Clearco Miniatures 01

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently bought the 'Modern Female Survivors' set of 6 figures from Clearco Miniatures. I've not finished them yet, so this post is a review of dealing with Clearco and an initial review of the figures themselves..

Dealing with Clearco
After learning about the existence of Clearco on the Board of the Living Lead, I decided that I really liked the figures and emailed Clearco as directed on their blog. Personally, I don't really like ordering by email like this and would prefer to use a shopping cart system - it feels more professional and less ... 'transient'.  However, this is Clearco's first release, so expecting a fully-fledged webshop is unreasonable, so I enquired via an email. One very quick response later (within an hour!) and I'd learnt that the postage to the UK was very reasonable (just under 3 euros, but Clearco have moved location since then, so that will probably change) and I ordered a set.

I got an acknowledgement of my payment, which doesn't always happen with online purchases (but I am certainly reassured when it does!), that was a non-automated email saying that the mini's would be sent as soon as possible. This was followed 3 days later by a mail saying they had been sent, and then the mini's arrived 3 days after that.

To sum up then; ordering from Clearco has been one of my most trouble-free, speedy, and well-communicated experiences in the world of internet shopping - not just hobby related purchases. Obviously, with their recent move across the continent, this may change, but my impression is that I would be surprised if it did.

The Figures
The first thing to say about the figures, is that they are incredibly light. I didn't really twig before ordering them that they are made of resin - this means that they are much lighter than even hard plastic figures - so much so that my initial reaction on picking up the parcel when it arrived was that it must be empty! but (obviously!) it wasn't.

Having opened the parcel, I found the figures inside and then made my second discovery - of the six figures, two have both hands cast on them, three have one hand cast and one has no hands at all. Where there is a hand (or two) missing the arms end at the wrist and either have a sleeve or bracelet/watch to disguise it - a very nice touch IMO. To fill these 'stumps' there is a selection of hands and articles shown in the pic to the right. Missing from the photo though is the crowbar (my bad, I didn't realise it wasn't in the shot at the time). These bits are quite delicate though; circled in the pic are the two bits of the axe-hand that I managed to break when washing them - so be careful!

Size-wise, the figures are on the large-ish side. The pic to the left shows a quick comparison, featuring a Grekwood Miniatures Hospital Zombie, Clearco in the centre and Zombie-Me. I'll do some more comparison shots when I've finished painting them, but to me, although large, the mini's are not overly so, and IMO, completely compatible with my other 28's. (If you look REALLY closely at the pic, you can just about make out the stump at the end of the right arm in this pic.)

 To try and counter the lightness of the figures and as they are not slotta-base figures (which you can see in the pic above and to the right; they have small (and quite thin!) integral bases), I decided to add an extra steel disc to the normal coin I base my figures on - as shown to the right - which I then hid with wall filler (my current basing material of choice).

Well that's it for now other than these last two pics which show their current state of painting and how I filled the 'stumps'.

Just so you know, in this pic, the left figure came with no hands, the other two with no right hand.

And in this pic, the centre figure had no right hand, and the other two hand both hands present.  The rightmost figure has an open right hand which allows the crowbar or spade to placed there. Unfortunately you can also make out the top edge of the steel disc - corrective surgery needed! The leftmost figure has no need of weapons - attitude seems 'enuff' for her!

To sum up: I'm very pleased with the figures and glad I got them. The missing hands, and selection supplied, allows for a wide range of choice and I think it's a great idea.  I will buy more from Clearco in the future, I'm sure.

In other news:

• Very nearly finished my Steve Barber Models' 'GMB4 Talos "The Man of Bronze"' last night
• I've managed to get my main Lord of the Rings Online character into Moria - it is incredibly spectacular and well worth the wait

Painting? What's That? and "In Her Majesty's Name"

First of all, apologies for the extended lack of posting [again! :( ] ...but moving on from that ...

As followers of my blog may remember, I moved home in the last quarter of 2012, and since then I've not done a single bit of painting ... I'm really not sure why that is, but I just haven't. Going back over my (infrequent!!) blog posts, I've made some buildings, but no painting :(

Anyway, after I first saw them on the Board of the Living Lead, I decided to get some of Clearco Miniatures' first releases - Modern Female Survivors. Anyway, I've nearly finished these and hope to 'magic dip' them tonight, so look for pics later this week ...

In other news:

• My copy of "In Her Majesty's Name" VSF rules from Osprey arrived yesterday. Not read much beyond the introduction as yet, but my first impressions are very, very good! I'm certainly looking forward to reading the rest.
• I've based all my Land Ironclads and 2mm Infantry, so hopefully now I'm painting again I'll get some of them done and photographed soon.
• As well as the Clearco mini's I've mad a start on my 40mm Greeks as well, and I'm looking forward to the release of Of Gods and Mortals Mythological Wargame Rules from Osprey later in the year, which seem tailor-made for these figures ...
• I'm getting everything I need together to build a 15mm country village for my VBCW project
• The '1st Light' spaceship will get some attention in the near future ... (honest!) 

