Squawtees are good at turning their vehicles into war machines.
Something new, something that will soon be new and other waffle...
14th Oct 2023
I’ll start this week by thanking the organisers of last week’s Partizan show. There was a record attendance in terms of visitors and it was certainly the busiest that I’ve ever attended. Thanks also to those of you who dropped by for a chat and the occasional purchase. As ever, it was a pleasure for us to be there.
As usual, before we get on to this week’s new releases, there is the small matter of the magic order number, which this week stands at #25722.
So…what new goodies do we have this week? It’s time to expand the German section of our evergrowing WW2 ranges. This week, we continue the well-worn theme of, ‘Let’s stick something vaguely lethal on to a spare chassis we’ve got lying around’. You have the Möbelwagen for a bit of much-needed AA cover, and a Hummel 15cm self-propelled gun, both lovingly and expertly painted for us by the talented Wing Commander Luddite.
Staying on this topic, at Partizan, I was fielding a lot of questions about our future plans for this period. Well, we are steadily completing the first phase, which is to cover the 1944/45 east and west fronts. We are already well into the planning and commissioning of the next phase which will cover North Africa. Once that is completed, we will move to the middle years of the war before finishing with the first phase of the conflict. Yes, we are working chronologically, but in reverse! Once this is all done and dusted we will turn to the Pacific and Far East. So now, you know as much as we do. Timescale is, well, flexible…
Alongside all of this we will continue to develop the pre-20th century stuff, both new ranges and resculpts and overhauls of older codes. The next range to get a facelift is the Successors, and I hope to release these in mid-November. Here’s a preview of what to expect in the form of a unit of Imitation Legionaries.
I’ve chosen to model these with a mix of Roman and Hellenistic armour and weapons, and, if I say so myself, they do scrub up quite nicely.
Elsewhere, the final sculpts for the Great Northern War project are well underway, and these will be the long-awaited cavalry for the Ottoman Turks. We expect to have these out by the end of the year. At that point, the sculptor will make a start on the first models for the Italian Wars range. This is a project that seems to be generating a lot of interest, and we are really looking forward to producing what will be a comprehensive and spectacular collection of figures and flags.
Anyone interested in a few Landsknechte?
Some of you may remember that we used to have a shop on Shapeways where we sold a number of useful 3D items, mostly 6mm or matching our Small Scale Scenery range. We ended up closing it because various changes to the Shapeways pricing structure made most of them unaffordable and we simply didn’t sell anything.
One of the things our new website allows us to do is sell files for immediate download, so we’ve decided to resurrect some of these files and sell them for printing at home. The files are sold ‘as-is’, we haven’t attempted to add printer supports to them, but they have all been successfully printed at some point or other. Some of the models are quite delicate so you’ll have to use your best judgement as to whether they best suit resin or FDM printing.
Because of this we’re only charging very modest prices (although we decided not to make them free – that would simply encourage a load of people who don’t really want them to hoover up the files just because they can). And there’s also a theory that people are more likely to consume a product if they’re aware of its cost; consumers feel compelled to use products they’ve paid for to avoid feeling that they’ve wasted their money, and we want the files to be used rather than collect metaphorical dust on a hard-drive.
The first batch of files includes the two 6mm bridges we created for the Maidstone Wargames Society Operation Deadstick game, Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge. We also have two types of 6mm power pylons – these were always popular on Shapeways until they went overnight from £10 per set of three to over £50 ! This time you can print as many as you like for a very modest amount.
STL-301 – Pegasus Bridge – £4.00
STL-302 – Horse Bridge – £2.50
STL-305 – Power Pylon Type #1 – £1.50
STL-340 – Power Pylon Type #2 – £1.50
The models in this range are mainly items that are uniquely suited to 3D printing, and which would be difficult/impossible to manufacture in resin/metal. To forestall a question which some people may be wondering – we currently have no plans to release any of the models from our existing metal and resin ranges in digital form.