Category Archives: Shop News

Paper Soldiers

I’m fortunate enough to work in the war games industry and as a result sometimes get the chance to see a product as it is developed and launched. I am particularly excited about a new series of books that will be launched later in the year at Salute. They are designed to be an introduction to war games and are illustrated by Peter Dennis with rules by Andy Callan. Most of the war gaming world will be familiar with Peter Dennis’s work. Even if you don’t know his name, you will probably have some of his work either in your book case – he has done many of the colour plates for Osprey Books, or in your collection, Peter does the Box Art for the Perry’s plastic boxed sets.

We’re lucky to have Andy as a member of the White Hart Wargames club. Andy has been writing articles and rules since the first issues of Miniature Wargames Magazine hit the shelves in 1983 and is still regularly published with his recent articles appearing in Wargames Illustrated. So with the superb artistic talents of Peter Dennis and the wargames experience of Andy Callan, you know that you are going to get a great product.

The idea is to produce a wargame in a book, including all of the figures, scenery and rules. The only other thing that you will need to play is a dice and of course, some scissors and glue to make your armies! The first books, published by Helion and company will cover the English Civil War, Wars of the Roses, The Battle of Hastings and the Romans in Britain. So, as you can see from the picture above, you assemble your army by cutting out the high quality artwork supplied to build an army of your choosing within the given period. You are free to copy the templates supplied, so how big the army you build is up to you!

Side view of the figures.

What a great way to introduce someone to the world of wargaming! Of course it is also an opportunity for you to try a period that perhaps you wouldn’t attempt because you don’t have the time to paint yet another army. Once the figures are assembled they are quite robust. Thanks to the standard of art work they also look great when on the table. For all you parents and Grandparent’s out there, I cant think of a better way to introduce the hobby to the next generation. You can be sure that my Granddaughter will be playing once she is old enough!

Our Paper soldiers defend the Village!

We’ll be testing out Andy’s rules at one of our club nights in the near future and I will produce a full battle report as well as a few more pictures. On first reading, the rules are simple and well thought out and are designed to give a ‘feel’ for the period. A single play sheet distils the key rules down to facilitate easy reference during the game itself.

As a final thought, we talked at the club about using these bases to ‘pad’ out our fledgling skirmish armies to enable us to fight larger battles. So my Lion Rampant Wars of the Roses retinue could form the core of a much bigger paper army whilst I tested some of the rules sets out. All in all, I think it’s a great idea and I cant wait for the books to be available. For under £15.00, I am sure that these books will find their way into most wargamers collection!

There is an awful lot of web space and angst currently being devoted to the latest offering from Games Workshop, the Age of Sigmar. Well, although it’s not really any of my business ( or thank goodness, any part of my business), I thought that I would add my two pennyworth for the entertainment of my two readers….

I’m not going down the road of the ‘Games Workshop Corp.’ is terrible rant. Nor do I fall into the ‘we owe our hobby to Games workshop’ groove either. That, to my mind, is the nonsensical equivalent of thanking the current management and personnel of EMI for finding the Beatles and inventing popular music.

I do understand the anguish of some gamers though. To use another metaphor, the current situation with Sigmar seems to be the equivalent of a Football club being bought up by a new owner. And the new owner wants to change the club name, or shirt colour or just seems intent on evicting the lifelong supporters that can no longer afford the new season ticket prices ( safe in the knowledge that there are plenty that can…)

The problem for the supporters is that they have invested a lot of time and money in ‘their’ club and even more importantly to them, emotional ownership and support of the ‘brand’. Which of course, is what marketing is all about. What the fans haven’t always grasped, is that their real love is for the game itself and there are plenty of other teams out there that you can enjoy watching. Even better, the smaller the team, the more appreciated your support will be.

And so it goes with gaming. If you are disenchanted with the latest Fantasy offering from GW, don’t waste energy wishing it would change back to the ‘old days’. Find the bit of the hobby that you love and move on. It may surprise some gamers that Games Workshop don’t own the Fantasy World. They were just very good at taking what was already out there and developing it into a game and to be fair, a very good one at that. Times have changed again though and there  are plenty of games systems out there with more being published all of the time. No doubt this is part of the reason that Games Workshop have had to change. But if Games Workshop need to change, then may be it’s ‘Fans’ or ‘Supporters’ should as well.

