Merry Christmas and the Annual Grilling

xmas2012Today is Christmas Day and its been a roller coaster already so I have not much time to blog but I wanted to put up a little missive on this day for a few reasons.  Firstly to thank all those who have been so kind to me and to my family at this time of year.  An embarrassment of riches has come to us from all over the world.  It makes me truly grateful and personally, the thought that people have put into getting me gifts is way too much.  Japan, America, Australia and elsewhere in little packages.  I am loved and love in return.  You should not have but I am glad you did.  To balance this I have made donations to charities both here in Scotland and further afield too to spread the joy that I have received.  My Good Lady, the Poet, the Thinker and the Warrior echo this and have been very thankful for what they have received too.

Secondly yesterday saw the annual Festive Season interview on Orcs in the Webbe between myself and Craig Andrews.  He calls it Annual Grilling and it is.  I know of no other gaming company which would answer so many questions for its public, but I aim to please at all times.  Have a read and then watch me across next year bringing the text into a living form of wargaming.

oitw2012interview

Lastly I wish you all a warm and cosy festive season and thank you too for reading and commenting on this blog.  It means a lot to me.  If you have the chance to be good to another person then do it, the cost is little and the darkness so often apparent in the world is kept at bay by the simple acts of man’s kindness to others.

GBS

OITW Advent Calendar 2012 – The Mirror of Zyrgone

Its nearly Christmas (or on my fantasy world of Valon it is known as Cryptmass, but more on that elsewhere) and that means my annual entries to the excellent Orcs in the Webbe advent calendar are now appearing online.  Every year Craig over at ‘OITW’ collects material from fans and writers and artist who love the medium of Black Power Fantasy and lines them up for a month of free content which is read by thousands of wargamers and others.

This year Craig asked me for two pieces in our customary way for his birthday (Happy Birthday Craig!) to do with his favourite Valon fantasy race, the Dracci, Children of the Dragons.  I was happy to agree to this and penned a short story called The Mirror of Zyrgone which features not only the Dracci but another perennial favourite Captain Sharke of the 105th Rifles.  Following this (for the 19th of December) a Flintloque scenario called ‘Sharkes Mirror’ which lets wargamers play out the events of the tale.  I followed the tradition begun by Cornwell himself in naming the scenario ‘Sharkes ????‘ and ‘mirror’ had not been used so there you go!

Its a great little action packed tale so please do go along and have a read at it.  Craig is a great chap who takes on a lot in working up not only Orcs in the Webbe but also is editor of Barking Irons Online so it was the least I could do.

GBS

‘The Zone’ blog entertains!

From ‘The Trojan Hovercar’ adventure

Back in October I posted about a brand new blog called ‘The Zone’ run my Math one of the fellows behind Dropship Horizon blog.  Since then I have reading its postings with excitement and a good laugh too.  Each posting is an adventure with a lot of back story and characters.  I have also spoken to Math by email and assisted him with an order to 15mm.co.uk to get some pro-painted Law Officers from the Laserburn range.  To that end he has sent me images of conversions of some Laserburn miniatures for The Zone.  Pictures below.

Col and Rayy – Laserburn 15mm conversions

Converted Laserburn flt car with crew

These images in this posting are from the most recent piece on The Zone, an adventure known as The Trojan Hovercar.  Check it out.

I recommend this blog to any wargamer who loves the 2000AD comic, classic or retro 1970’s sci-fi and a spun yarn to read too.  Keep up the good work Math!

GBS

Terra Burning blog goes live today!

A while back I posted that I was going to get involved with the setting up of a new 15mm scale wargaming blog.  This blog would be about a post apocalypse setting called ‘Terra Burning’ and I would be contributing posts and news and so forth from the point of view of USEME (the blog’s preferred rules system for play) and miniatures from 15mm.co.uk.  Well the blog went live today and I have just put my first posting on it talking about wargaming on Terra Burning.

So what you waiting for…can’t you feel the burn!

