Bolt Action Campaign Italy – Soft Underbelly
The Bolt Action campaign content about Italy was spread across two campaign books, Soft Underbelly, which we will cover today and Tough Gut, which will be available in the next months.
Campaign Italy: Soft Underbelly was released in autumn 2022, accompanied with a first wave of updated miniatures (incl. plastics) for the Italian forces. The 176 pages cover the first major operation of the Western Allies, moving forward from North Africa towards South Europe / Italy, with Operation Husky via Sicily onto the Italian Peninsula towards Rome. As for the Mediterranean campaign, this is chronologically the book after The Western Desert.
Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marine Brutalis Dreadnought
While we had our last review covering a Dreadnought last year as part of our Horus Heresy Age of Darkness coverage with the Contemptor Dreadnought plastic kit, today we want to cover the new Space Marine Brutalis Dreadnought, available from today via the Strike Force Agastus.
The new Primaris sized Dreadnoughts are a bit of a mixture of the classic dreadnought we know from the 90s is classified as Castraferrum Pattern Mark V Dreadnought, and the old Rogue Trader era Dreadnought Armour. The early designs, closer to robots than the walking sarcophagus they are nowadays, were picked up with the Contemptor pattern. If you take a look on the legs, you see they are more articulated as with the Castraferrum pattern and the design department went back to that.
Bolt Action Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel
The German counter part for the Allied 105mm HMC M7 Priest SPG in my late war projects would be the Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel SPG, which we will cover in todays review. This article was prepared a while ago and now finished from the drafts into a proper review.
Like the M7 Priest SPG, the Hummel is a made to order kit by Warlord Games. They are usually not high numbers on stock and you will probably rarely find them on shelf at your FLGS, but as they are not Mail Order exclusive, you can order them either directly or have your store add them to their next delivery. The Hummel might not be shipped in a boxed set with printed artwork, but a neutral packaging (often a green ammo box) with a sticker on it. As this kit has been in my collection for quite some time (and in draft since 2018), mine came wrapped in simple bubble wrap with a sticker on it.
Bolt Action – Sd.Kfz. 222 / 223
Let's tackle the second new plastic kit from the A Gentleman's War box, the Sd.Kfz. 222 / 223. We've covered the Humber AC earlier this week.
There are already a couple of the Sd.Kfz. 2xx vehicles available as multipart plastic kits by Warlord Games, the latest was the Sd.Kfz. 250 Alte combi kit, and others with a base kit like the Hanomag Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausf. D and its variants like the 251/7 Pionierwagen or 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen, which we already covered on this blog.
Bolt Action – Humber Armoured Car Mk II / IV
Along with A Gentleman's War, Warlord Games relelased two new plastic vehicle kits of armoured cars for the British and the Germans, covering a Sd.Kfz. 222/223 and Humber Armoured car, the later we're going to cover today.
This is a new 28mm hard plastic kit by Warlord Games, that formerly only was offered in different variants as a resin kit. The one we're covering today was a pre-release that Warlord Games send to me prior to the official release, thus lacking the boxing, etc. and minor tweaks might be done until the actual release outside the themed starter kit for North Africa.
Bolt Action – M26 Pershing into T26E4 Super Pershing
It's been a while since our last Bolt Action tank review. The last one we covered on here, was the Sd.Kfz. 250 combi-kit that allowed us to build multiple variants (250/1, 250/9 and 250/11) and currently in progress are the new plastic kits for the Humber AC and Sd.Kfz. 222/223. And while I already showed you the current status of my Pershing(s), I thought it would make sense to show how I got there and what the resin kit by Warlord Games is all about.
So far Warlord Games only offers a resin kit of the M26 Pershing at 33,50 GBP / 40 EUR RRP. I bought this one a while ago - when it was noticeably cheaper in 2016.
Necromunda – Outland Beastmaster with Ripperjacks
The addition of Beastmasters to the new edition of Necromunda was announced with the Book of the Outlands earlier this year, and in mid of December we got actual pictures and not just artwork for these units. The first to come is the Outland Beastmaster with Ripperjacks.
This is not the first time for "animals" to support an Underhive gang, there are for example the Escher Phyrr Cats and Goliath Sumpkroc already available. As this is an addition to the core range, the product is distributed by Forge World and casted in resin and not with injection mould plastic. For that reason you will need super glue for the assembly and it is recommended to wash off the parts in luke warm soap water to remove any release agent, that might still be stuck to the parts.
HarrowHyrst – Treeman and Griffin
Today for something special. It has been a while, since I've been gifted miniatures by my parents (actually, the very first Warhammer box I owned, was the Blood Bowl set for Christmas in the 90s), so I was very happy and surprised, when I received these for my 38th birthday back in September. Heartwood, the Treeman Elder, and Mockmoon, the Griffin, by HarrowHyrst Miniatures.
But why am I so excited about these miniatures by HarrowHyrst? Well, HarrowHyrst is not just any miniature company capturing the vibe of Middlehammer, because the person behind HarrowHyrst coined that era - Trish Carden (Morrison). She sculpted a lot of the larger creatures, monsters and mounts of many heroes of the Old World, not just in the era of Middlehammer but in the early 00s and for Forge World's Warhammer Forge as well. And "before" that, Trish, together with Aly Morrison, founded Marauder Miniatures in 1988, whose range were sold and later integrated by Citadel Miniatures.
GrimDarkTerrain – Hermes Class Light Salvage Titan
Returning with my attention to Adeptus Titanicus, I am happy about the size of my maniples (so far) and the "only" thing, that I want to add to is the terrain. I have a subscription of GrimDarkTerrain for a while now, but my Anycubic Mono 4K is not the ideal hardware for printing terrain - at least not larger items and larger batches. This is one of the reasons, why I am happy that there are printing service with a merchant license for GrimDarkTerrain like Winterdyne (UK), MegaSonicPunch (Germany/EU) or Hangar81 (US).
Luckily, not every set Bronco designs is that large, and in February 2022 the Hermes Ripley was released as a monthly package.
Necromunda – Promethium Tanks and Refuelling Station
The latest Necromunda plastic kits revisit the Cargo 8 Ridgehauler and its options for trailers, adding a new type of container for both the trailer and a terrain piece with the Promethium Tanks and the Refuelling Station.
Both kits are available for pre-order from today (November 5th) and will be delivered starting the saturday after that. As the Book of the Outlands previewed some of the (empty) trailers and various load outs, these kits have their rules included in this book (pg. 76 ff.) as well as an addendum to the assembly instructions of the refuelling station (not the cargo-8 trailer). The rules in the book only cover Promethium Tanks as cargo-load of the Cargo-8, the rules for using the Refuelling Stations are only covered inside the kit. We're going to build both, the Promethium Tanks On Cargo-8 Ridgehauler Trailer and the Promethium Tanks Refuelling Station, beginning with the trailer.