Secret Weapon Miniatures, Weathering Pigments

Today was the first time I tried out the Secret Weapon Miniatures Weathering Pigment "Rust Red".  I found the stuff really easy to use and it gives really nice effects.  I wish I had other colors to play with.  Here is a good tutorial on doing a tank treads.

Hangar 18

Those who are in search for some cool spaceship type terrain might want to check out Hangar 18's Flash Gordon and Sky Kings line.  Most of the resin terrain is priced between $8.5 - $30. 

They also have some pretty cool spaceships and weird war aircraft.

Angel Barracks Sci-Fi Buildings

Angle Barracks has come out with a few cool 6mm Sci-Fi buildings. They are known as Modular Habitation Units (MHU for short - pronounced 'moo'). The MHUs are made from three core bits – end modules, door modules, and window modules.  The buildings are priced between £3.00 - £5.00.

Basing Miniatures On Clear Bases

Not sure how many people out there base their miniatures on clear bases, but I thought it looked pretty slick.

The figures below were based on Acrylic glass that 2mm thick, the Infantry bases are original size 40 mm x 12 mm, The Landraider bases are 36 x 32 mm.  For vehicles the measurement was the bounding box of the vehicle + the addition of 2 mm to every dimension and round up to the nearest multiple of 4 mm.  You can check out Tactical Command for the entire thread on this cool concept.

Infantry bases and other bases with a "socket" have 1 mm deep grooves for the miniatures sockets and the vehicle bases have 0.1 mm grooves for the tracks. You could mount the vehicles directly on the surface, but with the grooves they are much easier to position and don't slide around, while the glue is still moist and any excess glue will be kept in the groove and will not spill on the surface.
All bases have a hole which will be hidden under a model. The holes take magnets, so the army can easily be stored. The magnets fit snugly into the holes, so it's enough to press them in - no glue required.  That's what they look like: The infantry base has the magnet already inserted.

Crate Terrain

Glue in the Carpet blog has a great little writeup on how to use a crate to create a building for terrain.  I thought that was rather cool.

CorSec Engineering, Barrier Fence

Here is something cool from CorSec Engineering called the Barrier Fence.

They are not sure if they are going to include the rods with the set. They will provide all the plastruct and K&S engineering part numbers that work with it. So far they have tried brass, styrene, and the florescent green acrylic.

Blue Moon Manufacturing, 15mm Sci-Fi Buildings

Blue Moon Manufacturing is almost ready to release a really nice set of 15mm Sci-Fi Buildings for their Galactic War I range. The buildings should be ready for release at Fall-In.  Not sure what the retail price will be for these yet.

Blue Moon Manufacturing also has a rule set called Galactic War I and it retails for $25.

InstantMold, CoolMiniOrNot

Here is a cool product called InstantMold.  You can make you own bits!   With this stuff you can transfer parts from one miniature to another, or create cool looking bases by using various textures.

Instant Mold is a heat softened and reusable putty that cools instantly and does not stick to Green Stuff/Kneadatite, Stick Putty or other common sculpting putties. Create instant molds of hard to replicate details. Once you're done, put it back in hot water and do it again!

You can pick up InstantMold at Cool Mini Or Not's store.

Kerr & King, Flames Of War Objective

Here is a neat little building for those who play Flames of War.  You can pick it up from Kerr & King for £5.50.  It was designed as a giveaway for the participants of the Flames of War competition at the British National Wargaming Championships at Britcon 2010.  The objective marker was inspired by the Germans Having Lunch (The figures set is by Peter Pig.) The Objective is a runided farm building with places for the placement of three metal figure

The item is cast in high quality Polyurethane Resin and are supplied unpainted and requires the addition of figures as they are not supplied.

Baueda Games, 15mm bases

Baueda Wargames has released some really cool 15mm bases perfect for Flames of War or Alien Squad Leader.

There are four different 4 holes Infantry scenic bases (urban) each 50mm wide by 32mm deep (2" x 11/4").   The bases are cast in tough polyurethane resin and beautifully sculpted to accommodate four 15mm figures. While the bases from Battlefront are effectively flat these are approximately 2mm thick and on top of that there is textured terrain and details added. As a consequence you can easily pick these bases up from the edges, meaning that you’ll never have to grab the figures themselves anymore! Designed to be fully compatible with Flames of War standard basing, the surface include ruined buildings rubble and all sort of improvised repairs that troops will naturally look for and use for cover while moving.  Supplied unpainted.

Baueda Wargames has a nice selection of other 15mm bases.  Here is a set of command bases.

Hotz ArtWorks, Dirt Planet, Moonscape Mat

Hotz ArtWorks has released their Dirt Planet Moonscape Mat.   I haven't seen these up close, but wow, they certainly look impressive.  You can purchase the mats with or without hexes and with or without Craters.  The mats retail from around $12-$60 depending on dimensions + shipping.

Critical Mass Games, Comms Tower

Critical Mass Games is releasing a new terrain piece tomorrow for the Arc Fleet called the Comms Tower.  This is the perfect objective marker for your 15mm Sci-Fi gaming.  For some reason it reminds me of something that might have been seen on Tatooine.