Sa-Loot 13; part the third ...

Yet more pictures of the new toys I got at Salute '13.  In case you hadn't twigged yet, I did get a teeny-tiny bit carried away and increase my lead mountain by more than is really good for me ... Most of these photos include a 40mm Greek and Zed-Me as size indicators.

 So, first up this time, are the Argonauts from Crooked Dice mainly for 40mm Greek project, but who knows I may use them for 7TV at some point as well. I also got their March deal of the month - the Bionic Bordello but forgot to photo them ... oh well!

 To the left is a pic of the 2 figures that I got from Alternative Armies' Typhon range, the TY03 Hoplite and HE08 The Medusa (or as I think she should be called, "The fallen Medusa with the big boobies" ...). Again these are my 40mm Greek project

 And this one shows the Medusa assembled - which was really easy to do; just a dab of superglue and the arms went right on.

Next, are 2 figures from Fenris Games,on the left - FGGK01 Goatkin brute "Rocky" and on the right, a Bronze Age Miniatures FGBRZCNT4 - Mare Crustulam, centaur guard. I had wanted to get some other Bronze Age mini's figures as I'd read on the net that they were big enough to use with 40mil's, but they didn't work for me. They are almost tall enough, but the proportions are different - the heads and hands being too small are the most noticeable. I'm not entirely certain about the centaur, but I think I'll get away with it ...

Penultimately for today, is the Heresy mini's Sharclon Officer with Destructor Pistol. I had bought some Heresy stuff (in next post) in advance via PayPal, and when I did, it added postage automatically, which was wrong as I was going to collect them from Salute. I was told that the postage would be refunded, but it still hadn't been on the day, so when I asked for it at the stand, I was told I could have the £3.60 postage or a  £4 figure instead. Never one to turn down a chance of saving money, I went for the Sharclon (stands for SHort-Arsed-Clone, I was told) officer, as I had been thinking of buying it anyway. It comes with 4 heads and that's the one I'll use, although it's not glued on in this pic ...

Finally, as I'd got them out of the packets, I thought I'd show you some of the Otherworld Mini's monsters I got, and how they size up with 28mm and 40mm.  I'm really please with them; as well as being great casts, they're the right size for what I want, but they are really big against the 28mm!

Sa-Loot 13; part the second ...

First of all this time, a couple of apologies ... my last post should have been numbered as I've got loads'a'loot at Salute and it'll take three posts to show it all off. So I rectified that, and my last post now is appended 'part the first'

Secondly, I mentioned in my last post that I got blank dice from eM4 Miniatures, but didn't say why! They are for a print'n'play game from Dave's Games called Solid State War (I got it from Wargames Vault, but it's now longer listed there, but is still on Piazo.com).  It's a near future air combat game that uses custom dice - hence the purchase.

As I have Stoelzel's Structures excellent Church of the Faithful to build at some point, I thought I'd need an appropriate 'boss' for that magnificent structure, so I got the 'Bishop with Crozier' from eM4 that you can see to the right. He's been glued to a coin and polyfillaed to hide the figure's base. Next step is smooth the filler and uncover his feet before undercoating.

Note: The Bishop is hidden away in eM4's fantasy section, so it's not easy to find ...

Next up are some figures from Ironclad Miniatures that were new releases for Salute. I think SimonQ (aka Brummie) with his Empire of the Dead thing going on will be particularly interested in these VSF mini's.

The top pic is pack 'ODD08 Police armed with rifles' and the bottom pic is 'CH32 Sgt Barker' (left) with 'CH31 Inspector Corbitt' (right), none of which are listed on their webshop yet ...

Those with fond memories of a certain double act on UK TV in the 70's and 80's may well recognise the Sargeant and Inspector ... a certain 'Blower' from 'Olde London Towne' ?

Last for this post, are the 3 poses from the 15mm Peter Pig's 'Bayonet and Ideology' Spanish Civil War range pack 59 'Female militia in civilian dress'. I got these to add a bit of variety to my VBCW militia.The pack I got had 3 of each of the outside models and 2 of the centre figure.

That's it for this post. Next time (the last on Sa-Loot) we'll have the toys I got from Hasslefree and Fenris (and maybe some others that I can't remember right now!)

Sa-Loot 13; part the first ...

In my last post - salute-pics - I promised to post pics of the new toys that I got at Salute last weekend, and here they are.

