Getting WaT 15mm tanks in Australia

 Getting WaT 15mm tanks in Australia 

https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product-category/what-a-tanker/

What a Tanker in my area (Canberra Australia) uses 15mm (1/100) miniatures to play this great 'beer and pretzels' level miniatures wargame.

One of my friends asked how to get miniatures, and I am the sort to head off being asked a questions a few times by making a blog post. (Hi Mr C!)

The game only needs a few tanks per side to get going, and on your first game and large team games, you may only need a single tank, easily borrowed from your teacher or game runner. After that, you will naturally want your own collection. 

STORES

http://store.aetherworks.com.au/

Super Biased first pick! Aetherworks are my friends of 20+ years and I have even done bits of work for them. I declare my bias :)   

An easy start point would be the "Fury" boxed set with three US and two germans.  

You can drill down in the store to Miniature/ Flames of War/ country and then pick the miniatures you want. This is a very easy way to get what you want miniature by miniature. They are located in Sydney, so postage is fast. For example, this link should go to the German vehicles. Vehicles this way are about $15 each. 

If you want to start a collection in one box and don't want to paint, you could get the World of Tanks Miniatures game and get four base coated tanks and a whole other rule set for $71. This is a rebrand of Gale Force 9's (GF9) old "Tanks!" game adding in the basecoat painting and bumping the price. Singles are not out yet, but look like they are $22 each. Great if you have no interest in painting, or if you only want to detail the tanks yourself.

https://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/15mm_Plastic_WWII_s/2469.htm

War and Peace stock a few different companies than Aetherworks. they link above goes to 15mm WW2. The bargain of the moment seems to be that they are clearing their GF9 TANKS games miniatures for $7.50 each. Good price! Limited Stock.

https://www.mightyape.com.au/brands/zvezda

Mighty Ape stock Zvezda models. They are inexpensive models, recently endorsed by Jygdrasil. He was very happy with them arriving in a couple of weeks at very, low prices. He put his toe in with s $20 starter order and order #2 at $40 is underway.

https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=15mm+tanks&_sacat=0

Everyone knows ebay. You can watch carefully for bargains @ $5 a pop, or go spend $250 on someones complete pre painted collection of everything you want. Search 15mm tanks or 1/100 tanks

http://www.thecombatcompany.com/categories/miniatures-historical/plastic-soldier-company/15mm-world-war-ii.html

The Combat Company main differentiator here is stocking Plastic Soldier Compoany brand miniatures. They came through ompeteing with Flames of War by offering inexpensive simple pose plastic miniatures. They sell cheap tanks in boxes of five to match the FoW ruleset. 

3D PRINTING

Down at the 15mm level, 3D printing is just fine. If you have a friend with skills in the area, the polite thing to do is for you to make all the tank decisions by picking what you want from https://www.thingiverse.com/ and sending them the links. Then, offer them about $5 per tank for filament and setup labour. I have 6/25 3d printed tanks, and unless you have a good eye you won't be able to spot them from my plastic and metal tanks until you pick them up.

 

Knights, households and longswords, oh my

Knights:
I was asked to join the chivalry in the SCA, and on Easter Sunday I was dubbed a knight with my grandfather's sword. Since then I have prioritized my medieval efforts slightly differently, and made sure my broad attention was on the whole of the Politarchopolis fighting community, and that my narrow focus was on building up the knowledge and combat capacity of my household, and my personal fighting goal was to develop a greater understanding of medeival combat techniques.

Politarchopolis has had a training revolution brought to it by appreciating and appropriating methods from two main sources: Sir Gemini's combat school, and ANU Kendo.  Duke Cornelius (Corny) has been in contact, and has studied the Gemini method. ANU Kendo has a 10 week beginners course, where you wander in clueless, and at the end you are able to throw the basic shots, put on armour, and see if Kendo if for you. These two were melded, and Corny has run beginners course three (?) times now, and one of my aims is to pick up this method well enough to be able to teach it independently next course. We have lots of new blood who have come through the course, and the mid-rankers are all improving in technique and teaching capacity.

