These are another in Jon's series of updates on his older ranges. I am pretty sure this one has been on people's wish lists for some time and I think that while not entirely identical to the original figures, they are certainly a fair update of that aesthetic.

The samples I received, may constitute a full pack of figures, given GZG's normal pack layout, but i cannot be sure. It included two heavy gunners (SAW?) and six riflemen. There are a total of three different walking poses for the riflemen, giving these figures a rather menacing, afraid of nothing sort of feel. 

Aesthetically speaking, these figures differ from the original version in that the helmets seem to be slightly different shaped being swept up in the back. This gives them a marginally teardrop shape when viewed from the side. I suppose this would allow the helmet to clear things on the troopers back and when looking up.

I do have one minor gripe regarding these figures and that is that they do not seem to have much in common, aesthetically, with the UNSC Light Infantry other than their rifles. This is a very minor grumble and really could just be explained away by the difference in hard armor and light troops, but the lighter troops do look slightly higher concept than these whole definitely have a classic 70s/80s scifi look to them. However, I know plenty of people have wanted an update of these favorite GZG figs (myself included) and that is just what these are.

FSE Legionaires

I hadn't heard a murmur about these, so was very nicely surprised to find these two sample figures in my package. Once again, GZG has brought us a faithful update of the older range with both kepi and full helmeted troops offered. Armored details are clearly defined and show the original segmented body armor, shoulder plates and reinforced fatigue legs and arms.

CONCLUSIONS

All of these figures show just how nice the new and updated figures from GZG are. For the most part the details are all crisply sculpted with little in the way of soft detailing or "lazy" sculpting. Being new the molding and casting are all top notch as they should be with no slippage and minimal flash.

One personal favorite of the new figures is their consistent and very nice integral bases. Many people do not like the round bases but I find that they are very useful when securing the figures for painting as they give a greater area for my lightweight adhesives to grip onto so I don't have superglue them to my painting sticks. These are easy enough to clip off if i need to fit them onto a crowded base or the back of a vehicle.

More to come soon...

-Eli