Miniature manufacturers: a list

Kudos to Gareth who did all the hard work.
15mm
1st Corps
2 Black Dragons
Abandoned Mind Games
Aberrant Games
Ad Astra games
Adler miniatures
Ainsty Castings
Alambic Miniatures
Alexandros Models
Alderac entertainment
Alionas - Page looks very old - visit under caution
Alkemy Miniatures
Alternative Armies
Amera mouldings
Ammon Miniatures
Antenocitis
Andrea Miniatures
Arcane Legions
Arcane Miniatures
Armorcast
Armorum and Aquila miniatures
Artizan Designs
Askari miniatures
Asmodee
Assassin miniatures
The Assault Group
Avatars of War
Aventine Miniatures
Baker Company
Battlefield Miniatures
Battlefoam
Baueda Models
BEF Miniatures
Bicorne miniatures
Blackball games
Black Cat bases
Black Hat Miniatures
Black Orc Games
Black Scorpion miniatures
Black tree Design
Blaze away Miniatures
Blue moon Manufacturing
Boot hill miniatures
Border miniatures
Brigade games
Brigade models
Bronze Age miniatures
Calpe Miniatures
Cannon Fodder miniatures
Castaway arts
Cavalcade Miniatures
Cold war miniatures
Conquest miniatures
Cool mini or not
Copplestone castings
Corvus Belli
Critical Mass - site may be dead?
Crocodile games
Crunch Waffle miniatures
Crusader miniatures
Dark Age Miniatures
Dark Art miniatures
Dark Realm Miniatures
Dark Slave Miniatures
Darkson Designs
Dark sphere
Dark Sword miniatures
D&P Miniatures
Denizen miniatures
Dixon minis
Dream pod nine
Dp Gaming Although the site exists, the links do not work. Use with caution.
Dragon Forge
Dungeon Castings
DUST tactics - now links to fantasy flight games
Dwarf Tales
Dwarven Forge
East Riding Miniatures
EBay
EBay
EBay
Ebob miniatures
El Greco miniatures
Elite Miniatures
EM4 Miniatures
Empress Miniatures
Enigma miniatures
Epicast
Essex miniatures
Eureka miniatures
Ex-Illis
Excalibur miniatures
Exodus Wars
Fantasy flight games
Fenris Games
Fenryll
Flames of war
Flashpoint Miniatures
Forgecraft games
Forged in Battle miniatures
Forgeworld
Four A Miniatures
Four colour figs
Freebooter Miniatures
Front line wargaming
Front rank miniatures
Galloping Major
Games workshop
Gamezone miniatures
Gaming figures
Garrison miniatures
Gazpez Arts
Gorgon studios
Grenadier Miniatures - site looks very old. use with caution.
Grey Matter figures
Gribbly Miniatures
Griffin miniatures
Grindhouse games
Gripping Beast Games
Grubby Tanks
Guild of Harmony
Harwood hobbies
Hasslefree miniatures
Hell Dorado
Heresy Miniatures
Heroes of the Dark age
Hinchliffe models
Hirst Arts
HiTech miniatures
Honourable lead boiler suit company
Hydra miniatures
Infinity miniatures
Ironclad miniatures
Immortal miniatures
Impact miniatures
Iron mammoth
Ironwind metals
Irregular miniatures
Itars workshop
Javis Scenics
Jeff Valent Studios
JMD Miniatures
Joe K minis
JR miniatures
Kabuki models
Kallistra
Killer Bee Games
King zombie
Kingdom death
Kingsford Miniatures
Knight models
