Arcworlde Come To Rochester Models

Alex of Warploque Miniatures

Warploque Miniatures is a newish company that has exploited the advantages offered by Kickstarter to, well, get kickstarted. The photo shows Alex sculpting new miniatures for Arcworlde in Rochester Games Models & Railways.

The Arcworld Range at Rochester Models


The full range of miniatures up to now have only been offered by Warploques website but now the range is on exclusive offer in shop at Rochester Models. This is a large model shop covering diecast models, plastic kits, wargame models, boardgames, GW, etc. etc. - and has a number of play tables available to hire inexpensively.

 Arcworlde Fire Dragon

The Arcworld models are in the new 'heroic scale' - about 32mm - like Warlord's Doctor Who: Into The Vortex. They are premium models and priced accordingly The Fire Dragon above is huge and costs £65.

Albionnican Empire

The Albionnican Empire is one of the Arcworlde factions. The starter pack of nine models, an officer and eight troopers is available for £25 and I am definitely buying it!

An Arcworld Wizard

All these models are from Ian's collection. Ian is a stalwart of the Rochester shop.

Arcworlde Rulebook

A rulebook is available for £20 as a stand alone item or as part of starter sets.

Inside The Book


As is commonplace these days, the rulebook is scrumptiously illustrated.

An Arcworlde Demo

Rochester Models has all sorts of promo-days for different games systems. As part of this day, they were running Arcworlde demo games. It's a very friendly place and well worth a visit.


Ian, incidentally, is the fifth from the right (wearing glasses) in this photo.

Great models, Ian!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Xmas

The Klaus Mob are about to launch their Xmas job: the highlight of the year.

The Boss with his henchmen: note the holstered Mauser.

The Snow Boys soak up bullets like, well, like a snowdrift: they can fly as well.

Santa's Elves with attitude: note the glitter guns.


Ready for the club Xmas game.

Silver Tower Minotaur

Every so often, when I have time, I paint up another of my Silver Tower models.

This one is some sort of magical giant minotaur with Celtic tattoos and a sorcerer's club. All very Tzeentch. The face is great but unfortunately hidden under the horns.

Great model.

Dr Who: Into The Time Vortex

Now that production is well under way, those delightful people at Warlord Games have sent me examples of the first models.

To remind people, I wrote the rulebook that will eventually be released to back these models. Working with a major IP property like Dr Who is an extremely complicated affair with many people having to approve of all steps, so this takes time.

When it came to naming the game, we thought long and hard. There have been a number of Dr Who tabletop games before so we couldn't just use a 'does what it says on the label' name like Doctor Who Tabletop Game.

I suggested "Into the Vortex": it may not be entirely coincidental that I had just finished writing a novel plotted by David Drake and called "Into the Maelstrom".....see my sidebar, top right..

Paul Sawyer of Warlord Games smiled upon the idea but felt that any Doctor Who game must include 'Time' in the title......so we settled on "Into the Time Vortex".

Paul was editor of White Dwarf in its glory days and thinks much more graphically than I do and I have to say I very much like the way the title is displayed....I suspect the game will just be known as 'Time Vortex'.

The way the models are painted by the professionals at Warlord is subject to BBC approval, like everything else about the game but we amateurs can paint our minis any way we like.

I therefore intend to paint these amazing models and put them up on this blog, so it can be seen what a truly mediocre painter can do.

Horus Heresy: Ahzek Ahriman

Ahzek Ahriman, Chief Librarian of The Thousand Sons, the XV Legion,

The model is from the Horus Heresy, Burning of Prospero boardgame.

The model is painted in Tamiya Metallic Red spray paint. This is the best attempt at a metallic red available in acrylic to my knowledge.

Superb model, like all in the Horus Heresy range.

Review: Atlantis Miniatures Goblins

I am not a great fan of orcs, one of Tolkien's less happy inventions, but I do like goblins. In GW, goblins have been degraded to caricatures so when I saw an Atlantis Minis kickstarter with some neat models I ventured £30 and eventually got these.

I have a chief, brute, standard bearer, a drummer and six boys with assorted weapons.

The sculpting is excellent; each model is full of character.

I am well pleased with them and might buy a few more off their website shop.

