Category Archives: News

Because of my role as Creative Manager of Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk I have access to material, news and information that will not be made public on the company websites for days or even weeks to come. I share it here in this category of posts.

A look at Miniature Wargames magazine No 352

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I got my advertisers copy of this months new Miniature Wargames magazine in the mail on Monday so I have it fairly close to those who line up at WHSmith newsagents at the weekend.  Now that the carnage of the The Thinker’s tenth birthday is over I can do a wee look at this issue.  So without further ado….

Miniature Wargames No 352

Cupola: Andrew Hubback does his editorial commentary as normal and this time he announces or hints at a refreshed design for the layout of MW coming next issue.  I look forward to seeing the rests of his feedback from the readers.  Feedback is vital in all industries and I often feel as if I operate in silence because if the customers who buy my titles and miniatures do not tell me what they think of them or what they would like to see it is really tough to improve!

Letters Page:  Good letters in this month especially one from John Treadaway (ah..fond memories of Full Thrust!) concerning the lack of non-historical materials in the magazine (not just MW but focused on it).  While this can mean Fantasy and Science Fiction it also means ‘what if’ scenarios from history too.  This is an important point to take up.  MW own survey last issue showed how much non-historical gaming there was at Salute 2012 and I commented then about its importance to the future of the industry especially among younger wargamers.

Boxing Clever at Fisticuffs:  Nigel Pell and Gary Mitchell report from the Fisticuffs show in Weymouth (south coast of England).  A good read this and its always good to hear of the joy and suffering that wargamers go through getting to shows.  I have not been to Fisticuffs (it would be a thousand mile round trip from Girvan!) but it looked like a fine event with a lot going on including a large game of GrUnTz put on by the Wessex Wyverns local club plus of course Gary’s own excellent Space Vixens from Mars was there; love that range!

The Attack on Raedykes Camp:  The third article in the series by Peter Hall on re-fighting Mons Graupius with the Hail Caesar wargame rules.  This time a Roman Marching Camp hobby article and run through of two games centred around it.  I studied this campaign at university and Peter does an excellent job in turning it to wargaming.

Apocalypse Vow:  It is going to be the end of the world on December 21st this year if you believe the long vanished Mayans.  This article by Gary Mitchell looks the this prediction along with Mayan warfare and ways to use it on the tabletop.  As to the end of the world…no way…I still got rules to write!

The Osaka Campaign:  Part two, and sadly the final, of Kevin Jones look at the rise of the Tokugawa family and the Japanese feudal wars.  One of my favourite nations and a period I know a lot about and in fact I own almost of the books the author quotes as sources.  An excellent summary with some wargaming notes and ideas too.

Scuffle at Shevardino:  Napoleon’s 1812 campaign and the smaller battle that came just before Borodino written by Chris Hahn.  This is a fine article with a lot of history, maps and wargaming material in it but it did not grab me much.  Perhaps I am not in a mood for Napoleonics just now (I am busy with my preparations for a ‘Martian’  terrain set for 28mm scale but that is another matter) so I read it and passed on.

15mm.co.uk’s advert for Renaissance miniatures..gosh it almost looks like a professional did it!

Don’t Forget Your Tomahawk:  I always look forward to Steve Eardley’s pages in MW because he ranges wide and far for material and always delivers a good read.  This time its an approach to wargaming the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years War if you come from the civilised side of the pond!) followed by a delve into the miniatures that can be had for the conflict.  Four excellent pages!

Wargaming Gettyburg Part Two:  Jon Sutherland offers up the second part of his series on wargaming the biggest battle of the American Civil War.  It is a well delivered and sharp article which is just as well as I am fairly tired of ACW as a period and of that battle in particular.  Good for fans of the period.

France 1940:  World War Two booty for fans of the most recent worldwide conflict.   Mark Freeth presents a report on a battle that recently took place at his Wargames Holiday Centre.  It reads like a plug for the place but hey its a good plug and I for one would love a weekend of Mark’s hospitality!

