The Badge!
The Thinker, my eldest son, was selected for an achievement at school just before the Ayrshire September Weekend Holiday (he also had an adventure over the weekend in the south of England but more on that later). You can see the badge on his shirt above. The Senior Student badge infers a sense of responsibility and extra duties in class only given to the most reliable. Well done lad!
GBS
HOF80 Aquafid Infantry. Strange…but Good?
On Friday 15mm.co.uk released another code in to the expanding and well loved HOF (Hordes of the Future) 15mm Science Fiction line. Since I took over the design command of the range (back in the region of the mid thirties of the code listing) I have tried to base expansions mainly on wargamers requests and also by reaction to releases. Already emails have come in about HOF80 Aquafid Infantry ranging from ‘hurrah another new race‘ to ‘these are awful, why are you not making more Cultists or Retained Knights?‘. These emails always intrigue me so I wanted to do a little posting here on the blog to tell you all why.
Designed by Elton Waters these latest miniatures added to the range were in response to r requests for a ‘fish man type of infantry’ and as normal I took the top three off the list of requests every few months and had them created. I will not discuss the other two at this time but one was a Human pack for pulp and near future gaming and the other was a Human medical pack for primary use with HOF Fire Team and other systems. The name Aquafid combines a word for water and one for fighter for a title that confers the right meaning. So the system I used created the Aquafid like it did the Grey Aliens, Automatons, Cultists, Octopods, Triorbs and others. But why the response by email?
I think that is comes as a shock (sadly) to a lot of wargamers now that a company will create miniatures by request and not just make more and more soldiers with spiky bits and big guns. No civilians or support staff, only warriors. I believe that codes such as the Aquafid are vital to the soul of the whole wargaming hobby. We are a hobby of intense creativity and diversity and no where is this more clearly seen at the moment than in 15mm Science Fiction which is in the midst of a golden age of expansion. New Races and Oddities are central to maintaining this just as they were in the 1990’s and 1980’s for 28mm and 25mm Science Fiction. If makers only releases yet more human troops what would be the point? Eventually we would all just be fighting ‘Ultra Modern’ without the sci-fi element using miniatures so similar to each other they all came out of the same cookie cutter (does this sound familar to you at all?).
There is a very good reason I listen to customers…they know what they want as individuals and if you list their feedback by hundreds you see a pattern. Each time a new release is made in HOF (and in SHM for that matter) feedback comes in, orders come in and opinions are shared. Sometimes new races and oddities fall on their faces and go no further and in other cases they sell so well that they warrent expansion. Two good examples of this are the HOF Cultists and the HOF Octopods. Both began with one pack of infantry poses and now have three or four (with more to come!) each for a fuller force. Without the system I use neither of these would exist at all.
Will the Aquafid spawn a support pack, a command pack or others? Are they too strange? Only time will tell. But now you know my thoughts and perhaps now they are not as weird as they first appeared.
I welcome comments and feedback on miniature design ideas and I always will.
GBS
Mail Chimp Logo
Back in June 2012 I put up a posting that 15mm.co.uk would be switching over to Mail Chimp for its email marketing. Well since then the company has enjoyed using Mail Chimp and has built up a large mailing list which is responsive to weekly or fortnightly messages about new releases, special offers, support materials and more. The time arrived this week for Alternative Armies to do the same and move across to Mail Chimp for its email marketing.
You can see my motivations for switching in the previous posting and I stick to them. It is an excellent service.
So if you are a customer of Alternative Armies expect your inbox to feature some shiny new messages soon. In addition to product news I intent to feature links to Barking Irons for scenarios and such that are related to releases and also links to featured blogs for hobby and painting and so on tips. Plus some special offers too of course!
GBS
Tony’s Headless Zombie conversions
Craig Andrews has posted the last of the three parts of Tony Harwood’s ‘Headless Undead Fun’ arc for Flintloque over on Barking Irons Online. I have been wating for this for a wee while and indeed both he and Tony have put notes on the final scenario explaining the delay and what was going on. I am more than excited on this and have been patiently await it.
You can see scenario three entitled Getting Ahead Part Three – Just Get me the Hell out of Here! now. It is a cracking ‘steeplechase’ format scenario that sees Acting Captain Margahrah and his section try to cross several boards while the Undead try to stop them and prevent the wretched Halfling Posco from escaping their clutches. From there you can follow the links back to parts one and two.
The fiction in part one is well worth a read on its own and it explains why these Headless Shamblers exist and just what is at stake as the Ferach Grande Armee tries to retreat from the flaming hell of frzon Moskova and the Witchlands.
The first Headless Shamblers
Sometimes it takes time for elements to come together and for articles and material that wargamers are waiting on to be completed (I know this I think better than most!) but it is worth the wait and once more Tony Harwood with a little help has given us all some Flintloque gold. I hope he keeps his head!