First up is the 'Looters & Drunk' pack from Warm Acre. Back in October last year, I posted (here: new-arrivals-at-my-hovel-01) about the Warm Acre figures I'd bought online and described how they came with the metal slottabase top. Anyway, I didn't get around to using them between then and now, so I took them along to Salute, intending to return them to Warm Acre. When I got to them, I asked if I could exchange them (I had 30 of them) for the No Go Zone Drunk mini, and they gave me this pack with it in! Very nice people!




I've been looking at the Otherworld Miniatures website of and on for ages now, but had yet to take the plunge and actually buy something. I hoped that a lot of their stuff (which seems to be based on illustrations from the AD&D monster manual) would be compatible with my 40mm Greeks project, but wanted to see it 'in the metal', as it were, before buying. So I took one of my Greeks with me to compare ... and as you can see from the pics - it was and I bought a bunch of it!

So, there is the Dire Wolf Pack, Giant Boars, Giant Lizard, Giant Toad (which the website showed as being on sale - £6 not £9 - and although that was wrong, they let me have it at the sale price; more nice people!), Altar & Braziers set, Ogre Chieftain and Aspis Warriors.

Although I've not had any of them out of the packs to have a play with yet, I am very pleased with them and can easily see me getting more of these great figures.


Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy 61 had an article in it on using the SAGA rules for Colonial Warfare which I found very interesting. There was also a note (which I, typically, can't find now) saying that Warbases were selling dice to go with the variant, so I got a set of each side from them (pictured right) as well as a stack of their premium bases. This was the first time I'd got premium rather than standard (laser-cut versus sawn) and I'll be using them from now on.

Next up are some blank dice that I got from eM4 miniatures along with a bunch of bases, mainly for the 40mm Greeks. I'd also pre-ordered some transparent counters to use as hit markers - as per Colgar6's excellent 'how-to' post - but they weren't in the bag that I got from the stand! An email to them on Monday (IIRC) and they'll be with me soon.

Finally, for this time anyway ;) , is the 2mm desert village that I got from Brigade Models. I've already undercoated them as you can see, and I've included zed-me as a size guide for those unfamiliar with the teeny-tinies.

Salute Pics

[Is that a bandwagon driving by?!? I must jump on it!]

First of all apologies for yet another extended absence.  I've not been motivated to do much of anything lately, but having been to Salute last Saturday (and yet again missed the bloggers' meet), I'm feeling slightly more oomph to get things done.

So, as a first step, I thought I'd follow the latest trend in wargames blogs and post some pics I took on the big day and next time, I'll post some pics of my new toys (including what I got when I got just a teensy bit carried away at the Otherworld Miniatures stand); anyway, the pictures ...

As we all know, wargaming has its own fads - and judging by the games at Salute, it seems that the latest is Victorian Science Fiction.  As that is something that I'm very interested in, my pics are of those games as I'm sure there are better pics and reviews on other blogs ...

A non-VSF pic; the 36' monstrosity that was
the Warlords' Hammers' Slammers game ...

The "In Her Majesty's Name" (Osprey's forthcoming
Steampunk rules) game (IIRC!)

Detail shot of the IHMN game; this alley is
at the bottom centre of the previous  pic

Other than being VSF, I'm not sure what this game was ...
Wolsung (another steampunk skirmish game) I think ...
it didn't come across as particularly ... 'memorable' unfortunately ...

Or this might have been Wolsung ....

I don't know what this game was either, but it is much
more striking than the previous 2 games; the simple, but very
innovative terrain was very striking

close-up of the swan flying over the building
in the centre right of the above pic

This game really caught my eye just as I was leaving; this was a
Fantasy (not VSF) game by the Ilford club that used homegrown
rules and 'Uncharted Seas' ships - v.v. impressive 

One of the ships from the above game

Dragon ship from same game; in the background
is one of the floating islands that looked very good

Just arrived - "A World Aflame" and WarThunder

from Osprey site

Only a small update today ...  due to returning an unsatisfactory birthday present, I had a credit on my amazon account, and decided (eventually) to buy the "A World Aflame" wargame rules by Osprey Publishing.  (Note they are much cheaper from Amazon though!)

This won't be a review as I've not played them (or even read it all!) as yet, but from what I have read, I think that they would be ideal for my VBCW 15mm stuff that I'm intending to paint, and for the 20mm WW2 Norway game I want to do ...

As an example, units only have a limited amount of ammunition, but it can be resupplied in game and the rules use chance cards, both things that I like. They were written by Paul Eaglestone of Empress Miniatures with the Spanish Civil War and VBCW in mind, and I am very much looking forward to trying them out, although, unfortunately, I doubt that it will be any time soon :(

Also, some colleagues on World Of Tanks recommended "War Thunder" a free MMO WW2 airplane game. I've tried it, and thought it was damn fine, but I can't get on with flight simulators, so have given up on it :(  If flight sims are your thing though, you should give it a try!