GBS

Slaughterloo Boxed Set OOP…something new this way comes.

 S2 Box Set OOP

Slaughterloo Box Set OOP

I had been watching the shelf for near a year but it finally happened last week…Alternative Armies sold its last stock copy of Slaughterloo; that being the boxed set of three books and card sheets released in 2006.  A while back at a company meeting it was agreed that when the day came we would remove the game from sale for a month and then bring about a new version.  This was going to be a new edition but progress has been halting and there is no rush as the existing mechanics of the game are excellent and vastly more than the old first edition.  I can almost hear you all now reading this and saying ‘what no more Slaughterloo..you devil..why?  We love that big battle wargame’.

Fear not!  Slaughterloo will continue.  In fact it will do so at Christmas of this year for at this very moment I am working on ‘S2 Redux’.  That is a new run of the game.  Same mechanics, same rules, same content but in a different format to the box set.  Coded 5030 Slaughterloo will become a single thick book along the same lines as Flintloque 3rd edition became in 2009.  Bigger than any one Flintloque book this one will contain all three of the box set books with updates in the army stats tables to account for the passage of time.  All of the cards, tokens and so on to play the game will be in the book for photocopy and personal print…but also on the Alternative Armies website as free digital downloads.  Excellent value and all in one place.  Sneak peek below of the new cover with brand new artwork by Edward Jackson and logo by Sam Croes.

5030GBS

The draft new cover!

More on this on Barking Irons Online nearer the time.

GBS

777th Croaked Line – Finished Painted Sets for Flintloque and Release

There is just a week to go now until the release of the 777th Croaked Line and since I posted the second part of the three that make up this arc about the Undead Toads a lot has happened.  In the last week or so I have taken delivery of two painted sets, both by pro-painters, each with a vision of just what these new and unique miniatures should look like.  There is no official uniform or flesh tone for Zombie Todoroni as it has never existed before so there was a free hand for both Rob Alderman and Eve Hallow to do their thing on a set each.

I have many images of the two sets but I am saving most of them.  Here is one shot of each of them so as not to disappoint or to spoil next week.  Eye Candy!

Eve Hallows Zombie Toads

Eve Hallows spooky and bloody ‘burtonesque’ 777th Croaked Line.

Rob Aldermans Zombie Toads

Rob Aldermans recently and long dead Bella Lugosi militia inspired 777th Croaked Line.

Along with the official release on Alternative Armies which will consist of a core set, trooper blister, recently dead blister and full unit too I have arranged with Craig Andrews over on Barking Irons Online to provide news of the release and an article about the characters of the set with lots of great images and a scenario entitled ‘Deep Freeze Toads’.  A bonanza for Flintloque players who have suffered my lack of attention at the expense of 15mm sci-fi of recent months.  I will not gush for long here in this post as this will happen in the article but I adore both these Flintloque sections.  I adore Rob’s clean lines and crunchy flesh while Eve’s use of bright skin and blood spatter combined with stark black and white skeletons is superb.

So until next week..which do you prefer?  Which will be the official uniform for the Croaked Line?

Its been a great build up but my role here is all but done…its Barking Irons turn now.

GBS

A Mercenary Dream Realised for HOF

It has been a big, big year for 15mm science fiction miniatures on 15mm.co.uk and that means its been a big year for it for me too.  I have commissioned and accepted more than fifteen packs for the HOF range (and accepted two dozen SHM miniatures too) and while most of these have now been released some are still to come.  Of those still to come the next ones on the release schedule have been spoken of before on this blog the Rim Mercenaries.  So it really is a mercenary dream realised.

These are coming out this Friday and were designed by Elton Waters.  I plan an article on Barking Irons Online about them and the theory of the expansion and a little discussion about WHY more Rim Mercenaries and how it ties into the USEME series and O.G.Joel.

GBS

Beware the Were-Chickens of Beesdone!

Uncle Rogipoos and Jose survey their new premises!

