Wednesday 19 December 2012

Combat 3000 has arrived!


This is so cool........


Even the errata sheets and such like are there......



Brilliant Tony Yates sketch of Citadel Spacefarers Star Lane Pirates...........


Oops...a not Klingon happened to appear....


and all for the princely sum of £1.95 from Games. How I miss that shop. I used to frequent the Liverpool one and it was a trove of the weird and wonderful......


Monday 10 December 2012

Combat 3000 - Infantry Combat in the Year 300


Just picked up a copy of this old ruleset....more once it arrives including a better pic!


Possibly a fore-runner to Warhammer 40K / Rogue Trader by Richard Halliwell and Richard Priestley.......why is it Mr Halliwell is always known as Richard and Mr Priestley is always known as Rick? Anyway, pics on the front are very old Asgard Minis.......

Saturday 8 December 2012

Some gladiator minis........finally finished....


Some years in the painting........all are Wargames Foundry who look to be revamping themselves under Bryan Ansell's son Marcus. Fingers crossed that he keeps pushing things the way forward as he has been! They are having a Warhammer 40K nostalgia game on Saturday 15th December that I would love to go to but am unfortunately working the night before.........if anyone gets the chance to go and picks up a spare of the mini they are giving away please think of me.....





Also  managed to finally pick up a copy of the old Tony Ackland Asgard Miniatures sculpt FM85 Lord of Chaos mounted and on foot. All things come to he who waits...............





God I love the old school stuff!

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Dragon Magazine No.15 June 1978


I was fortunate enough to finally get a copy of this magazine - I have been after it for ages for a decent look at an unknown Minifigs Valley of the Four Winds miniature - see below....looks kind of like a dog headed foot stool. Centre piece was a poster as a '2nd Birthday Present'.......






If anyone can identify this missing piece please let me know.....

Friday 23 November 2012

Quick update on the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost......


Now very green.....................lots more work to do......


Driver is from a new pack of 4 by Empress Miniatures sculpted by the uber-talented Paul Hicks.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Mark Copplestone releases White Russian Lancers


At last some new bits for Back of Beyond!

BU50 White Russian lancers in Chinese service............


Hopefully this means Mark will be back to sculpting for his own ranges!

Link to the shop here.

Friday 9 November 2012

WIPs............cos' otherwise no posts......


A couple of bits I am working on at the moment until they get shelved for the next big thing......

A Corgi 1912 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that I picked up off evil bay for a fiver......stated 'for refurbishment' and boy, he wasn't kidding........took a while to separate the bits for clean and now it's coming along nicely. This will be a machine gun toting command vehicle for some Chinese Warlord or VBCW officers at some point if it gets finished....






Thought I'd pick up a couple of old Doctor Who figures from Black Tree Design to check the range out.........they found a bunch of their old licenced range and the sculpts are actually really nice. Must pick up more before they run out.

The 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)


The 5th Doctor (Peter Davison)


Slow progress on a Warhammer Town Hall sort of thingy.......at least that's what it started as...where it will end up I don't know.



Last but not least I was sent a box of old lead which included an old Citadel Fantasy Tribe Orc variant I don't have.....almost finished painting him......gotta love those dentures......


Sunday 28 October 2012

Judge Minty - charity for Judge Dredd.....


Dags of Frothers Unite fame has organised a great charity miniature that every home should own.....please give generously as they are a worthy bunch of causes...I spoke to Dags today at Fiasco and it is going really well.......more bits are being sculpted as we speak so the more we raise, the more mini goodness is available!


 Who needs Dredd when you can have Judge Minty?


This year’s Charity mini is a sculpt of the eponymous hero of the forthcoming Fan Film Judge Minty sculpted by Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures based on the character written by John Wagner that introduced The Long Walk in 1980.


There will be approximately 400 Judge Mintys cast – 200 in Metal and 200 in Trollcast.......

So here’s the sculpt……


As always, there are numerous people that deserve huge thanks for getting this project off the ground….

The cast and crew of Judge Minty, in particular, Steven Sterlacchini, Steve Green, Daniel Carey-George and, Minty himself, Edmund Dehn – without them it would not be happening.

Matt Sprange from Mongoose Publishing and the guys at Rebellion for allowing us to infringe on Mongoose’s license and 2000AD’s IP. Again, without Matt’s help this would not be happening.