Tatooine

Heresy Brush

I came across a Spanish blog called Heresy Brush that has a ton of great articles from painting, to air brushing to adding all sorts of little details to your miniatures and bases.   If you can not read the blog (it is in Spanish), you can use Google Translate to translate it.

s6 Engineering, Canals

S6 Engineering has come out with some really nice canals for 6mm/15mm gaming.  The set contains 11x canal straights and 4x canal corners and retails for £12.  You can purchase it in either smoke or green.

Hotz ArtWorks, Moonscape Mat

Hotz Artworks just released a really cool moonscape gaming mat.  I haven't seen these in person, but I think they would be really fun to game on.

The Moonscape Felt Game Mat is designed especially for lunar sci-fi games, either 15mm/28mm skirmish games, 1/300th scale games, fighter craft games in Zero-G, or anything else you may want to play. The felt color was specifically chosen because it matches our vision of the lunar surface. These game mats are available with or without airbrushed crater artwork. If crater artwork is desired, the crater sizes can be modified to match the scale of your game -- you can have larger or smaller size craters airbrushed onto your game mat. Just ask. You may want to have a hex or square grid printed onto the game mat surface. The hexes, for example can be added so the crater artwork fits inside the hexes (available with 3 inch or larger hexes). This way the hex/square grid, if desired, is not merely printed onto the game mat, but is instead added intelligently to the game mat to enhance game play. The uses you will have for these mats is limited only by your imagination.

NOTE: The position and number of craters airbrushed onto game mat varies from game mat to game mat. Usually, on a Moonscape game mat with craters, there are between 18 and 24 craters per game mat. If you want large craters, there will be fewer craters on the game mat, while smaller craters will mean there will be more.

MicroPanzer Wargame Studio, 28mm Terrain

MicroPanzer Wargame Studio is working on some really cool 28mm Sci-Fi lab/terrain pieces.

Zuzzy Miniatures, Terra-Flex™

Zuzzy Miniatures releases a cool terrain mat known as the Terra-Flex™ Broken Blacktop.  I would really like to see this sucker up close.  It looks pretty slick.  

 The Terra-Flex™ Broken Blacktop Gaming Mat is available in 4ft x 6ft (122cm x 183cm), 4ft x 4ft (122cm x 122cm), 3ft x 3ft (92cm x 92cm), 30in x 30in (76cm x 76cm), 2ft x 4ft (61cm x 122cm) and 2ft x 2ft (61cm x 61cm) sizes. These flexible battle boards can be spread out on the floor, draped over a small table, laid across your favorite gaming table, or even glued down on a permanent base. Once the game is over the mat can be easily rolled up and stored away in the convenient plastic sleeve that it was originally shipped in, taking up little more room than a folded up umbrella.

Cf Originals, Polymer Clay

Christi Friesen of cforiginals.net sent me a nice package of her Polymer Clay tools, a Steampunkery book and steampunk gears.  I will have reviews of the tools and gears in upcoming posts.  The book however was a real surprise and gives ton of how-tos and ideas.

If you haven't worked with Polymer Clay before, the stuff is pretty cool.  You're not going to use it to sculpt figures, but it works great for bases and other terrain effects.

The Steampunkery book retails for $14.95.

We all know what Steampunk is, a sort of Victorian-era mad scientist-adventurer look- all clockwork gears and brassy bits, leathery straps, and even the occasional bit of lacey filigree.   Now apply that look to polymer clay creativity and you have 'steampunkery'! a wonderful way to combine polymer clay sculpting tricks (like making a miniature leather strap complete with wire buckle and tiny little fake stiching) with embellishments of vintage pieces (like watch parts), found objects (like old pen nibs), and stuff you've got in your craft stash (like beads and paper scraps).  Doesn't that sound like fun?!

There is a lot to enjoy in this book- a hinged heart pendant that opens to reveal it's inner workings, cute little steampunk critters (complete with goggles of course) and other fun stuff-- pendants, sculptures, wall pieces, even thing you can add to costumes, if you're into that sort of thing. 

All the projects are presented step-by-step with lots of pictures and thorough explanations (with some silliness thrown in, just for fun). It doesn't matter what your skill level, the projects are challenging without being stressful, and structured without being confining. Plus there are lots of hints and creative nudgings to help keep your creative gears turning.

S6 Engineering, 6mm Buildings

S6 Engineering just released some nice 6mm ruin building sets.  These 3mm laser-cut acrylic building sections allow you to create buildings in wide range of sizes. The panels are all supplied intact to allow users to customize the level of damage. (damage is easy to create by scoring the section to be removed and then snapping it off) 18 5x4.5cm panels are supplied in the kit.  Price is £12

 (GW Epic Vindicators and Rhinos shown for scale purposes)

Dragon Forge, Hero Base Set

Here is a new Hero's Base Set in the Forgotten Empires Base Series.
 
It's a set of two bases, one 30mm and one 40mm with Round Lips.

You can find it now in the Dragon Forge Store.

RLBFE-005 Hero Base Set Forgotten Empires 2 bases for $5.00