O.G.Joel takes on a new USE ME project

The Space Cockroach (as Omer Golan Joel refers to himself online) is a busy man indeed.  On top of his gaming interests and work he writes USE ME series titles and as of this week he and I agreed that his next project will be USE ME 6mm.  Covering World War Two, Ultra-Modern and Science Fiction this planned new rule set will be in the usual format and will feature all arms from infantry to vehicles, aircraft, orbital support and so on.  You can read more about his plans over on this post on his blog.

I am looking forward to this set of rules since O.G.Joel and I both feel that the ‘engine’ of USE ME is well suited for adaptation to 6mm and that the wargaming market is in need of a fast, easy and tactical set of game rules for this scale and setting.  More of this when the time is right but I think 15mm.co.uk might well be publishing this title at the end of the year or early in 2013.

Expect another posting on the talented Space Cockroach on an ultra-modern theme soon.

GBS

Danger on Outpost 32!

I really do need to keep track of time.  Really I do, as I seem to have lost a couple of months.  I blame the summer holidays from the schools.  Having the three little demons at home has thrown me for six and no mistake.  My own work output has dropped by about half over the last eight weeks.  Leaving aside the fact that I personally think that eight weeks is WAY too long for children to have off school (poor overworked teachers they say, what about all of us who work on while they relax for twice the time I get off in a whole year!) my reason for this post is to announce a return to normal once more with my next project about to go on general release as of the end of this week.

Danger on Outpost 32

This follows up on the WIP posts from back in May.  Have a read of those for the concepts and so on behind the USE ME Starter Packs and the over all plan.  But DOOP32 (catchy eh!) is all you need to play in a handy box which, trust me on this, is really good for carrying about your current Flintloque project too.  A rulebook, two dice, twenty seven miniatures and twenty seven bases along with a set of sheets with three scenarios and rosters.  The miniatures are from the HOF range and the SHM range and include some crackers such as the Prang that Eli Arndt designed for the range. Packed full of Fun!

You will be able to see more images once it is uploaded to the site along with a link to download a PDF of the included sheets, so you can read them and use them if you already have the rules and miniatures to hand.

DOOP32 was a small project that came about due to some conversations mainly with Chris Knowles (head blogger on Dropship Horizon blog) and a few dozen requests from customers who desired to get a whole game in a box for USE ME.  It was about fifteen hours work all in.  A testament to the rugged simplicity of the rules system and the 15mm scale.   I do not know how well it will sell but time will soon tell and I await wargamer responses with eager nervousness.  One additional point worthy of mention is that many of the requests for a starter pack was that it be affordable as most wargamers are working to a tight budget these days.  Well I took this on board and DOOP32 is very affordable at only twenty pounds which is spot on budget for what you get.

You can see the whole USE ME Series on 15mm.co.uk.

GBS

Flintloque Reviews on Voodoo Ork channel

Rob Alderman, sculptor of Flintloque and other miniatures for Alternative Armies, operates a rather good YouTube Channel under the title of the Voodoo Orc.  He paints, reviews, looks at and talks about many gaming systems and miniatures but his first love (or at least he tells me it is!) is Flintloque.  So in response to requests from all of you out there in the wide world I have gathered Rob’s top video picks for fans of Flintloque.  These videos are all good fun and feature tips, information and of course lovely painted figures.  They are my picks and are not in chronological order of creation but hey, they make more sense to anyone not familiar with the game.

Have a look through the list here and click through to any that grab your fancy.  And of course if there are any Flintloque miniatures you would like Rob to look at comment on this post or email me direct at Alternative Armies.  Enjoy!

A Review of 5025 Flintloque – War in Catalucia

In this video Rob looks at the first game book in the series for Flintloque 3rd edition.  The third edition, written by myself and Mike White, is a quantum leap in the evolution of the the system from the previous edition with a greater page count much more art and that is before you get to the expanded world background and the excellent game mechanics.  I will let Rob tell you more…

The 4th Cacadores Light Infantry Regiment – Goblins of Al-Garvey

In this video Rob talks about his Goblin Light Infantry and lets everyone see how he went about creating his unit.

Guinalean Legion Bog Orcs “Unlucky 13th” Line Infantry

This video is all about Rob’s own vision for the Bog Orcs of the 13th Line regiment.  Unlucky…you bet!

Krautian Guard Infantry

Rob Alderman loves Dwarves…trust me he does!  One of his favourite formations are the iron helmed Dwarves of the Guard.  Check them out!

Todoroni of Nepolise Showcase

In this video Rob goes into detail on his most worked on sculpting race for Valon, the Todoroni.  This includes a look at his first full unit design for LEU01 a code with only 100 numbered sets now long sold out.

I hope you enjoyed these videos.  I did.  I look forward to more on the world’s best alternative fantasy game soon.