Kev White for the sculpting (and Sally for letting him do it!)

Pete Brown and Ed Fortae for the casting


So how do you get your Judge Minty mini?

Easy…. Make a donation to one or both of the Just Giving Sites:



Then, and this is the important bit because it’s changed from past years, send an e-mail to charitymini AT gmail DOT com with;

1. Your Name
2. The address you want the mini sent to
3. Your Just Giving reference number
4. Your preference as to Metal or Trollcast or both

You won’t get an instant reply but will get an e-mail informing you of dispatch

There is no minimum donation per se. I've always hated telling people what they should give; it should be what you can afford but if you would like multiple copies I'd suggest £15 per mini – all money is going to the charity of your choice. 

However, to shamelessly cash in on the Kickstarter fever that appears to be gripping most at the moment, the more you donate, the more you’ll get…. The first extra will be an exclusive Frothcity 1 base designed and cast by Ian (Fenris Games) Brumby (assuming he’s still alive and hasn't died of pleurisy!) that will go to everyone donating £25 or more. There’ll be more, hopefully to follow...

Postage is being covered by a mystery Frother but, especially if you’re outside the UK, take that into account when making your donation and add in a little extra J

When will you get your miniatures?

Even though we’re a bit more organised than usual these things take time especially as everyone is doing this in their spare time around their usual work. 

Firstly Grey Matter will be moulding and casting a few in resin. Then he'll be off to Pete for Master moulding & master casting. Those masters are then shipped off to Ed in the States. Production moulding and casting and return shipping all takes time especially with the holiday season approaching. Hopefully they’ll be going out in late February.

Lastly, a huge thank you to you guys; without your generosity we’d never be able to continue.

Quick update. (22nd Feb 2013) ..... Jon has received the cast minis......


Thursday 25 October 2012

Not strictly fantasy.......


Well, actually not fantasy at all....... I picked up a bunch of miscellaneous lead the other week off evil bay because it included some GHQ 'Guardsmen 25s' - never heard of or seen them before so I was intrigued. Very nice figures from the 80s possibly? Haven't researched them yet...Fusiliers and Scots Troopers...more info when I have it. New Hope Design were an English company I followed avidly in the 70s and 80s based up in Northumberland - lots of 54mm and a few 25mm....they imported/produced the incredible 1/285 US GHQ military models.



  


Postscript on this as I had an answer off GHQ in the US to my general query;

The Guardsmen were 20mm Napoleonic figures that GHQ produced a long time ago.  Unfortunately they are ancient history at this point (probably about 40 years old), and we don't have any information easily available to give you.  If you do a Google search for things like "GHQ Guardsmen 20", you will find that there are some people who have made scans of our old product listing for them, pictures of the packaging, etc.

So I did another search having found literally nothing on 'Guardsmen 25mm' - I came across this blog;

http://theoldmetaldetector.blogspot.co.uk/

Search on GHQ or check his labels. Brilliant pyramid of the hobby....you start at the top and it just gets better. Pics below with permission but check the site for more!



Also check out http://unfashionablyshiny.blogspot.co.uk/ for more old school goodness.

We are looking at February 1976 at the latest for these minis....Jeez, I was 14 at that point...just discovered Airfix magazine and possibly Military Modelling at some point later that year.....

Move on in the time machine.......................

I've also been working on some German AFVs for some while and have even started applying paint....then I decided to work on a resin French Char 2C...a real monster of a tank and worth chasing around t'internet for pics of the real thing. Black Tree Design for the Tiger Tank and SDKFZ 250... not sure of which version if truth be known but it's for an ongoing Ahnenerbe project so will have other bits added at some point. (Actually the 251/C courtesy of Deckarudo who also pointed out I'd mis-named the Char 2C as a 2B....doh!) The Tiger is all metal...not resin......The Char 2C was off Crouchie who sold his company to Warlord Games - they have a version of this so don't know if this was his original WIP? He only had a handful cast up. Nothing finished of course but ready for paint at some point in the not so distant future.....







Finally 4 gladiator types...well, 3 and a senator of some sort.....been in the paint queue for 4 years at least........still more work to do but thought this might give me the impetus to finish them!