The resin is fragile and somewhat super-glue resistant but it takes paint well.

Atlantis is based in the UK so you won't get hammered by our new sooper-dooper Brexit Pound in your pocket.

Recommended.

Burning of Prospero: Custodes

I have finished my first squad for The Burning of Prospero and I have to say the models are terrific.

This photo shows the standard bearer - but you guessed that.

The Custodes are the Emp's personal bodyguards, something like the Queen's Brigade of Guards, so I wanted to show them in squeaky clean polished armour. I therefore eschewed my usual wash technique and used highlights instead, restricting washes to the 'soft' parts of the uniform.

The models were spray in Humbrol Deep Gold and highlighted with Vallejo shining gold.

I went for royal blue as the contrasting colour on 'soft' components: it seemed appropriate.

The bases are in light blue grey with arcane symbols added to represent the floors of the Prospero capital.

Warlord Games Plastic Dalek - First Glimpse

First look at the Warlord Games new plastic Dalek in heroic 28mm.

My Thoughts: very imaginative but perhaps a little too innovative guys.



Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Mwah, ha, ha ha.

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Only he ain't dreaming now.

 Dive, dive, dive

I think the Nautilus may have bitten off more than it can masticate on this occasion, when it investigates a new island that has just arisen out of the Pacific.

Captain Nemo puts the pedal to the metal -so to speak.

The Nautilus gets away.

This is a big reaper Bones mini in 28 mm, retailing for the very reasonable price of £30. The casting is excellent and everything went together smoothly with just a little milliput to fill in the joints.

Although I did have to boil him a bit to straighten one of his legs so it fitted the socket in the base.


I decided on Humbrol spray slime green as an appropriate base paint and added dark green wash and lemon yellow highlights.

This Writers'Life

I always like to preserve the most amusing Amazon reviews of my work so here's a couple on my last two books.

Tabletop Wargames

2.0 out of 5 starsHighly Disappointing. A Missed Opportunity

By Carlsberg on 19 Oct. 2016

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Written from the most narrow of perspectives, this is a great book if you love anything produced by GW, Osprey or Warlord which if wargaming were pop music would be the Spice Girls or Justin Bieber end of the spectrum of design, i.e. light and fluffy and with little worthwhile content. However, the book totally ignores whole swathes of innovative wargame design which is happening elsewhere in the hobby to much acclaim. A look beyond the Nottingham inner-circle could have been illuminating and provided contrasting opinions. Like so many rule sets of the populist genre this book promised much but ultimately lacked content.

Or how about this one for Poseidon's Warriors

 1.0 out of 5 stars

Disappointed .

By MR R W HEDGES on 20 Aug. 2016

Format: Paperback

I didn't enjoy these at all . I would say on a positive note that the artwork is amazing and will keep it just for that . However , the rules are not anything new or groundbreaking and quite child like . It would have a made a good boardgame in the old MB games style with some nice toy plastic ships . And as the above reviewer has stated the author doesn't appear to know his subject that well . Its a shame that David Manley wasn't approached to write a set for this period .

Is it any wonder writers turn to drink?

:-) 

Giant Mutated Armoured Nipples?

According to rumours doing the rounds on the Web of False Gossip, the above photo is supposed to be a reasonably accurate facsimile of a new plastic Magnus the Red mini.

It has giant mutated armoured nipples.

I mean how can an evil genius have giant mutated armoured nipples? Did Attila the Hun terrorise Rome wearing a massive steel bra? Did Hitler strike fear into Europe while boasting about the size of his nipples? Did Stalin sign endless death warrants sideways to avoid getting ink on his nipple shields?

Someone at GW has seriously lost the plot of this is true.

SS-Ahnenerbe Air Defence Base

 Germany, 1945.

An SS-Ahnenerbe Enhanced Gorilla guards a Bachem Ba 349 Natter rocket point defence interceptor. Note that the weapon in the nose of the plane is an experimental Vril-Ray that attacks the minds of a bomber crew rather than the plane itself.


The model gorilla is a Reaper Bones miniature; the Natter was constructed from a 1:48 plastic model kit.