A Spreading Insurgency:  Mike Haran presents a system for wargaming the action when the recent Arab Spring turns to a cold, cold Arab Winter of war and terrorism.  For me this near future article is the best one in this issue. Presenting a squared grid of the Middle East and surrounding regions along with outcomes allows for massive variety and unknowns in play.  Added to this is a system of unit deployment, spies, situations.  Excellent all around and could be adapted to a sci-fi setting with ease.

Darker Horizons: This time headed up ‘Redundancy’ Gary Mitchell begins my favourite part of the magazine by outlining his potential woes of facing the loss of his teaching post and having to do the ‘trolley shuffle’ so loved by the middle aged all across Britain’s thousands of supermarkets.  I wish him luck and while its not the purpose of this posting or this blog to get political it does make you wonder if teaching children is about experience or being cheap…ah but lets carry on.  Gary crams and I mean crams information into the pages listing all the current happenings of two dozen companies and fifty or more releases.  Black Cat Bases get a feature of their new ‘between scales’ Grey Aliens and Sheep while some other person gets a mention about his ‘amazing sci-fant empire.  I wonder where he finds the time?’…what can I say, not much sleep, fast typing, a strong work ethic and a loving wife.

MOTH and Me get a mention! 

Book Reviews: A collection of reviewers look at Twilight of the Hellanistic World (Pen & Sword), The Fall of English France (Osprey), Austrian Seven Years War Cavalry and Artillery (Ken Trotman Publishing), Napoleons Swiss Troops (Osprey), Forts of the War of 1812 (Osprey), The Eastern Front 1914-20 (Amber Books) and a biography of Georgy Zhukov (Osprey).  Good reviews but all I can say is thank heaven for Osprey eh, otherwise what would the review pages do!  I often think that a wargames magazine should review wargame rules as well as military history books in its pages; after all it is aimed at the wargaming hobby.

All in all a good read and recommended for those of you who can get it.   But then I would say that…I am in it!

GBS

Advertising in Miniature Wargames Issue 351 – Results!

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We were approached at 15mm.co.uk by Media Shed who are the advertisers of Miniature Wargames magazine to take out adverts with them.  After discussion we decided on a series of three adverts with them in issues 351,352,353.  A  It had been quite a while since we last advertised in a UK magazine so we decided to give it a go and see what happened.  It is now into the release month of the second of those three agreed issues so that means the statistics for the first month’s advert are now complete.  So, how did this advert work out?

Using a combination of customer responces to email and also web statistics and traffic to certain pages of the 15mm.co.uk website along with information from the previous three months of the same sources we came to the following conclusions about this advert.

   1.  Total website visits to both Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk dropped by 10% during the four weeks the MW351 advert ran.

   2. The pages of the 15mm.co.uk website dealing with the subject of the advert (the USE ME Series of titles) rose in the rankings of pages by popularity ending in second place for that period.

  3. Of the total sales of paper books covered by the MW351 advert some 40% can be directly attributed to viewing the advert in print.

  4. Sales of the download titles in the USE ME Series doubled during the period of the advert.

  5.  The advert was a reasonable success with an uplift over normal in sales and interest in the USE ME Series.  However it was not as successful as other email and postal campaigns on the same subject with a lesser cost involved to the company.

So in conclusion we are satisfied with the results of the advert and look forward to the results of the next two in issues 352 and 353.

I have started a thread over on the Notables Yahoo Group asking how many of its 550 members regularly read Miniature Wargames magazine and of them how many saw and acted on the advert for USE ME.  Also if what kind of advert they prefer, listings, information and so on.

Lastly those of you who read my blog and are not members of the Notables or prefer to please put your views in the comments thread of this posting.  I welcome your comments!

GBS

Welcome the Wildthingians to 15mm.co.uk

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Wildthingian Group

There is a small number of new releases this week into the SHM range on 15mm.co.uk all of them under the same heading and racial type…the Wildthingians!

There are five new conversions made by Rob Alderman being added to the two original designs by Steve Hazuka (SHM08,SHM09) which Rob simply insisted on being allowed to do, so I said ‘sure thing’ and here we are.  These are exactly the kind of weird specialised miniatures that the range is known for and which otherwise would not exist.  They are fairly large creatures (16mm and 20mm by size groupings) and tower over Human 15mm miniatures making good mercenaries and adventurers in a 15mm sci-fi collection.