Knuckleduster models
Korwin miniatures
Kromlech
Lance and Laser
Latorre models
Lead adventures
Litko
Little lead soldiers
Maow Miniatures
Mad puppet miniatures
Magister Militum
Maidenhead miniatures
Mantic Games
Masquerade miniatures
Matchlock miniatures
Majestic bear miniatures
Matador Models
Max mini
MCS miniatures
Mercs minis
Megaminis
Microart Studios
Microworld Games
Mindstalkers
Mini miniatures
Miniature building authority
Miniature heroes
Miniature Scenery
Minos Miniatures : Site has not been updated for some time - use with caution
Mississinewa Miniatures
Mithril Miniatures
Monday Knight productions
Mongoose publishing
Monolith Designs -: Site has not been updated for some time - use with caution
Moon fleet miniatures -: Site has not been updated for some time - use with caution
Mountain Miniatures
MSB Toys miniatures
Mutineer miniatures
Mystic Hobby games
Nals Workshop
Nemesis Miniatures
New Bold world
New line designs
Noble knight games
Nocturna Miniatures
Obelisk Miniatures
Offensive miniatures
Old Crow models
Old Glory Uk miniatures
Olleys armies
On the Lamb games
Otherworld miniatures
Outpost wargames services
Pardulon Models
Park Field Miniatures
Pegaso Models
Pendraken Miniatures
Perry miniatures
Pig Iron Productions
Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Plastic Soldier Company
Prince August
Privateer Press
Pulp city
Pulp Figures
QRF Miniatures
RAFM miniatures
Raging heroes
Ral Partha
Ramshackle Games
Rat Trap Productions
Reaper miniatures
Rebel minis
Red Box games
Redoubt Enterprises
Regiment Games
Renegade miniatures
Resina planet
RH Models
Rif Raf miniatures
RLBPs
Rod Langton miniatures
Runic Miniatures
Rusted heroes Page looks very old - visit under caution
Scale Creep Miniatures
Scarab Miniatures
Scheltrum miniatures
Scibor miniatures
Scotia Grendel Productions
Secret Weapon miniatures
Sgt Major Miniatures
Shadowforge Miniatures
Shell hole scenics
Simple miniatures
Sk Miniatures
Smart max miniatures
Soda Pop Miniatures
Spartan Games
Sphere wars
Spinespur Miniatures
Spriggan miniatures
The Square
Stan Johansen Miniatures
Steve Barber models
Steve Jackson Games
Studio McVey
Studio Miniatures
Taban Miniatures
Tabletop World
Tactical miniatures
Team frog -: Site has not been updated for some time - use with caution
Technolog
Terrascenic
Tereny DoGier
Thunderbolt mountain miniatures
Thomarillion
Tins bits
Tor Gaming
Total Battle miniatures
Troll Forged Miniatures
2 hour Wargames
Ultraforge
Urban Mammoth
Valiant Miniatures Clan War page
Valiant miniatures
Venexia Miniatures
Veni Vidi Vici transfers
Victory force miniatures
Victrix models
Viking Forge
Wargames factory
Wargames foundry
Warlord Games
Warm Acre
Warrior online
War torn worlds
Wessex Games
West Wind Productions
What The?! Miniatures
Wyrd Miniatures
Xyston Miniatures
Zenit miniatures
Ziterdes
Zombie Smith
Zvezda Models

