Tag Archives: 1/3000

We haven’t posted here for several weeks, which is most unlike us – so much so that several regular customers have emailed us to make sure that everything is OK. Thanks you very much for the concern, we are fine, just incredibly busy! The release of A Billion Suns has generated a huge volume of orders, even more than the first lockdown last year, so that we’ve been receiving around two-and-a-half times our usual volume of orders. It’s taken five (long) days a week to clear these, leaving little time for new releases, blog posts etc (although we have kept up with the accounts and VAT, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs waits for no one…). Apologies also if you’ve had a slower than usual response to emails or social media contacts.

The good news is that we’re pretty much up to date with orders – almost everything from March has been cast, packed and shipped (there is one person who’s placed several large orders that we’re pulling together) and we should get everything that’s arrived over the extended Easter weekend done by the end of the week.

So to celebrate, we’re putting the Kerberos spacestation back on the website – Phil’s remoulded it, all orders that were delayed have been shipped and he’s even managed some extra stock!

And here’s a further peek at some new stuff that’s in the pipeline (a long way down the pipeline in fact, almost bursting out of the end…

We have just released these very handy Jump Gates – ideal for spaceship games as objectives or deployment markers. Each one is a three part casting – the panels/fins are separate from the rings, and they’re interchangeable so you can swap them round. You get one of each type per pack, enough to make three complete jump gates. The post is cast as part of the ring so you just need to stick it into the supplied plastic base.

If you haven’t already come across it, Mike Hutchinson’s new game A Billions Suns (due for release by Osprey early in 2021) allows play across multiple tables, using jump points to navigate – we’d like to think that these would be perfect for that.

As promised last week, we have fleet scale versions of the new Yenpalo fighters ready to go. These come in the usual packs of 12 of each type. The hex panelling has come out, even at this scale (it has, really – the photos don’t show it very well…) – we’d recommend using quite thin paint for them to avoid clogging the detail, I went with a purple wash straight over the undercoat followed by a quick drybrush.

SFS-1160 – Shynil Light Interceptor (x12) – £1.50
SFS-1161 – Axopo Heavy Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-6007 – Jump Gates (x3) – £6.00

LINK

In between the rash of 15mm releases we have other things as well, so this week we have two new capital ships to add to our Chinese Democratic Socialist Union fleet.

The first is the ChengZu class battlecruiser, named for the Ming Emperor Zhu Di. It’s a solid looking vessel with twin turrets and some heavy forward firing Shock Cannon.

Accompanying the ChengZu is the Fengzi (wind) class Carrier. Although rated as a light carrier by the CDSU, it still carries eight fighter squadrons, although not much else in the way of armament.

We’ve also reintroduced the CDSU Scout Fleet Pack, which has one each of the new models plus two each of the three new escort vessels we released recently, plus 24 fighters.

SFS-503 – ChengZu class Battlecruiser – £6.00
SFS-511 – Fengzi class Light Carrier – £6.50
SFSP-503 – CDSU Scout Fleet Pack – £22.50

LINK

Our second spaceship release this week is one many people have been waiting for – the Leviathan class Fleet Carrier. We previewed it around Christmas time but decided to hold it back for Salute as one of our flagship releases for the show. So, since the show should have been tomorrow, it seems only appropriate to add it to the website in time for the show that wasn’t.

It’s the largest spaceship we’ve released (so far – who knows what the future holds…) at over 110mm long, but should be simple to build – it consists of the resin hull plus two metal engines.

The Leviathan is initially discounted by 7.5%, and for each sale we’ll also donate the same amount to HEROES, a fund set up to help frontline NHS staff as they battle the Covid-19 outbreak. This will run until May 8th. It seems particularly relevant to remind you all of this at the moment, since the venue that would have held Salute (The ExCel Centre in Docklands) has now been converted into a huge emergency hospital for CV19 cases.

SFS-111 – Leviathan class Fleet Carrier – £12.00 £11.10

LINK

Before we get on to release news, a quick update on orders as I prepare to leave for Crisis; I’ve caught up on all outstanding ones now, but because I’m off to Belgium shortly I won’t be able to send anything this weekend. So if you have an order with us, it’s sitting in the post bag at the workshop and will ship early next week.

Before I leave for the channel tunnel, I’ve had time to press the GO button on the new spaceships of the Chinese Democratic Socialist Union now we can cast the resin dreadnought hulls again. There are twelve new models, ranging from massive dreadnoughts down to tiny fighter craft – and I will have stocks of these at Crisis tomorrow.

At the top end of the scale is the Longzi dreadnought, a huge four-engined behemoth over 100mm long. The resin hull has two twin forward firing railguns and four twin gun turrets in metal, plus a number of other separate parts. The slightly smaller Jiangxi dreadnought has the same railgun mounts with a single turret and two metal engines.

There are three cruiser classes, in decreasing order of size these are the Guangdong, Wuxi and Haitun. All three are single piece metal models.

Supporting the larger vessels are four types of escort – the workhorses are the Xingzi destroyer and Shenyang frigate. These are supported by the larger Shaoxing and Kaifeng destroyers.

The smallest models are the three fighter types – the Wusheng multi-role fighter, Zhengsheng attack fighter and Yongsheng escort fighter.

We’ve rejigged the contents of the CDSU fleet packs to accommodate the new vessels; the patrol fleet has briefly been retired since it contains models that we haven’t yet replaced, but there is also a new second fleet pack.

SFS-500 – Longzi Dreadnought – £9.00
SFS-501 – Jiangzi Dreadnought – £6.50
SFS-520 – Guangdong Heavy Cruiser – £3.25
SFS-521 – Wuxi Escort Cruiser – £3.00
SFS-522 – Haitun Light Cruiser – £2.50
SFS-530 – Kaifeng Heavy Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-531 – Xingxi Destroyer – £1.25
SFS-532 – Shaoxing Attack Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-540 – Shenyang Frigate – £1.00
SFS-560 – Wusheng Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-561 – Zhengsheng Attack Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-563 – Yongsheng Escort Fighter (x12) – £1.50

SFSP-501 – CDSU Reserve Fleet – £22.00
SFSP-502 – CDSU Carrier Group – £22.00
SFSP-504 – CDSU Battle Fleet – £22.00

These new designs replace all of the existing CDSU range with the exception of the already updated Shanzi carrier. Seasoned Chinese Grand Admirals will have spotted that not all of the older designs have replacements, there are still a few gaps, so expect further CDSU reinforcements in the coming months.

LINK