Here is a list of the new codes;

SHM36 Wilthingian Leader    Furry Alien Leader armed with a Heavy Energy Weapon.
SHM37 Wildthingian Veteran  Furry Alien armed with a Heavy Energy Rifle. 
SHM38 Wildthingian Soldier  Furry Alien aiming Heavy Energy Rifle.
SHM39 Young Wildthingian II Furry Alien, arms folded.
SHM40 Young Wildthingian III Furry Alien, running. 

I have arranged for all of the Wildthingians to have their own section of the SHM part of the 15mm.co.uk website which makes them the first race to have that honour!

Assuming you are reading this after the 13th of July 2012 then go along to the SHM range and look for them there!

GBS

An Advert for Miniature Wargames Issue 353

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The Ion Age gets an Advert!

Busy, busy this week and despite a full ‘to do list’ written on my traditional blank A4 piece of paper (which looks like a bomb site by Monday afternoon!) I have fallen behind somewhat.  But I am busy rectifying that and here is the latest bit of work now complete and sent off to John at MediaShed.  Our half page advert for the issue after next of Miniature Wargames magazine.

After adverts for USE ME and for Altuos it is the turn of the Ion Age to get the full colour treatment in print.  The 28mm science fiction range is way too big to be listed so I opted for a general information and introduction advert which told a bit of a story and gave basic information.  Along with this some eye candy of the latest pack release and the cover of MOTH.  I had some space left so a sub-advert for Asgard 25mm Space Marines went in featuring the superb paintwork of Sam Croes.

Click on the image above to see the advert in full.

GBS

New Blister Backer

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A ‘rough’ of the new Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk blister backer card

Some of you might have noticed I have been in a ‘hobbit hole’ for the last two days and have not answered my usual three dozen or more personal mails a day. Well I had been handed a new and urgent task; to replace the current now almost extinct blister backer used by Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk.  I had expected to be doing this but due to the placing of a large trade order into the USA last week it was moved up the job list to ‘do it right now!’ status.

Those who purchase their miniatures from stores or at conventions will know what a blister backer is.  A piece of card with all the needed information about the company and about the product which goes inside a blister of miniatures allowing the customer to know what he is looking it along with how much it costs.  These used to form the back of a blister but those were ‘heat sealed’ use once blisters which we have not used for a decade or more.  We use a ‘clam shell’ plastic blister which is more secure but also is reusable and many wargamers use them to transport finished figures too!  So they full fill the same purpose but are no longer the ‘back’ but the name remains much like ‘watching a video’ does despite it being a DVD!

If you click on the image above you can see a low rez rough of the new design. Size wise it is 105mm by 75mm in dimension. It is simple and effective and tells you all you need to know over an attractive mottled blue with the famous Alternative Armies ‘arrowhead’ embedded in it.  The blue is used as it is the best colour behind white metal miniatures to be able to see them properly and the blank white area on the front is for the placement of the ‘product label’ which tells the customer what code he is holding.  This is different for each pack of course.

I will be catching up with the backlog of email soon as I can but this is turning into one hectic week!

GBS

The SHM Range on 15mm.co.uk gets Packs!

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SHMP01 Cyborg Enslavers

My ‘metal baby’ is growing up!  As of Friday this week 15mm.co.uk will be selling the SHM range miniatures not only as singles but also as packs at 4.00GBP each.  Why does this matter you might say?  Well it shows the range has now become successful enough to enter the ‘trade’ ranges offered in packs to dealers and stores as well as to wargamers on the website.  This is a big thing to me.

The SHM range has currently got more than thirty miniatures in it and soon it will have more than forty from more than five different sculptors and I cannot say this enough…without my support of the SHM concept none of these miniatures would exist in white metal for gamers to get in their collections.  So miniatures by rookie and new talents have proven themselves able to support a blister pack range.  Round of applause indeed!

While the pack range will contain seven different codes (SHMP01 to SHMP07) all at the same price their contents will vary from ten down to five miniatures as the range is so eclectic that it was impossible to assign a level number of castings to each code.  Also they were not designed to be in packs.  I am confident though that these packs will prove popular just like the HOF and Laserburn ranges.   Several SHM are among the most popular codes we sell.