No website of their own; (can be found on Coollminiornot.com, Fantization.com, Nobleknight.com, FRPgames or Artemisblacks.com)

Name
Degra Miniatures
Dragonblood miniatures
Euphoria miniatures
Thugz Miniatures
Celtos Miniature
Magnificent Egos
Dragonrune miniatures
Velard Miniatures
Yedharo Models
Base X of War
Mad Puppet Miniatures
Pegasus models
Ares Mythologic
Behemoth Hobbies
Cowboy wars
Epic Buildings
Crunchy Frog Enterprises
Fasa Corporation
Four colour figures
Leading edge games
Roadkill Miniatures
Spyglass miniatures
Mannequin miniatures

WFB 8 scenery: a Geeks guide

What follows is an exploration in the "Average" scenery that would be required on a Warhammer fantasy table. I found the results surprising so I have written about them....

I hope that this is of interest and of use to you...

My wargame club hosts a wargame tournament once a year in Exeter. At the tournament we normally host 24 players for each of the WFB and WH 40k games systems and this year we will include a 32 man Warmachine / Hordes tournament.

With the advent of the 8th edition of warhammer we have revisited our scenery and set about making new as required. So we had a chat last meeting about the progress that we have made and what we need to do next. So a Saturday morning comes and it is time to test my knowledge of statistics and work out just what we should be making.

I know that we need 12 tables decorated up for WFB, so I set about thinking what would be generated if we just left it to the rules in the book. The book requires D6+4 items of terrain. This means that we would need an average of 71/2 items of terrain per table. The terrain is generated by rolling 2D6 and looking up a table.

Therefore it is possible to calculate what number of each type of scenery would be generated on an average day...

The results of my maths are shown in the following table; The table lists the percentage chances of at least one item of this scenery appearing on each table and therefore the number I would expect to appear on 12 tables..

 which gives the following distribution of scenery; what do you think? Is this what you expected?

 

This is a lot of scenery to make, and is a lot different to our normal set up of two hills, one wood and a building...

Mantic games: Kings of war playtest tonight

Mantic have released a beta version of a very simple ruleset to compliment their set of figures. The intention is that these are playtested to death. To this end I will be playing the system tonight.

I am using my current figures and we have set a 1000 point limit on the game, so the army I have put together for tonight is;

1 Horde of Skeletons with dogs

1 Revenant Regiment with banner and musician

3 Ghoul Regiments

Vampire lord on pegasus

Revenant King.

First thoughts and photos to follow...

SOTR: Time to up the arms race

The Secrets of the third Reich rules allow you to add armour to your force. I have looked in the appendix of the rule book (which contains the stats for armour) and it appears that you gat a lot of bang for your bucks. 

On the basis that it appeared rude not to take advantage of the ability to field armour, I set about researching what tanks I would like. The stats appear to indicate that the best soviet tank that I could choose (for the points that is) is the T34/85. To match the scale of the figures I needed a 1/48 scale model. A quick search on the web showed I could buy them for around £10.00 GBP each, and before I knew it I had ordered two.... Guess that is what happens when work allows you access to the internet in your lunch hour.

I brought Hobby Boss models, and when they arrived I was very pleasantly suprised. The kits have an enormous amount of components and allow you to model to a level of detail that typical wargame manufacturers would never give you.

The models have assembled relatively easily, once I decided not to bother with any of the inside fittings of the tanks, however the tracks are far too complicated given the type of use and the cost of the kit.

It took me just under two days to assemble and greenstuff. Now to have a go at painting a green tank....

Secrets of the Third Reich: Soviet HMG

Soviet Heavy machine gun completed and based...

I opted to construct and mount the entire set before painting. In hindsight (which as we know, is the only sensible way to look at anything) it might have been a better idea to paint each chap individually and then assemble. Getting to all parts was tricky at times.

I have tried to repeat the ameba pattern on the rear of the cloaks. I'm not entirely happy with the final look on these. Now I've seen the photo above, I'm even less happy. Time to get the brushes back out and have another go.

I'm quite happy with how the gun guard came out. I also added a 40 gun case (with emblem removed) and that fits quite well. I used Silfa grass on the base (I have a large stock of it) and that appears to fit with the general look.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Soviet HMG - WIP

Time to expand on the soviet SOTR force with the addition of a Heavy Machine Gun.

To get the model to work properly I had to raise the front gun shield with some plastic card and green stuff. It is a shame, because the rest of the model fits together very well. This change makes this element a little more fragile and I worry about the rough handling all my models get.

I was a little unsure if all these models should fit onto the single base or if the leader should be modelled seperately. After a little web research and a few trial fits I have gone this squeezing them all together.

Time to undercoat and paint.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Finished Siberian flamethrower

After nagging from my work colleague to update my blog, here are completed photographs of the siberian flamethrower dude. He will act as an enforcer within my soviet HQ squad. I have decided to go with a fairly basic skin colour scheme and have retained the green colour scheme of the remainder of the force.

I am aware that I cannot have a flamethrower upgrade as an enforcer option, but I had brought the figure before I read the rule-book.

