Cold War Games - Hobby News Spring 2013

Well its been quite a time since I posted anything new, I have been having a bit of a break from the hobby, a combination of a big project (Soviet Air Assault) that was taking to long to output anything to write about and an increase in the pace of activity at work,  The net result had slowed me down and in releasing less I had lost my way a bit in terms of the organisation of what I was trying to do. My intent now is to write four magazines a year releasing 10 - 12 posts around a core theme over a period of 3 months, these will cover the usual topics of Reviews, News, Orbat, AAR and Scenarios. 

The Summer Magazine will be focused on the completion of the Air Assault force and the development of Scenario material for a game that will be played out in July with a full AAR appearing in the Autumn edition, stimulated by finally completing a number of the units I have been working on for the last  year.

At long last then my 100th post and I note we are nearly upto 100 followers so plenty to celebrate.

The other thing that has brought me out of hibernation are some fantastic new releases and future releases that are popping out  a couple of the regular suppliers of cold war goodness and all focused on the British, these releases make covering the bulk of units for British forces very achievable and are very attractive to boot.

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FIGURES

Elhiem

Matt over at Elhiem figures has been extending his British range, which originally comprised a section patrolling with SLR, GPMG, 58 pattern webbing and tin hats in and out of NBC kit. Suitable for units up to 1987-1988 when SA80, PLCE webbing  and the Mk 4 Helmet all started to make an appearance.

To these he has added a mid 80's Milan team of three figures, 58 pattern webbing and Tin hats but a Milan post with Mira,  If you need an early 80's team the NATO Milan teams have a platform without MIRA.  The 3 figures are excellent as is the MIRA representation, 1990s teams could go a head swap or you can leave as is to save the cash which will be my approach.

In production are a section in fire positions, a Javalin AA missile system a GPMG SF Kit, Carl Gustav team and a mortar crew, all up a very comprehensive range, and the greens demonstrate the quality great stuff.  Hopefully we'll see these go live on Matts Elhiem Figures site in the not to distant future,

flicking through the Cold War Gone Hot, Force on Force supplement, he still has a few bits to go around the dutch, although his Canadians with SLR start to answer some of that need.

MODELS

S&S

Quite a flourish of activity in both Resin and plastic, we'll start with the resin cold war manufacturer of choice who has gone absolutely british cold war potty. A big shout out to Shaun at S&S who has just about filled nearly all the slots in the Orbat not covered by the plastic manufacturers and other easy to access resin manufacturers so without further a doe

First up Ferrit Armoured cars primarily employed in the 80's in signal platoons as liason and rebroadcast vehicles so part of BHQ 

Secondly the CVR(T) fleet of the year, Scorpion, Scimitar, Samson Samaritan, Sultan and Striker awesome, I'll be getting a few of these to cover off an Armoured Battle Group HQ Sultan, A Divisional Recce Squadron, all of them + spartan, and an Armoured Regiment close Recce Troop with Scorpio, superb.

We then get into the land of recovery, a 434 and a warrior recovery, I have the 434 but have yet to build it and will be getting the Warrior for my late 80s Warrior Battle Group.

and theres more 110 land rovers soft and open top

an M109

An FV 432 Mortar variant

and a finally some soft skins a collection of supacats absolute gold dust and straight into my 24 Airmobile project, and a foden drops that will grace my 1990s artillery unit, probably with a couple of AS90s which of course will be a little cheeky.

So whats left to do to cover off the cold war british force, tracked rapier is the obvious one a DAF 4 tonne and a cost effective Saxon are the ones that spring to mind although both the Rapier and the Saxon are available elsewhere if a little dificult to get hold of.  After that your into specialist variants and there is still quite a bit of ground to cover there. As I build my way through this lot over the next few years I'll throw up more detailed reviews.

Trumpeter

On the Kit front and staying with the British theme Trumpeter have been busy with a clutch of challenger 1s in various guises along with a few Warriors

An impressive haul of releases in the last year and thats just the Brits, sadly a pile of kits have gone out of production with no obvious site of resurrection notably from the Ace stable along with a few noteable titles from Revel, having said that new manufactures have started to fill the gap.  Maybe I need to slot in an interim news post in order to cover off the rest of the pile over the next three months.

If you have any cold wargaming product news that you would like to share drop me a line at coldwargamer@gmail.com