Spring Haul Report 2020 – aka The Big Spring Treasure Hunt

In a previous post about the cancelled wargaming show, I suggested checking the manufacturers and traders online and spending your show budget on games and minis. Well, I did walk the walk. I have had a proper shopping spree this spring…

On one hand, it was a kind of a panic buying: having an incomplete collection is somehow deeply disturbing for me. On the other hand, I found massive discounts! Most of the things I bought were on my wishlist anyway, so sooner or later, I would have ended up buying them.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m featuring only one or two pieces from each of the batches on the photos but I bought more than what’s shown below, and some of the deliveries were quite heavy.

Let’s start with the biggest purchase from Ground Zero Games. I’m already working on my 15 mm OutRim Coalition army and there were some bits and pieces that I needed to make my collection more complete: more troops, different versions of the grav bikes, transport options and containers. Since GZG had a nice Army deal, and it’s always good to have more than one armies, I bought a “couple of” mercenaries, ravagers, a set of police mechas, spider drones and some more accessories. Later on, GZG announced a discount on the Full Thrust spaceship range and since I liked the saucer-like design of the ORC fleet, I bought enough for a starter fleet (is there such thing as “enough” minis?). It was a very hard choice as the Federal States of Europe and the Crusty fleets were also tempting. These spaceships are massive, they are full of details and they will also look very cool on the gaming board.

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What should I say? The minis are nicely designed, well detailed and of good quality. You simply can’t go wrong with GZG, it was money well spent.

Battletech has been on my wishlist for a long time and by that I mean decades. Finally, I bought the new Starter Set and the Game of Armoured Combat. As the name suggests, the first one is focusing on beginners who are new to Battletech, and it gives a high-level overview of the Battletech universe through a massively simplified set of rules: you can learn the basics and play your first game within an hour. However, the set can also give you a more complex gaming experience with the two-sided map, the pilot cards, the additional die-cut mech and terrain tokens. Kudos for the plastic mechs and the dry erase mech record sheets! If you are an experienced player or want to jump right into the deep water of the complete rules (with physical attacks, critical hits, heat build-up and mech design, etc…), go for the Armoured Combat set.

I had several purchases from Old Crow Models too: mainly 15mm APCs, tanks, VTOLs, scenery pieces, recon and support vehicles. These minis are made of resin (which arrive neatly sanded!) with additional metal parts. The design of the product range is very logical and consistent: if you look at the Gladius medium tank, the Glaive APC, the Halberd assault cannon and the Samson engineering vehicle (or the Raven gunship and the Crow lander), you’ll see that they are a complete weapon system. Each of these vehicles are variants built on similar platforms, while they all have their distinctive features as well.

Almost all of them can be ordered either as hover, grav, wheeled or tracked. Further to that, the range of compatible turrets (support, missiles, tank, comms, etc…) offers many options. The minis of Old Crow Models are made to order and are the wargaming equivalent of small-batch craft beers.

It’s also worth noting that I ordered my first set of 6mm miniatures from Old Crow. The buildings and the vehicles will work well with the Battletech sets, or in the Dirtside games that we will hopefully play soon. I was really surprised to see how elaborated these minis are, I expected fewer details in this scale.

I have not started painting my Napoleonic Naval project yet, but I bought more 1:2400 scale ships from Tumbling Dice: a couple of East Indiamen and the necessary ensigns, pirates and corsairs, sinking ships (remarkably nice and dramatic pieces!), plus some reinforcements to my fleet.

I bought 15mm dug in markers and a stowage set from Debris of War. The markers will work well when we finally have the chance to play Stargrunt on a proper gaming table and the stowage will complement the GZG and OC vehicles nicely.

The next batch is from Brigade Models. I decided to buy a Squadron Commander starter pack with German and EuroFed starfighters. These ships have a charming retro-style design. The overall quality is nice, but I will probably not use the plastic stands, as they seem to be very fragile. I also bought a handful of spaceships, satellites and other accessories.

I ordered lighthouses, martello towers, castles and cannons from the Small Scale Scenery range. These minis are 1:1000 or 1:1200, but I think they will match my 1:2400 naval collection OK. I understand that this scale makes them twice as big as the 1:2400 ships from Tumbling Dice, but this is a compromise I had to make for the sake of practicality, because buildings half this size would be too small on the gaming board.

Since I have collected lots of 15mm vehicles recently, the number decals and the stowage will come handy and there is always room for more figures and cavalry. As the mechs of Battletech are close to the 6mm scale, I bought 6mm figures too. Sadly, these minis don’t match the quality of Old Crow’s 6mm figures. The design is nice but there is an excessive amount of flashes on them.

I have purchased quite a few troops and vehicles for 15mm wargaming already, but buildings were missing from my collection, which is why I bought the Flames of War buildings. These kind of desert buildings are very versatile, I can imagine them in any arid environment, whether it is an ancient, modern or future scenario. The oil tanks will work well with the pipelines I bought from Old Crow. The buildings are prepainted and the quality is much better than I expected. They are made of gypsum, which is a surprising choice of material: it is light, but it is also fragile. The packaging was well designed, which would have kept the content safe, had the couriers not been not too gentle with the parcels.

Like many other players, I also bought a spaceship grab bag from The Plastic Soldier Company. Spending £10 on 30+ spaceships is a no brainer. The ships are pretty big, the quality is not the best and several ships are bent or warped, but none would expect better with this price tag. They will be perfect for practising and testing new techniques or colour schemes. The grey transport ships could work well in any space battle and though they are much bigger than what I am usually looking for, I started to like the look of the green fleet.

These are a lot of miniatures, but some of these purchases were made at a discounted price and they were spread across three months, which was a very stressful period. I found that spending on your hobby – especially, if you do so in a smart way – can reduce your stress level significantly. 😊

I still can’t believe that I bought 6mm miniatures… What’s next? 3mm???