Saturday, March 27, 2010

Yakuza and Secret Agents


A couple new things rolling off the workbench…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are Yakuza from The Foundry’s Street Violence line.


Some secret agents from Copplestone Castings Kiss-Kiss, Bang-Bang line…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

So much stuff crowding the workbench these days, it’s hard to say… Some tropical U-boat crew have been getting some paint on them this evening and are closest to completion.

I’ve actually embarked on another massive re-basing project. Oh, I’m not totally rebasing entire armies for some new rule set or anything… just getting all the skirmish guys on one size of base… or at least more of them on a similar size base.

When I had first started basing skirmish game figures on washers I was putting them on ¾” washers… smaller than your average plastic base – which always seemed ridiculously huge to me. Anyway I shortly realized that some figures just wouldn’t fit on that size so I started putting more on 7/8” washers – closer to the size of your average round plastic slotta base – though not so thick!

At first I put stuff on the larger base “as required” but was finding a lot more were required so I eventually started putting ALL my skirmish guys on the 7/8” bases… The only things I was still basing on the ¾” bases were the WW2 stuff. This was really only for consistency – almost all of the WW2 stuff is on ¾” bases.

I’ve started with the Rippers/Victorian/Horror/SF and the Pulp Adventure figures (and started on a few WW2 figures).

I’ve been having a hankering to play WW2 stuff for the last couple days… which is odd, as I thought I’d gamed it to death and if I ever commanded another panzer on the tabletop it would be too soon… but I’ve bee eyeing the 28mm Russians and thinking about shifting a few of the unfinished ones to the workbench, and been thinking about rebasing a few of the 15mm guys to get them all on bases with a common frontage (so I could try out the HOTT Variant).

Well I'm pretty much through with ebay... and now that I'm done I can tell you where I've been finding all sorts of goodies (now that I don't have to worry about being outbid by you..!?).

The first place is Mindsports. Mindsports is a game distributor out of Calgay Alberta Canada, that deals to game stores, that seems to be blowing out dead stock - I've pickes up tonnes (well.. many kilograms) of lead and boardgames for pretty cheap - Clan War, Ral Partha/Iron Winds fantasy, Battletech/Aerotech, Silent Death space ships, the Kryomek critters, etc - all sorts of odd and unusual stuff. Oh and Mighty Armies 15mm fantasy stuff shows up form time to time - which I don't care about - but some of you might...

Antoher place I've been picking up a few things is Gem Games and Hobbies - odd and unusual figures from Foundry, Copplestone, Star Wars, 40K, Call of Chulhu, West Wind... I even picked up two packs of Brigade Games Tropical U-boat crew?!

Maelstrom Games (who also have a non-ebay Web Store) are out of hte UK. I have to say I have never had any troubles with anything coming from the UK - it's generally cheaper and quicker than from the States next door!? Anyway... Maelstrom has a lot of GW, Warlord Games, and other stuff at a bit of a discount (generally 10-15% off the suggested retail), they ship worldwide for free... and with the pound sterling in the tank... it was just too great a temptation - I just bought some Bolt Action Miniatures Falshirmjäger from them. Last year when I was picking up GW LOTR stuff I grabbed a couple things from them as well. They have a mailing list you can get on and they email you when they've got a sale or promotion they've got on (like they do RIGHT NOW - 17.5% off suggested retail the voucher code is: EARLY-EASTER - only applies to their webstore - not ebay, though the ebay store seems to be selling things at the 17.5% off price anyway...)

Red Dragon Games, out of Atlanta Georgia, seems to put up a raft of 40K vehicles and sets for bid twice a week - starting at 99¢... If you're patient you can get a pretty good deal... I just got a Tau Devlil fish for under $20 - brand new, including shipping... Now I know what you're thinking... "Tim, what the f@*K do you need a Tau Devilfish for!?" and... well... all I go to say is it looks cool! and it was a pretty good deal!? ...and I'm playing sci-fi skirmishy games and don't really care what the model are "supposed" to be...

Another place I haven't picked up anything from recently but I have in the past is Hoard O Bits - they crack a lot of GW box sets and sell the off as bits - including the starter box sets for 40K and fantasy - so I picked up a lot of goblins and dwarves from them just over a year ago... they seem to have expanded into selling a lot of other neat minis - Reaper, hasslefree, etc..

Other things I've picked up here and there... When I am on a spree (like I have been recently) and picking up lots of good deals it's because I do a LOT of searching - fairly wide open ones - because some things get miscategorized - or the people selling them don't know what they're selling... I always use the .com site - as opposed to the .ca or .co.uk version as it seems to show a lot more results - though you need to specify "worldwide" in your search to get ALL the goodies showing up...

Anyway... like I said, I'm done... I have WAY too much to paint... and should get back to that!

3 comments:

  1. Awesome pulp figures! I so wish I liked skirmish gaming as much as you do because those figures are fantastic!

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  2. I've been picking up plastic bases and a few minis from em4 in the UK. 4 or 5 days and they're right around the world to me.

    One I'm sure you'd like is the tinpot dictator. Just search for tinpot @ http://www.em4miniatures.com and you'll see it.

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  3. That's great to know that em4 has such awesome service! I've been thinking about ordering some stuff from them for a while... Mostly to add some Future War troopers and scavengers and Spacelords Yoyodyne Shigaru and Phagon battleclones to the ones I already have.

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