Renedra – Middle Eastern Two-Storey Houses
We've talked about the Mud-Brick house by Renedra earlier this month, and they added multiple two-storey houses to that design. Those are available in three different sizes and come either as single kits or a boxed set with all three of them. I went with the large set of middle eastern buildings, so let's get started.
These come either in a large bag for the single houses or in a cardboard box as a set. The packaging is full coloured and covers scenes of them in use, on the backside the individual sets as well as the Mud-brick house is named. Pricing is reasonable, 8 to 10 GBP (depending on the size) for the single houses and 22 GBP for the set of three. You already save 5 GBP with the boxed set.
Renedra – Mudbrick House
This review about the Mud-Brick House by Renedra, that I thought I already published (you could see it in my review on the sandbags), got lost somewhere in the past. I wanted to refer it in the upcoming review on the two-storey houses, but after not finding the review I realized, that I took the pictures, edited them and so on, but never wrote the actual article. Anyhow, I think it still generates value to talk about this kit, especially with a further terrain sets by Renedra, picking up the middle eastern theme.
February 2021 review
February is over and I'm still waiting for the arrival of my UK packages ... because it is still post-brexit chaos.
Small Orc lot to sell
Orc Warlord Grotfang, incl. Boar head and Banner - 15 EUR
Grumlok & Gazbag (pro painted, deluxe shading, Tzeentch paint job) - 18 EUR
Orc Warlord Grotfang - 8 EUR
Savage Orc Shaman Wurrzag without mount - 12 EUR
Wild Orc Shaman on foot - 8 EUR
Orc Shaman on Boar (head#2) - 15 EUR
Modern Combat – Humvees, Tanks and Marines
The chassis are ready, a convoy of 3 to 4 almost identical looking vehicles would be okay, but as these will be put to use in smaller games and skirmishes, I didn't want to use clones, so I bought some Black Dog resin upgrades a while back.
Casting quality is pretty wild, some parts are just broken or not fully casted. Black Dog threw some of them in there multiple times, probably to make up for that lack of quaulity. The instructions are only available for the IDF kit and even there a bit vague.
Modern Combat – Assembling the HUMVEE Convoy
Some things take up less space once they are assembled, so while sorting out items I came across the Humvee kits by Tamiya in 1/48th scale, and those would be a lot smaller when built. And it was a welcome diversion from sorting, taking pictures and dropping off parcels at the post office.
Tamiya doesn't call them HUMVEE but a more generic name, simply an 4x4 utility vehicle. I have a total of four boxes of these, three of the regular US Modern 4x4 Utility Vehicle and a fourth one as the Cargo Variant.
Miniature swap – travelling wargame box
In 2021 I participated in two travelling wargames trade boxes, and the first one, the "Kramkiste" (stuff box), arrived. A bit lighter than I expected and with the modest trades of the participants before me, I didn't really knew what to expect.
After the Brexit, right into chaos
Brexit is here, and that seems to be a bit of surprise for some. Who would have guessed, that it would actually happen and even have an impact?
It is february and after some hick-ups and problems between Calais and Dover, for the essential things like food and medical supplies, it has arrived our lovely little hobby. Some of the parcels that were sent last year didn't make it within the pre-brexit time windows and thus were lacking the document for a proper export. And many of the traders couldn't be bothered to supply these post-brexit either, resulting in all kinds of fees, additional costs and delays for the customers.
That caused some discussion, where people exchanged their experience and suggestions on how to avoid these, as you can read the experience of several wargamers on Lead Adventure or Sweetwater. For example paying 30 EUR of fees ontop of a 50-60 EUR package of miniatures. Making it more than just unappealing to order from the UK. Please keep in mind, that the majority of miniatures is produced or at least distributed from the UK. So this is going to hurt the demand of miniatures, or at least consolidate towards those who can supply. I was aware that this could happen, and so I ordered in November Empress Miniatures through a german wholetrader. A couple of emails in the old year, and guess what still hasn't arrived? I won't pay the uppricing and will probably step back from my order - if / when somebody gets in touch with me. But those are the smaller traders and shops. Some even have so ingenious suggestions like "split your orders to below 50 GBP and customs won't bother you" - yeah, that's playing russian roulette with fees and highly unprofessional. Especially from a commercial trader.
As for supply. Some traders didn't receive new stock / novelties this year, even from the larger companies. And if you remember how some of the store shelves looked in spring last year, this might be something that might happen with wargaming as well.
Bitbox-Stand In, miniature swap with Gregor / SirLeon
We hoped that we would be able to meet in some kind of way to exchange some stock within our hobby group, but due to being spread across Germany that wasn't possible. As I had some bad experience last year with DHL, I hesitated to use postal services to exchange the miniatures (especially, even if they would reimburse us for lost stuff - which they don't - with some of the OOP items that wouldn't be much help anyway).
Anyhow, as it doesn't really seem that we will have a time slot coming up, that would make a personal meeting happening and the boxes (yes, plural, in the beginning it was one box labelled with Malkränzchen, but over the months it became individual boxes for each one, to keep track who receives what) grew in size. So we had some video chats, talking about what we're looking for, what would end up in the boxes and prepared them for shipping. It is post christmas, it's national tracked packages, so the risk should be a minimum.
Gregor already wrote about some of the items that I sent him over at the German board Tabletop Welt in his project log "Jenseits des Steinbachs". But what did I receive? Some 90s goodies from Middlehammer 🙂
January 2021 review
Wow, already a month done into 2021! We had the kick-off for the new year, and I could put a lot of energy into the weekends, continuing to sort out the stock. At some point you get to the things, that aren't bulk or quickly free up space, so after going for the overstock of Necromunda Bulkheads, I moved on to the organisers, to see what I'd keep and what would be sold.
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