GBS
Botched Tatoo in Fife by a ‘Scratcher’
An idle muse from you all. Last night on the Scottish News I saw an article on ‘scratchers’. A Scratcher is a person who does tattoo’s on the cheap (or sometimes not so cheap) but who does not have the training and or skill to do a professional and safe job. From the risks of poisoning to unsterilised needles and conditions less than sanitary. Now I personally am not all that keen on ‘self drawing’ but my good lady and a number of my friend have ‘ink’ on them so it is something I have thought about.
Why would a person get something permanent drawn onto their skin by someone who cannot prove their track record or their skill or their qualifications? It seems madness to me to do that just to save a sum of money and put yourself at risk of disease including Hepatitis B and C. Once again the behaviour of people makes me question the rationality of their actions. Be safe and if you cannot afford the work then wait until you can…it could be your very life that is at risk.
The article I saw concerned the rise of this in Fife and featured six or so images of botched and infected work. A web search will show you many more.
Those interested can visit the STV News website for more.
GBS
My good friend and wargaming terrain professional Tony Harwood has put up a micro review of my title 5027 Grapeshotte 3rd Edition over on his Dampf Blog. Tony has been a fan of Flintloque right from its very beginnings in the middle of the 1990’s and while he does not play the game he likes the background material (he is the creator of Foul Mouth Freddie) and the community (being an active member of the Notables Yahoo Group) and he paints and even designs miniatures for Flintloque all from his studio.
So pop along and look at the micro review but also take a bit of time and look at the posts tagged with Flintloque. Your gaming mind will thank you.
GBS
Eve Hallow’s Elf Line Infantry on the advance!
A few of months ago on this blog I announced the creation of my own dedicated wargaming blogger place called Tabletop Wargamer or TTWG Blog. I have made the best progress that I can in creating terrain and collecting miniatures in that I began with nothing having no personal collection left from my ‘ill period’ in 2008-9. This included getting on my feet with my own Flintloque miniatures (not the thousands of pro-painted miniatures that Alternative Armies produces annually) and I did that with Wyndorc’s Korsucan Rangers section of twelve miniatures. At the same time fellow Ayrshire wargamer Eve Hallow expressed an interest in moving away from the increasingly juvenile and straight jacketing Games Workshop hobby to games which I had written especially Flintloque and USE ME. Wargames which are more fun, less serious and more free in their choices of uniform and disposition. I was happy to oblige.
So on Saturday evening Eve and I got together and faced off over the table in what I think will be the first of many wargames between us. We played as stripped down version of Flintloque.
If you are interested in what happened and want to see more pictures and story then go on over to TTWG blog and have a read. All comments welcome!
GBS
See how little we at Odeon care…not even a single poster to take a picture of!
On Sunday I went to Kilmarnock to see Dredd 3D. Unlike many others out there I am a fan of the original 1995 Judge Dredd movie which adapted the famous law man from the pages of seminal British comic 2000AD to the big screen. So I was keen to see how the new movie starring Karl Urban as old stony face matched up to it and also to expectations. Now that I have seen it…how did it match up…was it still…THE LAW!
I had mixed expectations of the new movie. I had seen two different trailers and a couple of feature clips as well. These did not make me think Mega City One more Korea and last years movie The Raid Redemption about a team of police who try to clear an entire tower block of criminals one room at a time. While I enjoyed The Raid (I have not reviewed it due to time constraints, if anyone wants me to please comment) it was thin on plot but super heavy on action. Since the parts of Dredd I had seen made me think the same I was not sure I would enjoy it.
Well as it turned out I did not really enjoy the movie though the two people I was with did greatly enjoy it. Why? I think due to me being very switched on to the comics and the sheer depth of Mega City lore which could have been mined for the movie. Basically the city was missing from the movie. Sure you saw Johannesburg with some CGI generated skyscrapers (blocks) and some Judges but nothing of the Mega City I know. No robots, no Fatties, no Aliens, No Judge Death, no H-Wagons floating on the wind and so on. This was very much grim and gritty and near future bound. I felt that Karl Urban nailed the character of Judge Dredd and his facial expressions were spot on. I was not overly keen on Olivia Thirlby as Judge Anderson but that was more due to her not being a tall blond bombshell who cracks minds with her telepathy, her acting was really good and she humanised the film more than any other character. That was basically it for characters aside from Lena Headly as Ma-Ma. Ma-Ma was a villain more filled with promise than results who threatened and acted up without ever really feeling like she was a challenge to Dredd and went out without a whimper.
The film well deserved its 18 certificate as it was very violent with super slow motion gun, explosion and knife wounds on full display. There was nothing in it that I found shocking though as some reviews have claimed and compared to scenes in most American horror films it did not top or rival them. Dredd delivered some excellent deadpan one liners that were the highlight of the film for me. I know it was made a lower budget and for that it is really well executed my hat is off to the director for this.