Households:
My household has grown since my knighting, and at the fields of gold event later this month, I intend to take squires, and present belts to those who will stay as man-at-arms. Each is equally important to me, for different reasons. Aedwyn had faith in me way back when, and I have faith that she will sort out that getting cash in, and having free time thing enough to find time and fight more. Angus is an accomplished combatant, quite skilled, and needs to work on his temperament, calibration and training. Angus will be key in making sure the next two get authorized and have a good foundation of armoured combat. Urbana and Krieg are both sixteen, and are both learning the Gemini method. They are both high school students, and we are working on getting them armoured and ready to fight, as they have gotten their 'perfect circle' drills down pat, and need armour time to see where they go next. Urbana is academically gifted and a deep thinker, Krieg is charismatic and warm, both are figuring out that teenage thing pretty well. Gunter has a hard path, away from a major fighting community. He will need to find local combatants to train with, and I will be here to answer his questions as best I can. My mystery man-at-arms is suffering most deeply from work-life imbalance: I hope he can find a way through that issue.

Longswords:
I love co-incidences: I love that I can go to an ABS work function, find this guy who works in the ABS, and is an incredible teacher of the study of longsword. I love that we met just as I was knighted and bringing my head up to look around at the broader re-enactment world. I love that we had free alcohol as we figured all this out.

Lucas/ Matt is doing some super cool stuff. HEFT & The Company of Saint Christopher are going great guns. HEFT is a school of medieval combat methodologies studying existing manuals and other modern teachings. The Company is more of a living history group, with a focus being a tournament company around 1450-1500.

I recently had just over two weeks in Tasmania, and I made it to three HEFT lessons. They have a great crew, about 20 participants divided into beginners and advance, all learning and doing drills developed from the medieval manuals. Saint Christopher's had their first outing just after I left: My contribution was in the calligraphy field, and my gain was in finding sources to prepare an improved 15C persona.

The other white blog

I have bundled out my miniatures hobby blogging to "Needs more skulls" Funny thing about that, is that it is now where I am writing most, as I am on a hobby run. Those who care can head on over, and those who don't can stay here and wait till I do something interesting that is not miniatures related :)

A gamers take on the practicalities of moral rights and fair use

Ahh, the synchronicity of interests. I read a lot of Birmo's books, and his blog.  From this, I have run into some other great bloggers, many of whom feature on my blogroll now. One of them is law professor Paul Nicholas Boylan. He has just reposted a great article of his from a faded online law journal.

He said it was quite dry, but I found it interesting withing the context of better understanding the interaction between artists and companies from Europe, the Commonwealth, and the United States.

The internet is full of bush lawyers with all sorts of unproven and untested opinions. They comment on letters of demand to close down web sites, they comment on what they perceive as "draconian" restrictions of free expression, and sometimes the companies seem to work at directly opposition to the expansion of their companies.

The thing I most enjoyed about Paul's article is that it included a lot of plain, clear talk about the law, and the very principles on which the law is based, and the different jurisdictions.

One company I follow very closely is Games Workshop, being a big fan of their games and miniatures lines. They are an English company. After reading the article, I have a great understanding of the complexities of the issue, and more empathy towards those who have to make the decisions about IP for that company.

Well worth a read, and thanks Paul!

Life

Lass - All is new and shiny. Hooray. I'm her bit of fluff :)
Cancon - Apocalypse has seven players, more than last year. Prep day is flexed off, going on a terrain frenzy.
Seneschal - hall contract fun again. Contract finalised, permissions sorted, awaiting getting paper under a board members nose.
Festival marshal - Proposed schedule is nearly firmed up, King happy, just confirming last bits with Festival Stewards Friday night. Pickup pit, meshed war, unmeshed war, Pas', team melee's, and fighter auction. The only ones disappointed will be those who like the tradition of no fighting on Saturday. AND it's timed for more drinking for those who enjoy that :)

FPS Foodies: Dim Sims and Veggies

"Food you can cook in a map change"

When your map finishes, run to the kitchen and set up your steamer. (2 minutes)

Next map change, throw four dim sims and a large serve of mixed frozen veggies into the steamer and start it. (2 mins)

On the third map change, dump the dim sims in a bowl and pour on soy sauce and Tuscan seasoning over the top. Chop the dimmies, and ready them in stabable pieces. (3 minutes)

Eat and enjoy while not even missing a map. Yeah Yeah.

New piece of equipment: A Steamer. A steamer is a great piece of equipment for the gamer cook. You can let it do it's thing and there is nothing to watch, and will not 'burn over' or anything of that nature. Cost of a steamer is approximately one third the cost of a new game, which means real value for money.