The chaps head looks a little small for my liking, but regardless I am quite happy with how he turned out. In the WIP posting, I had a small spade on the base, but I got so fed up with it keep falling off that I have removed this.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Siberian flamethrower

Back from holiday and its time to get my paint brushes out again. The original intention was to use this chap as an enforcer in the HQ section protecting the command. unfortunetly I did not realise that I could not equip him with a flamethrower. Shame, it would have been a great idea.

I've got him now, so I may as well paint him up. I have taken the spade of a Chimera, but its fell off three times again, so if it falls off again, that will be the end of that.

The parts fit pretty well together, but I have supplimented the fix with pinning and green stuff..

Charnel pit / rough terrain WIP

I have seen this idea used before for a terrain feature and thought it looked pretty good. When the new WFB rulebook / doorstop came out I noticed the Charnel pit as a terrain feature and decided that it might prove pretty useful to have such a feature, so I set out on a Sunday afternoon to see just how cheaply I could assemble a charnel pit.

The Charnel pit is a area where bodies have not received a proper burial and so their spirits linger on. I thought what is going to be more potent than the lingering spirits of dragons / cold ones.

After a short period of time I had the basic components;

Brought;
Small toy pack containing 3 dinosaur skeletons £1.00 GBP
1 pack of four self adhesive plastic floor tiles £1.00 GBP
From the hobby cupboard;
Glue, modeling sand & grass, paint & stones

Step one was to get out my saw and cut the bodies length wise to double the number of bodies I have. I then got out the snipers and cut up the bodies to try and generate a look of a collapsed skeleton. The bones were then arranged on the self adhesive tiles, which were cut to interesting shapes;

The bases were then covered in PVA glue and stones and sand were added in the conventional way.

The last step is then just to paint and flock...

Very simple and very quick, but I like the look of the pieces. Hope you do too. Six terrain features for £2.00 GBP and enough tiles left over for loads more fun yet.

I am now off on holiday / vacation for two weeks. So no posts until I come back. I am off to North Africa so I may be brimming over with ideas for tomb kings, or maybe not. Until then, have fun...

Secrets of the third reich: Soviet survivor platoon

I have no completed my first platoon for Secrets of the third reich (SOTR). The platoon is a Soviet survivor platoon which contains;

A Sergeant

Corporal

PTRD Anti-Mech rifle

...and 5 privates armed with PPSH-Ks

I believe that they look a lot better painted. Helmets are taken from the Berlin or bust range of figures and the grass is a mixture of Silfur and GW.

I have attempted to use an ameba pattern on the capes, but I'm not convinced that I've got it quite right.

Time to move on to the next unit.

Jungle (ish) terrain

In August of last year my local club hosted a small local friendly tournament, which we invited clubs from across the county to attend. It attracted a fair number of players and good fun was had by all. The only slight fly in the ointment was that our clubs quality and variety of terrain received some negative feedback.

Players who were not familiar with our club suggested that with the exception of a few show pieces, the scenery was quite scruffy and did not appear to have a consistent look. It didn't hang together well. It was also suggested that the boards were a bit bashed and damaged.

As a club this came as a bit of a body blow. We had got quite used to the look of the scenery and hadn't recognised the problems with it. After a brief period of indignation, we stepped back and looked at what we had got. Isn't it funny how it takes a stranger coming in to point out the obvious to you..

We have since moved to rectify the problem. We went through our stock of scenery and threw out some of the older and shabbier items. We have since run a terrain building competition, which although did not have many entries did produce a number of high quality items.

We then set about creating a standard colour scheme and presentation style for all scenery. For example we have decided that all ground is to be painted scorched earth which is then to be dry-brushed up to bleach bone and flocked using a consistent flock. If nothing else it helps make all items of scenery look as if they are meant to be used together.

We have also tried to make our scenery more robust by adding board to the bottom of hills etc.

We have now set about replacing items that need it and adding to fill gaps that  exist. A couple of weeks ago I knocked to gether a whole load of bases for woods.

As part of this process, I have been busy bashing together scatter terrain for (alien) jungles. There is nothing new or unusual about the terrain or the process used. It is just bits and pieces salvaged off plastic flowers and cheap fish tank plants.