In conclusion then I would say that 2000AD has now shaken off the curse of the 1995 film but in doing so has lost the core identity of the Mega City. Aside from the helmets this could have been any other near future action film set in a depressing drab and grey urban hell hole. Robust, worth watching but without the sparkle that will make it remembered.
GBS
The cover of this book is a nightmare to take pictures of. Even Amazon had trouble! This is the best I could do.
This last week I managed to finish a book I had bought a while back. It failed to grab me from the off but by the time I reached the middle I kept trying to find spare moments to read on. The book is Pax Omega by Al Ewing.
I knew of Al Ewing from his work in the fantastic British Comic 2000AD where he has written many scripts including Zombo. After this I bought his novel El Sombra on the back of the comic and also other Pax Brittanica novels set in that universe. I really enjoyed El Sombra with its pulp trashy literature take on the motif of the western and also steampunk. So with that in mind when I saw Pax Omega on the shelf of my local bookshop I decided to buy it. I will admit the blurb left me a little confused. Was this a novel or a collection of short stories? The answer is a clever..both!
Doc Thunder’s last stand against a deadly foe whose true identity will shock you to your core! El Sombra’s final battle against the forces of the Ultimate Reich! The Locomotive Man in a showdown with cosmic science on the prairies of the Old West! Jackson Steele defends the 25th Century against the massed armies of the Space Satan! A duel of minds in the mystery palaces of One Million AD! Blazing steam-pulp sci-fi the way you crave it! From the Big Bang to the End Of Time – eleven tales from Pax Britannia’s past, present and distant future combine into one starspanning saga set to shake the universe to its foundations or destroy it! (from the book blurb)
Pax Omega is a series of stories that are linked together in ways that become clearer as the book progresses. From the ancient past to the vastly distant future there are conflicts fused with vision and humour. As I said it took me a while to get into the book and that turned out to be a shame because when the tale reached the point of bringing in El Sombra and Doc Thunder it was moving at a fine pace. Reminding me of Flash Gordon of Dick Tracey as well as many other pulp heroes the book also made good use of ‘soundbites’ from other famous science fiction tales such as the ‘Robot Detective Decker’ and so on. It also projected in places a flash into our own world with its troubles such as the Summer 2011 London Riots. The language was florid and varied and I enjoyed that a lot. It was bigger than life in places. In fact there are so many settings in this book that you don’t know what is coming next at all! This is pulp at its best..square jawed fighting and big speech making heroes and villains.
I recommend this book but I do also think that if you like the idea of Pax Brittanica you should seek out Al’s other books (El Sombra and The Gods of Manhattan). I have not read Gods of Manhattan and it showed, I did not know who Doc Thunder was!
Mad..Inspired..Great Pulp Fun!
GBS
This week Alternative Armies will be making its late summer, early autumn releases. I have been working on these for a few days on and off to get them ready and they are a lovely little lot indeed. Several new Trolkin for use in Flintloque and in Slaughterloo along with the first female Elves in the whole range (aside from the Empress Morgana of course!) all of whom have been sculpted by the talented Rob Alderman.
Trolkin come from the frozen land of Copendaz and are the lesser cousins of the huge Trolka. While smaller these Trollish soldiers share many of the same characteristics including stony skin and bulbous worty features plus a habit of wearing clothes too small for them and are more than a match for an Orc in a fist fight. There is a great free booklet which I wrote that can be be downloaded from the company website (here is a link to get it from this posting) which gives the reader a mass of information on the Troll races plus great artwork by Edward Jackson. The new miniatures include Colonel Skande Stoyne whose character was set in a Notables Yahoo Group competition last month (see this previous posting) and a character from the Troll booklet the owner of the Marske Company, Towern Marske. Also a dead Trolkin in the uniform of the Lergo Line (a lot of wargamers like to put those who fall onto the wargames table). These releases are another stage closer to the agreement that Rob and I had on bringing the Trolls to a full divisional force which would include cavalry, artillery, infantry and command.
The last of the releases is the Elf Ladies. I have been looking forward to this pack for a while as I was the one who said ‘there is a real gap here, we need more woman!’ while playing Flintloque back in the spring. Three lovely miniatures, a young strumpet, a wife of middling means and a more mature woman. Really useful and top of my list for more Flintloque miniatures over on TTWG blog once I have the Elf Dragoons sorted out.
I have put images of the new miniatures in to this posting for you all to look at. Both painted and raw metal alloy. You will be able to find these white metal miniatures on Alternative Armies as of this Friday.
I have a Flintloque scenario for Barking Irons Online which features these new miniatures plus a full section of Dogmen Lancers and some Burrovians. It has been playtested and I plan to do a concept posting on TTWG blog once time allows.
GBS