GBS

Tabletop Wargaming blog goes live!

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Today is a grand day as it is the day that I release my own purpose build wargame blog on the world!  TableTopWargamer.Blogspot.Co.Uk

This blogger blog is quite seperate to my presence here and it will only deal with my wargaming projects.  These projects will include everything I do personally and for the company too including playtesting, battle reports, figure painting and more.  So if you see something on Barking Irons Online from this point it will most likely be on TableTopWargamer too.

Why announce this today…well its down to the first project I have undertaken on TableTopWargamer.  Scenarios for HOF Fire-Team.  The first of these has just gone live and you can see here and look at an AAR on the scenario on the new blog too.  Nice tie in eh!

I will make some announcements here about TableTopWargamer but the two sites are very different beasts so there will be little in common posting’s wise.  See you on the bloggosphere!

GBS

15mm Renaissance Range – Ink & Photos

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Stained fingers and a sense of satisfaction this week with the end to a two week project to get the Altous range of 15mm Renaissance Historicals complete and up on to the page of 15mm.co.uk.  The whole range is now online and while marketing and so on will be a wee while off it is a weight off my mind to have it done.

I do not know how many of you who read this blog work in the wargame industry (it will not be most of you) but many of you are wargamers who regularly paint their miniatures and add to their collections.  You know the effort this takes in the planning and preparation…well let me tell you its nothing compared to this.  Over one hundred codes from master molds with no existing images to be sorted, identified, washed with ink, dried, labelled, photographed, edited, coded, added to catalogues and then to 15mm.co.uk itself.  I took this whole thing on myself and triple checked everything to avoid errors.  But now that it is done it means these pictures and the code list will exist for evermore.

Enjoy the images below and if you wish to see them all then pop along to the Altuos range pages.

I did enjoy this experience over all and I think I will tackle the next one later this year (the much larger Napoleonic 15mm range!).  Just makes you appreciate it when you visit a website and there are pictures of the products…this takes a lot of time and effort…I know!

GBS

An Advert for MW352 Magazine

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It is that time again.  A wee bit of graphic design to create an advert for the August 2012 Issue of Miniatures Wargames magazine.   I used the same basic shape and template that I did the Issue 351 or July issue but the subject matter is rather different.  This time the whole Altuos range of 15mm Renaissance Historicals gets the glossy treatment that it has so long deserved.  Expect to see this one in the shops in a few weeks time at most.  Click on it to see it larger.

Some people have told me that magazine advertising in the wargaming industry is as dead as a dodo since everyone now only wants to look at blogs and online groups for their news and ideas.  Perhaps this is so but we will find out.  Some of those same people have said that one of the worst ideas is to advertise something as unfashionable as 15th to 17th century historicals but lets just say that I not only have faith in this superb range brought back from dusty ruin but also that I like a challenge.  I have done my best so it will be up to MW and Andrew Hubback to see if 15mm.co.uk will see a return on this advert.

But its not all about money, far from it.  These are super miniatures and they were for the most part VERY popular in the 1980’s.  While part of the range has been re-released for some time I have not gotten around to the rest of it but knowing this advert is steaming towards the presses will make me hurry up!  To that end expect a posting on this very blog about inky hands and a load of photos of 17th century figures and artillery real soon.

GBS

A week of Admin and Planning

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Am I the hand or the mite?

Those of you who come regularly to this blog will have noticed that my usual rate of a post or two every couple of days has slowed. In fact a few emails have arrived asking after me so it seems only fair for me to tell you all what is going on.  Simply put for the last week or so I have been working on a few needed but not creative projects which include mailing lists for 15mm.co.uk (see the Mail Chimp post), catching up with paperwork, clearing the inbox at work in the email, learning new web software, speaking to a professional webmaster and lastly my wargaming blogger blog.  It has left me with little ‘oomph’ for posting.

While all this is tedious and you do not wish to hear about it the last one on that list I just gave is fun, fun fun.  I will post about it properly when ready but for now I will say that I am now on Blogger and have amassed a few postings and pictures and I am working on some scenarios for use on Barking Irons Online.  The game…HOF Fire Team.

So normal service will be resumed soon….I assure you all.

GBS