GBS

Jeff Worley about to enter the SHM 15mm Sci-fi range

A few months ago a great guy by the name of Jeff Worley told me of a miniature he had sculpted.  He offered it to 15mm.co.uk for inclusion in the SHM range which as regular readers will know is open to all novice and otherwise designers and is a place where all kinds of miniatures see the light of day.  The miniature was a ‘human commander’ and I asked him to send it across the pond so that I could see if it would mold up ok.  I was pleased to be able to tell him it would and now the time has come for the miniature to be released so that every wargamer will have a chance to get their casting of Jeff’s work.

The miniature has been coded SHM41 Human Commander and will be released this Friday on 15mm.co.uk (if you are reading this after then just go along to the website and click on SHM to see it).  As a single man sized figure it will be just 0.40GBP.  As you can see above it is a super and unique looking 15mm miniature with a lot of uses.  What springs to mind for me is the obvious squad leader but also perhaps tank driver or crew or perhaps private security too.

Jeff did not tell me his final intended use for the miniature but I look forward to seeing what he does with it.

Well done my friend!

GBS

Can you ‘Kickstart’ miniature designs by appealing direct to Wargamers?

I saw an interesting posting on the Dropship Horizon Blog a few days ago.  At the time I was too busy with other things to do anything on it so I just bookmarked the page and moved on.  But now, here I am back again.  What is it about you ask?  Well it is about a theory.  Can you get the wargaming public to finance your new miniature designs and through that your new company without those wargamers seeing miniatures upfront or the promise of any end result?

There are a huge number of miniature wargame companies across the world and this is a great thing as it brings diversity and great choice to thousands of customers each day.  Many of these companies I do not know the names of and a large number exist only for a few months or a year and then fold for one reason or another.  But in the last couple of years the way of beginning a company has changed.  While I will not go into the other ways of making the process easier with free e-commerce software, low cost hosting, print on demand books, electronic publishing and so on I do want to look at Indeigogo and Kickstarter for funding miniature design work by using this as an example.

You can see the posting here and read about it but the gist is as follows. A brand new (so new they do not have a website or any presence I would find beyond this and a few other blog postings) and shiny new company called ‘Grinning Skull Miniatures’ wish to release a range called the ‘Oggum’, 15mm scale white metal miniatures of science fiction war pigs.  You can see a screen grab below.

Taken on 5th August 2012

The aim of the Grinning Skull is to raise 2000USD for their range of 15mm miniatures.  They have given themselves until 4th September 2012 to raise the funds.

Will they do it?  I shall check back near the end of the time allotted to find out and will post a second time on this topic then.  But my gut feeling is no, they will not.  Will I be incorrect?

GBS

Win the Pin by Creating a Character this Weekend!

This week I made a posting here about my Flintloque pin badge which I wore for years at demo games all over the world back in the 1990’s.  There has been a lot of interest from members of the Notables Yahoo Group in my offer to let someone win it and I would post it to them.  So after asking for suggestions how to go about choosing a winner the method suggested by Chris Pryme was chosen and that is for me to note down the email addresses of every Notable who makes a posting between Friday 3rd and Monday 6th August HERE.  I will then randomly select the winner and contact them to ship them the pin.

But what Flintloque related subject should be discussed by Notables to get their postings on the group for a chance to win.  While a message on ANY Flintloque or Slaugherloo subject will be entered I want to make it a little more interesting so I offer a second competition within the first!  I want the Notables to suggest a character profile for an as yet unreleased Flintloque miniature!

Who is this fellow?

Above you can see artwork of the miniature and below an image of an assembled master casting in white metal.  The miniature is a high ranking Trolkin Officer mounted on a Muskox.

The prize in this second competition is the miniature in question worth about 8.00GBP and not to be released for several weeks yet.  The terms are that you need to post a message on the Notables Yahoo Group between 3rd and 6th August telling me who this character is, his story, an idea of his Flintloque and or Slaughterloo profiles in play.

I will get you started with his name ‘Colonel Skand Stoyne‘.  About two hundred words will be fine.  It does not have to be super accurate or points based as I will choose a winner and assist in finalising the text and so on for release of the miniature.  You can read the Notables Message on this competition HERE.

So you have the chance not only to win an unreleased miniature but also to name it and in the process the chance to also win my personal pin badge!  Excellent!  Get over to the Notables and post your idea!

GBS

A look at Miniature Wargames magazine No 352

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!

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

Join the Muster!

“Make your way to the front of the line son.  You wanna fight for your King, you wanna fight for Prydia?  

Well you go right on in.  Sure, you get the Aketon Armour and the Moth Type 6 Rifle…but more than that; you get the pride boy!”

Sam Croes the digital man with the plan has posted the above artwork on his blog today.  Like me he has a liking for sweet little things in uniform (humm…not very PC, but hey it’s my blog!) so as he explains he created this bill poster in a couple of days just for the fun of it.  I want to get this as an actual poster for my wall.  It is that awesome.

Nice one Sam!

GBS

 

Welcome the Wildthingians to 15mm.co.uk

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