Miniature Design Studios Warbands are back

OK so this is a Napoleonic's blog but about once a month I end up doing one 'off-Topic' post and this is the one for this month!

Miniature Design Studios are a fairly new producer of 28mm white metal miniatures, exclusively focused on ancients. They first appeared on the scene, if I recall correctly, about 18 months ago and had these great 'Warband' deals which worked out around 50p per figure and with their postage being only GBP5.50 worldwide they were an absolute steal, a complete no brainer. Last year the range was also expanding very rapidly and they seemed to have some momentum behind them.

Anyway the figures are all the 'small' proportionate style 28mm, actually very similar in size to the WG plastic ancients, that also should make them compatible with GB's and Immortal's new plastic ranges I believe. Overall they are a pretty good quality, I see them mainly as a cheap way to bulk out an army, whilst perhaps not being the best they are good enough for that purpose. The Achaemenid Persians, Sassanid Persians, Berbers, Celts and Saxons were excellent, I don't think you can find fault with them, the Picts and Greeks were IMHO howlers. I also quite like the Berber cavalry, I would have preferred to see EBob horses but these are not terrible. To be honest these days any 28mm producer who needs horses should just licencee them from EBob, you have less work to do, we getter better horses who can complain.

Then at the beginning of January they abruptly announced a new pricing model and the end of the 'Warband' deals, it effectively meant that prices had doubled overnight and ever since they went very quite with no new releases, I had started to think they were probably dead.

Well just as abruptly I have noticed this week that the 'Warband' deals have returned and once more you can buy their range for 50p per figure. Not only that but they have announced that they will soon be adding new figures to their range, with Hittites, Celts, Picts, Saxons and Israelites getting specific mention.

If you are in to ancients, or want to add some variety into some of the new plastic ranges take a look, at GBP25.00 for 50 figures the 'Warbands' have to be worth at least a try don't you agree?

Imago Militis Romans

Last week the Imago Militis order I had placed with NorthStar arrived.

As I mentioned previously this was a bargain, especially since they have put up the price by GBP22 since then, I did say grab them quick, you do feel like you have won the lottery when this happens!!

Anyway I bought these because I had been told they were small 28mm and I thought they would go well with Warlord Games plastic Romans. Well its true they are very small 28mm indeed, and they are as perfect a match as your are ever going to get between a plastic and metal figure, in fact if anything they are smaller than they WG Romans, though the difference is tiny, I would say less then 1/2mm but no doubt the metals are the smaller of the two in height, though offset by metals being a little bit bulkier round the middle as you would expect. I would have no problem mixing the two in the same units (and I am the pickiest of them all) except for the shields which are quite different.

The "Army Deal" I bought included seven 24 man units plus army command and enough LBMS shield transfers for all for GBP77. One unit was Praetorian, one Legionaire in Lorica Segmentata and the rest Legionaire or Auxillaries in mail. I am not sure exactly which codes they are as, when they revised the price last week, NorthStar also removed the listing of codes for the deal from their site.

I am really pleased with the figures, very nicely sculpted, by Brian Ansell I think, anyway I have now started on cleaning them up, they are fairly free from flash so its not a big job.

The figures were reasonably packed, each unit in a plastic bag and the whole in a sturdy box, only one figure got 'dinged' in transit, one of the guys with the big horn thingies (yes I know nothing about ancients) had the tube of the horn snap in one place, (being small figures the tube is very thin) not a great disaster, I straightened it and it probably will look Ok when painted up.

This was the first time I had dealt with NortStar, I tend to use Caliver whenever I can because of their free shipping. NorthStar send you lots of email confirmations about your order, including when they finally dispatch the figures. Delivery was prompt, nothing to complain about but a tad slower than Caliver, Caliver always seem to mange to dispatch the same day whereas NorthStar took about 3 days, as I said that is perfectly acceptable and in any case they sat around on my table for several days before I unpacked them.

I would gladly recommend both NorthStar and Imago to anyone, I would even go so far as saying if you have WG Ancients then Imago Militis should be on your must have list.

Relic Miniatures

I saw this news item on TGN about a new Carthaginian Veteran green from Relic Miniatures.

It seems Relic Miniatures are a fairly new Canadian(!!) company specializing in 28mm Punic and Hellenistic Wars ancients. They are 28mm to the eyeball which I guess makes them 'big' 28mm (or does it?) which is nice as it bucks the recent trend for 28mm to be getting smaller and smaller. I was thinking they may fit in with the Renegade ancients I have.

A rough guide to pricing is that they work out at about $2 for foot, shipping works out at 20% if you are willing to spend $60 or so though it can be a bit lumpy if you are buying small quantities. A small criticism of their site is that you can only figure out the shipping info. if you register and then run half way through the checkout procedure, also nothing actually says the prices are in CAD, I only figured out they were a Canadian company by poking around the site and guessed the prices must therefore be CAD.

Two posts not about Napoleonics!! What is the world coming to?

NorthStar ImagoMilitis Bargain

Just picked up a great deal from NorthStar.

ImagoMilitis 28mm Roman Army Deal at 62% off the regular price (see their 'cheap figures' section), limited time only so get them while you can.

I think these will fit in nicely with the WG plastic Romans/Celts.

Robbed... Again...

Another great game with Andrezj's new Romans and Celts, our house variant C&C Ancients rules and a HexCloth.

After allowing Peter to beat up the Roman right flank pretty badly the center finally got stuck in. Attacking in three waves supported by the Druids my Celts managed to bleed Erics Romans dry.

I think this works well as a tactic against the Romans, their heavies have a movement allowance of 1 vs. the Celts 2, so move the Celts up to 2 hexes away from the Romans so they can't get caught on the Roman turn, then attack on the Celt turn which gives them the initiative during the attack. Make sure you have the Druids up in support and a leader there . First wave just tries to damage as many Roman units as it can, the second wave tries to start eliminating them, the third wave mops up whatever is left.

I had refused the right flank so that I could use as many of my command cards as possible in the center/left to make up for the 4 vs 6 deficit the Celts have against the Romans. This worked for the most part, I only got caught in the last couple of turns with a stray Roman unit breaking into the right but by then the main battle was decided so it was more or less irrelevant.

However once again I had a decisive victory snatched away by getting on the wrong side of the morale rule due to some lousy dice throwing. With the Celts down just over 25% whilst the Romans were well over 50%, I think it was 17 die thrown and not a single flag pulled, sigh.
http://www.hksw.org/07012%20cc.htm