The New MH Forum is LIve!

The new MH forum is now live and has replaced the old proboards one.

Visit the new board HERE and see what you think. Even better please register and post. All miniature and gaming related topics are welcome. New minis, old minis, plastics, resins, manufacturers, likes, dislikes etc. Gaming, tips and tricks. How you did this and why. What you'd like to see etc.

Just 2 rules.
1)  Be polite, even if you disagree with a point of view.
2)  My word is final.

I'd be very pleased to see anyone with a positive contribution to make join the forum.

Also, if you think you’d make a good mod, send me an email and let me know.

Thanks

Tim

More on bones and forums

Well the mammoth packing session is complete and the first wave of Reaper’s new plastics are on their way to their new owners.

Now as you know I’m an old lead fan, and not overly keen on any other miniature making material. However I have to admit Reaper have come up with a quality product at a great price. Some do have tiny mould lines, but that’s about it. No bubbles or miscast pieces that I could see through the blisters. No flash, even on close together parts like fingers, and good crisp detail. I haven’t had one out of its blister, so I don’t know how they paint, but that question will probably be resolved on the many miniature forums in the coming days.

And of course if you need any Reaper paints, you know where to come :)

Speaking of forums, I’ve been having a bit of a discussion with some of the members over at my little talking shop. Its a proboards forum, which is all I could get for free at the time a couple of years ago. However as many of you will know doubt know, proboards is towards the bottom of the forum food chain. Its limited features and picture hosting ability isn’t great for a hobby where images are pretty important. So I’ve asked the current membership if they would like to switch to a new simple machines board, or stay with the old board. Currently its moving in favour of the move, which I personally support.

The problem is I can’t transfer the existing information and membership from the proboards forum to the new one; proboards don’t allow it. I did find a crawler program but I haven’t a clue what to do with it. So it looks very much as if it’ll be starting again from scratch. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view.

My existing mod team are coming across, but I’m also going to want an couple of others, preferably techy types to offset the non techy administrator. Female mods would be a great addition to help counter the present all male admin team. Its never going to be a taxing role, after 2 years and three painting contests the current membership only stands at 129, so its certainly light duties only. That said I do want to encourage a bit more activity, old minis, new minis, painting help groups, trading board etc.

Send me a email if you’re interested.

Lastly, the wonderful news about the postal charge increases :( Just what we all didn’t need. So we’re now all going to be paying to fatten up the Royal Mail, so it can be privatised and then sold back to us. If I came and took your telly, then sold it back to you the next day, you’d think you’d been conned. But if I charged you to look at it, then took it away only to return next day and still sell it back to you, you’d clearly know I was a government!

Buy or pre-order before the 30th April and I will honour the postage price you paid at the time of ordering. After that orders from 0 to 100g will be price X with the next price break covering the weight range from 101g to 750g.

TTFN

Tim

Reaper Bones now in

Just got the package containing the New Reaper plastics. I can only see them through the clear blister, but they look good.

Busy starting the packing now, but I’ll write more later.

 

Tim

Upcoming Reaper Releases & News

Well once again its nice to be back in control of everything after the last little hiccup.

Upcoming Reaper Releases

The latest pdf of upcoming Reaper releases HERE And a second pdf HERE of a boxed set they'll be releasing in early April.

I've also completed a major re-stock of a lot of the single Reaper Core Colours. If you have yet to try these excellent paint, now is a very good time to do so. Most are now in stock in limited quantities, but if I haven't got it, I can soon order it in.

To celebrate the start of spring, (remember uk time goes on one hour to BST ), all Shadowforge products in the shop are now 20% off their RRP.

I also hope to have the first shipment of Reapers new Bones range of plastic miniatures, in stock by the middle of next week.

Uploaded a few interesting oldies too. Rogue trooper range miniatures including Venus Bluegenes

And finally a bit of a pimp for my good mate Al, whose bottom burps are currently frightening his cat. Well he tweeted it. No this concerns his entry HERE at the Hawgleg publishing gutshot competition. Please vote for him.

 

TTFN

Tim

Back at the Helm

Finally back being able to access the MH site. I’ll be trying to get things caught up as quickly as I can.

Huston, we have a problem

Seriously cheesed off at the moment. I have fully working internet but access to my site, and those also held on the same server, is being blocked.

So currently the MH site is flying on autopilot as I can’t get into it, or get any of the emails that come from the server. Its not a server problem, and I’m currently working with my ISP to try and get it sorted out. Currently the only email that works is tim.fitchato2.co.uk  replacing the at with @. As soon as I get access back I’ll let you all know.

Tim

Hero Holders are go!

Launched this morning, (20th March), but only got time to blog about them now. Yes the pre-slotta bases MK II are now available for sale HERE Thanks are due to Jollybob for the splendid name, and of course to Shane for doing the 3D design work.

 

So these are what I have currently available.

All are 5mm tall. The squares have exterior dimensions of 20, 30, 40. & 50 mm

The rounds are 30, 40 & 50 in a choice of two different lip versions.

But what do you use them for? Well the pictures below should help explain.

     

Stick a pre-slotta mini in the base, fill round it with epoxy putty, green stuff etc, and then flock and base as you would a slotta. Its that simple and allows scenic basing without having to try and remove an integral metal base.

Now this isn’t just for ancient old miniatures. Many new miniatures still come with metal bases. A good proportion of Reaper’s current range for example. Plus these also allow wargamers to base up their figures neatly, and set them correctly on the battlefield. The miniatures are less likely to fall over too.

Reaper plastics have their bases moulded on too. Far easier to remove than metal, or easier still to mount in a Hero Holder.

Do please check the INTERNAL measurements you require before ordering. These are smaller than the external measurements, and are stated on each listing.