Review Reaper Bones Fantasy Models

Reaper Bones are 28mm Reaper miniatures manufactured in China from a soft resin. The resin is not at all like polyethylene 'soft' plastic in that it is not oily. After a wash to remove any remaining 'release' layer, it paints up really well and the paint stays on.

Best of all, they cost about £2-4 and are sold from UK suppliers.

The range is enormous and growing in both fantasy and SF.

Reaper stuff has always been imaginative and well sculpted but it became impossibly expensive to import metal models through the international mail.

Highly recommended.

If It's Autumn, It Must Be SELWG

A view over the main floor at Crystal Palace.


There were more displays and trade stands up on the mezzanine floor, but my overall subjective impression was that there were fewer stands and customers this year. Admittedly, two of the clubs had to cry off at the last moment due to illness and a van expiring on the magic roundabout but even so...

Very British Civil War continues to be popular.


If you look carefully, you can just see Mosley's Blackshirts charging across the town square to liberate the Town Hall on this superb battleboard.

John Treadaway, the new editor of Miniature Wargames.

John was running a  very nice large scale 'Tomb of the Cybermen' participation game.

Morpheus Games in a prime spot under the concrete.

Morpheus were showing their Thunderbirds game. I managed to blag a Captain Kirk model from their upcoming project!

Infinity Engines stand.

This is a new company - to me - with wonderful steam punk/ Cthulhu models. The thing on six red legs is a Zero-Point Power Generator so beloved of Nazi conspiracy theorists.

Close Up.

I couldn't resist buying the steampunk UXB.

May the Force be with you.

Fantasy Flight Star Wars games continue to be popular.

Hysterical Games trade stand.

A great display of British Commandos attacking a German controlled port.

Secret Weapon.

A battleboard is improved considerably by a nice central piece like this V2. Isn't that so much better as an objective than a coin?

Dr Who.


And finally, the Warlord Games site were advertising their upcoming Dr Who game. The first miniatures were on sale and had sold out by lunchtime. This will be big chaps.

[Blatant advert warning: I wrote the rules.]

And that wraps up the stuff that caught my eye - well everything but my spoils.

Da Loot


This year I was strictly disciplined and left after my cash ran out. The rumour that my wife confiscated my credit cards is quite untrue: I gave them up voluntarily.


See y'all at Salute.

Poseidon's Warriors - Errata

I have just had the  figures for the first month's sales of Poseidon's Warriors and I am delighted to say it has sold pretty well, especially in the United States.

Thanks to everyone who has put their hand in their pocket.

An ambiguity has cropped up which needs elucidating:

Where on the ship data summary a vessel has a save of '0' it does not mean 0+, it means 'no save'.

It's pretty obvious from the context but ....

Entirely my fault, not Osprey's. I had one of those senior moments.

Happy ramming,

John Lambshead

March of the Spider Clan

Emboldened by the acquisition of a whole new hatch of giant spiders and the capture of a mega-spid, His Imperial Arachnidiss King Mighty the First, the goblin formerly known as Soddit the Sneaky, decided to bring civilisation to the stunty lands.

His victorious march down the Great Grey Road, lberating stunty mills and breweries as he went, was somewhat delayed - mainly by the liberation of the breweries - so that the Stunties had time to form a battle line on the plain below their mountain fastness.

Embolded by Stunty ale, Soddit ordered an immediate charge by the crack cavalry formations on the right and centre of his army.

Unfortunately, his wolf rider skirmish line held up the stunty badger riders for about the time it takes a gobbo to scream 'run away' and his crack orange-legs regiment, upon seeing this, somehow confused an order of 'charge ladz' for  'do nowt'.

[I rolled a bleedin' 1 on my first die roll: unfortunately a foretaste of things to come.]

Amazingly the forest gobbo allies on the left flank held their ground against a charge by a giant rock-elemental thingy and a stunty tank. Rumour has it they were too frozen in fear to run away.

Corse it couldn't last.

Soddit discovered that the problem wiv giving gobbos rides so they can get stuck in quicka also means that they can run away fasta.

A couple of rounds of combat and he found himself defending the right flank all on his ownsome.

After careful deliberation, our hero decided to make a tactical withdrawal back to the mega-spid to straighten his line.



Now, no one expects to win wiv a gobbo army but come on! This was embarrassing.