War-games Atlantic Persians

 I have been looking for figures to expand my Ancient Greeks, so decided to order a box of Persians from Wargames Atlantic.

The box contains eight sprues that build five figures.

There is one fixed archer (plus two additional bow arms and four quivers). Two Pavaises, two picked waist shields and two other shields.

First figure assembled.

Comparison with an Immortal Miniatures (now Warlord) Ancient Greek.

The Immortal Miniatures figures are shorter and slighter.

Fireforge Northmen Cavalry

 Though I bought a box of the Fireforge Northmen Cavalry way back in November, I had not got round to doing any more than photographing the sprues (not even posting them here).

The box contains enough parts for six cavalry.

There is one of the common Northmen Command sprues.

There are two sets of bases (ignore the ones on the right).  The elliptical ones ended up under the Chronohounds.

Two sprues of multi-part horses with partial barding.

Two sprues of riders.

There are three arms with swords, three with spears and one banner. I am not convinced the swords would fit in the scabbards.

The horses are in four parts (head, left body, right body, tail). I am not sure how much you can mix and match them.

The horses (especially this one) have very small points of contact, and only one hoof anywhere near the ground. I pinned that one and will add some miliput to hold the other two hooves in place. It has fallen off twice so far.

Comparison with an Oathmark Human Infantry.

Comparison with the recently released Oathmark Human Cavalry.

Oathmark Human Cavalry - first build

 So having shown the sprues for the new Oathmark Human Cavalry, here is the first one I have built.

The horse is in two parts, one half has the head, the joint being hidden by the reins. It is a particularly dynamic horse, which does not quite match up to the rather static rider. I may have to swap riders around until I am happy with the combination.

The cavalryman's body is in five parts: head; two arms; torso;legs.

Are they perhaps related?

Oathmark Human Cavalry and Human Infantry. The heads do appear identical, which is a bit of a disappointment, different faces would have been nice.

And a comparison with the Fireforge Northmen Cavalry.

Oathmark Human Cavalry

 The new Oathmark Cavalry come in a standard box and contain five horse sprues and three rider sprues.

Most of the horses are dynamically posed, I need to test how many different horses they will build.

The riders are kitted up with similar equipment to the Infantry, swords, spears and bows. There is a set of Command pieces (posh helmet, posh sword, double bladed axe, banner with horse top.

Minor disappointment is they have the same rectangular shields, there could have been an opportunity for a set of variant shields (Coded for Your Convenience).

The bases are 25mm x 50mm (no one does plain "pill" type bases).

Now to build them.

Kontraband - More Salvage and Survival: First impressions

 Kontraband is an Expansion for the Zona Alfa game. It is written by the author of Zona Alfa (Patrick Todoroff) but self published and available as a PDF or via Print On Demand (in the UK here, in the USA here, and possibly at your local Amazon - try it using your local top level domain)

William is a little underdressed for The Zone.

I ordered mine as a Print On Demand physical copy. It turned up next day (okay, in the last twenty minutes)! That was impressive.

The book is larger than the parent Osprey book, probably American paper size (278mm by 213mm). The print is clear with quick reference charts and Points Of Interest (POI) cards in the back. Both the quick reference charts and the POI cards are available for free download from the Stalker 7 site.

Now to get on and read it.

For more on Zona Alfa, have a look at my review here.

Hammer's Slammers Blower

 David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series of military SF involves the actions of a high tech mercenary organisation. The stories are derived from Drake's Vietnam experiences as an Enlisted Interrogator in the US 11th Armoured Cavalry Regiment.

Equipped with hover tanks (Panzers) and hover combat cars (blowers) reflecting the 11th Armoured Cavalry's M48 tanks and M113 ACAV.

The hulls are cast from Iridium, which is both extremely hard and has a high melting point. The latter is important on the battlefield as the weapon of choice is the Power Gun, an energy weapon that evaporates steel. The Power Gun is a line of sight weapon, so satellites and aircraft do not survive the start of hostilities.

The combat car is equipped with three pintle mounted 2cm calibre tri-barrelled powerguns.

The crew area is open to allow clear lines of sight (aided by the blowers sophisticated sensor suite).

Overhead protection is limited a mesh that prevents grenades being thrown into the crew area.

It is also convenient for stowage.

Stargrave - Alternative figures: The Broken

 So I bought a set of Maelstrom's Edge Broken infantry a while back (sprue photographs here).

That was a while ago.

With the release of Stargrave, I thought I would see how they compare.

The set builds six figures (there are six different torsos) but has twelve sets of legs, offering quite a range of possibilities.

There is one sprue of weapons, and  the arms are separate. This does make choosing the weapon and arms rather complicated. Luckily there is a post about which pair of arms and weapon match up here.

This torso has a rucksack with a bedroll. So I thought it would make a good Pathfinder. he did need a hand Weapon, so another Frostgrave Barbarian axe was pressed into service. he does need some grenades as well.

Comparison shot, Stargrave Mercenary, Maelstrpm's Edge Broken and a Stargrave Crew figure. 

Stargrave Mercenary and Alien

 Amongst the various heads on the Stargrave sprues are a selection of aliens.

Armed with a short carbine.

Not really decided what the figure will represent. It does look lightly armoured, so probably a cracker or a Breaker.

Mercenary with carbine. Probably going to be a Trooper, so Heavy Armour and a knife will need to be added.