A few weeks ago Tony Harwood asked me to do him a little favour.  What is it you ask!  To send on a gift to Roger Willcox, or as he is better known to the Notables Yahoo Group ‘Uncle Rogipoos’.  I was delighted to do this for Roger as he is a very entertaining and stand up fellow who often makes me laugh with his crazy tales of adventure on the group.  Also to help out Tony who is a very talented modeller and fan of Flintloque.  Above you can see the item which was the gift.  The coop of the Were-Chickens of Beesdone.  I could not resist having a look and taking some pictures.  This image shows the coop along with Uncle Rogipoos and his pet Armadillo Jose, two miniatures from the VLE10 set based on Roger’s characters.

I can say that Roger got the gift in perfect time for Halloween as Tony asked me.  He did open it a day early and I accept the blame for this as a recent bad head cold made me forget to email Roger and tell him not to open it to the 31st!  But hey ho.   I know Tony is planning a book on his wonderful terrain, perhaps the coop will feature in it.

GBS

777th Croaked Line – Green to White Metal (pt2)

Carrying on from the first part of this posting about the 777th Croaked Line for Flintloque and Alternative Armies I present to you all the end result of the molding process.  White Metal miniatures!

Below you can see all of the poses in this brand new regiment both front and back views.

Vampyre Officer, Skeletal Liche, Skeletal Standard Bearer, Zombie ‘squeeze box’ player

Rear View of the above four

Zombie Chef, Decayed Zombie Private, Fresh Zombie Private, Skeletal Zombie Private

Rear View of the above four

Poor Dead Luigi!

Going from the top we can see all of the white metal loveliness.  These are ‘tins’ that is master mold castings which are then used to make the production molds which will make all of the miniatures which will go out to Flintloque players all over the world.   These are brilliant miniatures filled with character and inspiring a lot of adoration even at this point.

Being an Undead formation the unit code for these miniatures will be twenty eight figures strong which will be released alongside a pack of all the poses and a couple of blister codes for trooper boosters and extra dead Todoroni.  So far reaction to my asking has been that the casualty should be in the core pack but not in the unit code.  This might change.  I know Todoroni players will want a pack of corpses for their mortal troops demise on table.

I am going to save naming these miniatures and character ideas until I see them painted up and complete which brings me onto the next part of this series of wee articles.  Rob Alderman is busily painting up his own set of the 777th Croaked Line in a uniform of his choice…but…Eve Hallow is also painting up a set of the same with his own idea of the uniform.  My plan?  To bring you both versions!  As this is a brand new Undead unit there is a lot of leeway with uniform choices and flesh tones.  Rumour has it that Rob has gone for a variation on the Bella Lugosi Militia uniform and Eve has riffed on the historical uniform of ‘Kingdom of Naples’ line infantry.   We will see what is what soon enough.  I will be impartial and intend to studio photograph both sets…perhaps a vote on the Notables Yahoo Group to chose which uniform becomes the one for the official website page.

Until the flesh rots people….

GBS

Free Postage – The Quest of all Wargamers?

Does this image make Wargamers Happy?

At the end of this week 15mm.co.uk will be acting on input from a large group of wargamers all over the world who have been asking, cajoling, begging and so on for a ‘free shipping’ promotion on the website.  All of these messages basically came as feedback to our two months of ‘one week offers’ which while on the website were mainly distributed through Mailchimp as HTML emails.  This offer was suggested on almost all of the messages that came back to me.  Based on this I have been thinking that perhaps ‘free shipping’ is the number one wish for wargamers, especially those far from the UK such as in Australia  and New Zealand, even though 15mm.co.uk has the same basic postage rate for all regions.

As everyone knows I like to aid wargamers where possible so it will be interesting to see what reaction 15mm.co.uk has to this offer.  Will it increase order volume, will it mean more orders from far flung places or will wargamers not take to the this offer preferring a deal such as those on certain miniatures or ranges as I have been organising through Mailchimp.

If you are reading this and have an opinion on this offer then please do comment or email me directly.

GBS