I tried fixing to a thin plastic taken from washing powder boxes, but that just warped, so in the end I have reverted to figure bases, and huge variety of bases as-well. Essentially anything that is left over from my various projects. I finally landed on the simplest system which was to sand, paint and flock the base before adding the plants. the plant holes need to be drilled in and then glued using plastic glue. No other glue appears to provide the level of robustness that I am after.

I have prepared and painted enough to cover an A3 sheet with no gaps between. Spread out that should be enough. regardless, I am bored of the whole thing now, so that will have to do for a while.

Secrets of the Third Reich

One of life's little rules should be "do not start a new game system until you have mastered all the ones you currently play".

Then again it is said that rules are for breaking....

Yes, you have guessed it, I have been tempted by the thought and sight of shiny new metal, not to mention the smell and touch of a crisp new rule book. I do like the smell of a new rulebook, it smells of potential victory.

So the latest rule system to find its way onto my shelf is "Secrets of the Third Reich" (SOTR) and the latest army is Soviets..

SOTR is a game system from West wind games and is based in Europe in 1949 with the assumption that the second world war is still ongoing, must European and some American cities have been "nuked" and almost every army are now using zombies and some have ventured into werewolves, mechs etc.

It is a platoon level game and looked quite fun when played by a few guys at my club.

I opted to go for the Soviets mainly because no-one at the club was using the Russians and partly because I always like to use the underdogs.

First glance at the rules indicates a game system built around a bit of fun. The artwork is generally poor and the rulebook looks difficult to interpret in some areas so I am not sure if they could ever successfully be used in a Tournament. However, having said all that it looks fun and played quite well....

So a few Russians have been based in readiness for undercoating and painting.

The figures are all westwind and are quite nice. The heads are supplied separate from the bodies, which in theory should give a fair amount of variety. In practice there is not a broad enough selection of heads to choose from so they all repeat quite quickly. I have therefore brought a head pack from Berlin or bust game system (also west wind) to make up the pack.

Not all heads appear to fit the bodies very well, but it does not require a lot of work to get them in soundly.

The figures are roughly 26mm scale and look quite fun. Time to see how well they paint up.....

New wood bases in readyness for the new rule set.

Our wargames club terrain is looking a little untidy so we have been having a go at replacing with new. This weeks project centred around putting together a few bases for woods.

The new rule system allows interesting things to happen dependent upon who enters them and what happens with random generation. To cater for this I have banged together a number of easy wood bases, with the plan that we can have a selection of different tree / shrub figures to place upon them dependent upon the type of wood that is generated.

The bases shown above are a weeks effort in base manufacture. I have built these by buying self adhesive floor tiles. the non-embossed ones are cheapest and are also exactly what I was after.

I then cut these to interesting shapes. I wanted to move away from the typical round, oval orrectangular woods. I have gone for woods which are either long and slim or which have gaps that hero / monster bases can hide within etc. I also have a few which follow around corners.

The thought was that if we had more interesting shapes it might make the tactical play a little more interesting.

On top of this I have placed a layer of PVA to help adhesion, a layer of builders caulk, a layer of PVA, sand and aggregate and then I have topped off with another layer of PVA to seal the whole lot in.

Normal painting and flocking follow.

Warhammer Fantasy; first play and the world cup....

England’s participation in the football world cup has now come to an end, so after a few weeks of 24/7 television watching and a suitable period of mourning I have re-entered the world of wargaming.

My local Games Workshop store had organised an evening of gaming with my wargaming club this week. We all brought along a 1000 point army and the store brought along the new rules and guided us all through an evening of version 8 mayhem.

It was a good evening with 8 of us playing.

I took along a strange little 1000 point list built around 1 Lord, 2 vampires, 20 ghouls and 20 units of skeletons. All legal under the new system.

My first thoughts are as follows.

1.         Magic is interesting. It is now possible to cast some of the very strong spells with relative ease. However, about a third of the time (11 out of 36) the opponent has only one less dice, so you only end up with a 50/50 chance.