I make these in house so the only limit to quantity is time and available resin.

If you have any thoughts or comments please let me know, either here, or at the MH forum.

TTFN

Tim

Portal 20 & a new line of products

Well first off Wamp have released their latest edition of Portal magazine. Its free to download HERE and well worth doing so. Mind you I would say that as I write a bit in it. This month I’ve tried to look ahead to what the hobby will be like in 20 years time. Personally I think 3D printers will feature quite a bit, but you’ll have to read ‘The View from the Hill’, section to find out why.

 

3D printing has been on my mind quite a bit recently. It is certainly a very handy way of getting prototypes and masters made, if you know what to do. I don’t, but a certain Mr R, who also happens to be the mover and shaker behind most of Portal, does.

His skill with 3D printing files has allowed me to further a set of products that I’ve had on the go now for about a year. My first attempts at pre-slotta bases were ok, but I couldn’t get the sizes right myself. Also trying to make square ones that looked accurate was just about impossible for my limited skill set on a milling machine. 3D prinfing has allowed the production of a set of accurate, well made masters, that I have now moulded and cast in ivory coloured resin.

More details and the full launch will be in a few days time. However here’s a teaser pic to be going on with.

 

 

More on these later.

TTFN

Tim

Chronicle. who?

Been cleaning a batch of old Chronicle miniatures inbetween doing other stuff the last couple of days. Just uploaded most of the first lot HERE 

Now some of you will no doubt be scratching your heads as to the company I’m on about. The rest, of a certain age, will just be nodding sagely and thinking, are yes I remember them.

Well Chronicle was a miniature producing company of the early 80’s owned and run by Nick Lund, he of later Fantasy Warriors fame. At the time when Citadel were emerging as a miniature producing power, Chronicle was also starting to get a bit of momentum. Nick sculpted everything himself and at quite a rate too. So much so that it worried Citadel enough to buy him out and run his Chronicle lines along with his own. Nick went to work for GW as a sculptor, but it was a short lived arrangement. I can imagine having been his own boss for a while, suddenly having to take orders was an uncomfortable experience. Sadly the Chronicle name disappeared for good in 1985, while Nick went to work with Grenadier UK and produced some of his best ever work.

So what is so special about Chronicle? Well they are best described as unique. In the early days Nick wasn’t the best sculptor, not helped by the then limitations of the putties. His figures weren’t neat and refined like today’s offerings, more rustic and homemade in appearance.

The above is an Ogre with Club, and shows pretty well what I mean. However there are some miniatures that this style works well on, Orcs and Hobgoblins, and it’s with these that Nick excelled.

Hobgoblin warrior with a Shaman in the second picture.

A couple of Chronicle Black Orc Warriors.

Chronicle orcs and Hobgoblins are rough, vicious and feral looking. Clad in bits and pieces and armed with an assortment of crude and battered weaponary they are lightyears away from the grinning fools that GW went on to produce. I’ve painted some for my own collection, and they aren’t the easiest. I’ve never seen one pro-painted, and that’s a shame. Yes there are a lot of things wrong with them, but they have an awful lot going for them too.

Reaper Bones & Stock Update

Well if this initial rush of orders is anything to go by, then Reaper have certainly hit a nerve with their new range of plastics, Reaper Bones.

77004 Cave Troll at £ 1.50, above is currently leading the charge with 11 sold at the time of writing. In fact I think that makes him my most sold Reaper miniature so far. Sadly its also a reflection of the times we’re also living through. Compare the price of the plastic troll with his metal original at £ 4.90 and you can see the attraction. Yet is £ 4.90 really that expensive to start with? Well currently, for a great deal of people yes it is, and I personally find that very sad.

However onto happier thoughts. Some people have asked if these are going to be like finecast? From ehat I have been able to research, no they aren’t. Whatever finecast actually is, these are injection moulded plastic, produced in China on a 200 tonne injection moulding machine. Though I haven’t actually seen one in the plastic yet, initial reports are that quality is excellent, and that they need no priming. So far its a win win situation all round.

As you may have read on my previous post, I suffered a router failure a few days ago. Not only did Reaper launch their Bones range while I was off line, but I also had my weekly Reaper delivery. I’ve now just been able to update the shop with the re-stocks that were included within the box.

The following are now immediately available again.

50003 Ellen Stone – Cowgirl ( pictured )

09748 Ivory Bone paint triad

09745 Bloodthirsty Reds triad

09128 Green Ochre

09129 Faded Khaki

09199 Russet Brown

09200 Harvest Brown

09201 Orange Brown

TTFN

Tim

I’m back, finally

 

Well didn’t expect my initial foray into the world of blogging to be met with my router giving up the ghost, but it did. So 36 hours, and a new router later I’m back online and trying to catch up with everything that has been happening.

And in true to life fashion, just when I’m offline, Reaper go and launch a brand new range of figures. They’re plastic, called Reaper Bones and best of all they are cheap.

I hope to get the initial range up in the shop ready for pre-order by Sunday 11th March.

However if you want to see more, then click here http://miniature-heroes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reaper&action=display&thread=485&page=2

and all should become clear.

TTFN

Tim

test 01

Adding a picture now.

Right then, spurred on by my good friend Martin of Vexillia miniatures, who rates this highly, I too have joined the blogger throng! I'm hoping this will become a single source place for those interesting in the goings on at MH to subscribe too, and have the information beamed straight to their desktop, mobile etc, instead of having to search for it. I hope to get it linked into twitter and facebook, and perhaps even onto the MH main site. Of course this is all asking quite a bit of my limited technical ability, but who knows, it just might work.

I may also post thoughts and views in my own random way.

Subscribe and even comment if you wish.