It’s a process that I have been through myself. I used to be a fanatical supporter of Games Workshop from the launch of the first Space Marines plastic boxed set through to about the Black Reach edition of 40K. In fact it was back in 1982 that I first saw some Citadel miniatures that were painted to a standard that I’d not seem in model soldiers before that brought me back into the hobby. Note that I said, brought ‘me back into the hobby’.

I became disappointed with the constant changes to the rules, codex creep and even worse Games Workshops cavalier attitude to the older gamer and long standing customers. The light bulb moment for me was watching some guys at War Hammer World playing a Napoleonic Game and realising that they were having more fun than me. The rest, as they say, is history and for me that is now my hobby!

I still have my old GW 40K armies in the cabinet. I enjoy looking at them and I’m pleased with the armies that I created and the fun that I had. Who knows, I may dust them down and get out my old rule books and play again, but I doubt it.  There’s far too much fun to be had with my latest obsession, Napoleonics. No one company ‘owns’ or even pretends to ‘own’ the hobby in the Historical world. Actually, one Company did try ( I wont name them to save their blushes). The response from the hobby was ‘get lost’ or words to that effect and that was the last we heard of that piece of nonsense.

So if you are not happy with Games Workshop in general and the Age of Sigmar in particular, my advice is don’t even bother to spend energy trying to hold onto something that has gone. Try something new. There’s a couple of new games out there right now that I would recommend. In fantasy, there’s Frostgrave, developed by Osprey publishing and North Star Miniatures. The rule book is just £15 and a box of Figures £20. A character pack is £6. For less than £50 you will have a whole new game to play. If Science Fiction is your thing, then take a look at the new ‘Gates of Antares’ from Warlord Games. If you order the figures, you’ll get a free rule book and can join the game at the start of it’s development.

Of course, if you would really like to break away, then move on into Historical gaming. You might just find that it’s a lot more fun than you think. There’s certainly plenty of background, a massive choice of periods and rules sets, superb miniatures and resources, a huge choice of manufactures and suppliers and a lot of players that would welcome you into the game.

Well, enough of my rambling, I’ve got figures to paint! To sum up, I think that the most important thing is to remember is that you are a fan of the hobby and a customer of Games Workshop.

Confusing the two will just end in tears.

The rate of new releases has yet to slow down, in fact there seems to be even more new releases this week, despite the fact that we have entered the summer months, usually a quiet time for the modelling world. Again, rather than list everything, I thought that I would just use the new releases to highlight a part of our range. This week it’s the very popular Zvezda ‘Art of Tactic’ series that’s in the spotlight.

Zvezda are a Russian kit manufacturer who traditionally have produced a great range of military subjects in both 1/35th scale and1/72 scale. That changed slightly with their release of the war game/board game hybrid ‘Art of Tactic’. To support the game, Zvezda have released a huge range of mini packs retailing at around £2.99 that features infantry and artillery sets in 1/72nd scale, tanks & vehicles in 1/100th scale and aircraft in 1/144th to 1/200th scale.

However, even if you dont plan to play the ‘Art of Tactic’ game, the models are just superb. At 1/100th scale the vehicles are ideal to supplement a Flame of War force, and the small units of 1/72nd scale figures are a great way of putting together a force to use with any number of rules sets from ‘Mum I aint been shot yet’, Rapid Fire’ , Rate of Fire and even the forthcoming ‘Bolt Action’ rules set.

The latest releases include a 1/100th scale Sd.Kfz 222 armoured car:

In 1/72 scale, a set of German Gebirsjager or mountain troops:

And finally,  Soviet a 76mm infantry gun with crew:

There are some 40 of these sets already available, with more on the way. Although the existing sets are primarily focused on German and Soviet forces, there’s good news for modellers – Zvezda have plans to release some early war British and Allied subjects. If you like the format, you may also be interested to know that Zvezda also do similar sets of Samurai models. I cannot begin to tell you how well modelled and moulded these sets are. If you have n’t tried them, at £2.99, you wont break the bank in checking out a pack!

The zvezda range is available in our ebay shop here. We also stock a huge range of rules sets.