2.         I opted to have forbidden lore on a level 1 Vampire. This meant he had every spell in a lore available to him and the option of using up to 6 dice to cast a spell. Potentially very powerful.

3.         Most of our guys had played a fair amount of Flames of war, so we were very used to pre-measuring, so we were quite used to this. I like this as a rule change.

4.         Large blocks of infantry become powerful. I managed to grow my ghouls up to 40 strong and they easily withstood a charge from dragon princes and destroyed them in the next round.

5.         Missile troops look quite useful now. Woods no longer block line of sight and I defy anyone to withstand a blast from 20 dark elf corsairs. Wow.

6.         The changes to artillery appeared to have very little effect. My group of players had got very good at guessing range anyway.

 All in all a good nights gaming and I look forward to a vast pile of FAQs and re-writing all my army lists.

 Great fun….

Week 21: Skeletons and the World cup

OK; lets face facts. i'm not going to get a lot of painting completed between now and the end of Englands participation in the 2010 World Cup. At the moment it looks as if that might come to pass sooner than later...

Over the last weekend I have managed to watch 12 solid hours of football and another two hours of motor racing Ouch.

In between I have managed to finish my final skeleton figures. This makes a total of 52 Skeletons, which allows for 30 starting figures and 22 allowance for increase by casting. I recon that should do.

As is normal (for me anyway) I have grouped some of the figures onto combined bases to make setting up easier. I have opted with ten figures to have 1 three wide base, 2 two wide and three single figures.

I have stuck with the same colour scheme as the remainder of the army. Hopefully this will pay dividends in time.

WIP: The last few skeleton infantry

The weather in Devon, England has been baking hot this past week. This has had a very bad effect on my willingness to spend evenings sat in a hot stuffy room painting and making figures. Therefore little in teh way of progress to report. All I have managed is to construct 10 skeletons.

These chaps (when painted) will expand my skeleton horde to 52 figures. That exceeds what I need for my lists and should be sufficient to keep me going for a bit.

Now the weather has broken and the rain has returned, progress should quicken up a bit.

Week 20: Mantic Games skeletons

Mantic Games were kind enough to send my wargaming club a selection of sprues for our fun and delight. Included within these sprues were two skeleton sprues. I'm currently working on a Vampire counts list (or two) so it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Partly because it will give me some variety, partly because it will let me know what I think of their range but mostly because they are free figures!

I opted to just try the single sprue, I figured that if I grabbed more than that I might get lynched by the other members of my club.

The sprue has enough components for 10 figures. We received another skeleton sprue and half of that sprue was identical to this but the other half appeared to offer command choices. The first thing I noted was that the majority of the figures upper torsos already have the arms, weapons, shields and heads attached, so the ability to vary the poses appeared limited. The poses themselves look good and dynamic and make a nice change from the GW bending over look. The only major gripe that I would have is that the skeleton heads look a little odd. The GW figures have loads of skulls left over so this can easily be solved with simple head swaps.

I found the moulding itself to be generally good with no misalignment of casting and very little flash. The plastic is soft in comparison with GW, which makes the figures a little bendy and the details are not very recessed, so greater care is required when undercoating so as to avoid losing the detail. However, all said; the assembly was very simple with less work required than is normally required of GW.

The figures come with their own 20mm basing system, but I opted to place onto GW bases to help them fit into the look of my GW skeletons. I didn't remove the plastic base, so this makes them stand a couple of mm higher than they otherwise would.

The (mostly) finished models are presented below:

I have not painted anything on the shields because I could not think what to put there. Maybe something will come to me.

I have also taken some comparison shots to see just how they compare with my GW skeletons;

As you can see, they are a tad taller, but as explained above that is my fault. Generally I think they fit in very well. The figures are of a good quality offer enough variety and are quite easy to paint. Their big advantage is that they are cheaper! I think I still prefer GW, but the difference is not as great as I expected.

Last of all I have included a couple of photos of a mixed unit of GW and Mantic figures to see if I could get away with it. I think I can.