Saturday, June 21, 2025

Studio Level: Trench Ark - 3D Printable Fully Modular Terrain System Kickstarter Final Days!


Studio Level: Printable 3D files and physical models to build a modular trench gameboard — handcrafted terrain, then digitized to print and play. Check the full Kickstarter here

Trench Ark is a collection of printable 3D files to print and build a fully modular terrain system, featuring modular boards and scenery models designed specifically for Trench Crusade. Each module is carefully handcrafted to capture the grimdark and religious atmosphere of a war that has raged for centuries between heretics and crusaders. For those without a printer, ready-to-play physical models are also available.





Sunday, June 15, 2025

Wayland Games: New Warhammer 40K Kill Team: Typhon


Wayland Games: The Adeptus Mechanicus wage war against the formidable Tyranids in a struggle for power this week. Join the battle with Kill Team: Typhon - English and assure victory on the battlefield. Ready your Space Marine forces for the fight against Horus with the Tarantula Missile Battery, a static powerhouse ready to strike down air attacks or masses of on-foot assaults. Or alternatively, buff up your arsenal with the Rapier Laser Destroyer and Quad Launch. Check them here


Studio Level: Trench Ark - 3D Printable Fully Modular Terrain System Kickstarter


Studio Level: Printable 3D files and physical models to build a modular trench gameboard — handcrafted terrain, then digitized to print and play. Check the full Kickstarter here

Trench Ark is a collection of printable 3D files to print and build a fully modular terrain system, featuring modular boards and scenery models designed specifically for Trench Crusade. Each module is carefully handcrafted to capture the grimdark and religious atmosphere of a war that has raged for centuries between heretics and crusaders. For those without a printer, ready-to-play physical models are also available.


Saturday, June 14, 2025

Element Games: Tyranids Burrow Their Way Into Kill Team!


Element Games: The newest limited edition box for Kill Team goes up for pre-order today! Finally a revamp for those squirmiest of tyranid worms The Ravenor Brood. Check them here


Sunday, June 8, 2025

Badger Games: Pontoonier Miniatures Releases Norse and Natives for Vinland C. 1000 AD


Badger Games: For centuries, the Norse terrorized the coastal world from Europe to North Africa to even Asia. Driven by a lack of land, an adventurous spirit and a thirst for plunder, the Vikings terrorized much of the known world. However, in the West, due to distance, smaller numbers and difficulty in supply, the Vikings were not able to act as they did in Europe and could find themselves on the defensive.

The Vinland Sagas speak of the voyages of Leif Erickson, the early Norse settlements and the people they encountered. The fertile lands these settlers found were not as easy to hold and their interactions not always friendly. 

Pontoonier Miniatures created this line, designed by the late, great Rob Baker, to represent the less well equipped farmers of the Vinland settlements and the native peoples they occasionally came into conflict with. Each side is represented by some command types, warriors, missile troops and casualties. These are perfect for Skirmish games like Mana Press’ TRIBAL or even larger scales like SAGA. There are also some fantastic vignettes showing what might have happened when notorious raiders became the raided. Pontoonier Miniatures are distributed exclusively by Badger Games. For more information about this range and all the available miniatures check here




Saturday, June 7, 2025

BobMack3D: Stars, Stripes, and STLs: A Massive Cold War Wargaming Release Coming July 4th!


BobMack3D: BobMack3D, Flank March Miniatures, and BattlegroundHD are joining forces to deliver a coordinated wave of Cold War-themed releases that will transform your wargaming experience. Together, these three creators are launching a full suite of complementary products centered around the mighty U.S. Army in the 1980s.

It begins with two back-to-back Kickstarters: REFORGER from Flank March Miniatures, featuring highly detailed 3D-sculpted U.S. Army figures, and AIRLAND BATTLE from BobMack3D, offering a complete lineup of U.S. Army Cold War Airborne and Light units. Supporting both is BattlegroundHD’s Fulda Firestorm, a scenario pack that plunges players into the high-stakes skirmish defense of the Fulda Gap at the dawn of a fictional Soviet invasion.

This unprecedented collaboration delivers everything needed to bring the U.S. Army’s Cold War might to life on the tabletop—figures, vehicles, and a full narrative-driven game experience—all launching together this July 4th.




Alternative Armies: New Planetary Archivists Free in All Orders!


Alternative Armies: New Planetary Archivists Free in All Orders! Check here


Warlord Games: First Look at New Konflikt '47 Miniatures!


Warlord Games: First Look at New Konflikt '47 Miniatures! These are the very first of an exciting new chapter of releases for Konflikt ’47. These four units will all be coming – in plastic – in the first wave of releases in September!





Friday, June 6, 2025

Element Games: Warhammer Old World Beastmen Release!


Element Games: Screaming out of the wild lands of the Old World come the Beastmen Brayherds. Men twisted by Chaos merge with infernal beasts to form a ravening horde of chittering maws and cloven hooves. Driven by cunning shamans and ruthless warlords, these dire-beasts can overrun any army unfortunate enough to stand in their way. Check them all here


Wayland Games: Feel The Thundering Power Of The Beastmen


Wayland Games: The Cities of Sigmar and Seraphon overwhelm The Age of Sigmar wars as they trudge forward in battle this week. With a fantastic new General's Handbook filled to the brim with new lore and rules, the Fusil-platoon, and Sunblooded Prowlers, those who choose The Mortal Realms as their primary battlefield can prepare for exciting new fights.

Awaken the echoes of the past in The Old World and feel the thundering power of The Beastmen. New additions, including the Arcane Journal, the Dice Set, the Battalion, and more, mean players who choose to align themselves with anarchy can truly embrace chaos. Finally, expand your knowledge of Middle-earth, prepare for battle with the Armies of Middle-earth book, and roll for your destiny with the Dol Amroth Dice Set. Check them all here


Alternative Armies: Website Remodelling and Replacing Blogger This June


Alternative Armies: It has been near a decade since the last major update of the ‘look, layout and feel’ of the mighty Alternative Armies website and we have been using Blogger for all our news since 2007. During this time 15mm.co.uk ended and was taken back into us and The Ion Age had its own website, grew hugely and then was taken back into us as well. Since last remodelling we have not only begun producing resin models but now have near three hundred such codes and our overall inventory of miniatures has grown by nearly fifty percent. We have created a vast amount of our own miniatures and restored hundreds of those of Asgard and Tabletop too. We have outgrown the ability of the current site to properly cope. The lads have a plan though... Check the full article here


Friday, May 30, 2025

WIP Games and Miniatures: New 28mm Sea Peoples Warriors!


WIP Games and Miniatures: We've just added the first of our new 28mm Sea Peoples to the website! These are white metal miniatures that are supplied with either shields or bucklers for £1.50 each. We also have the first Unit Builder available, which contains 20 miniatures (the current 4 poses carrying swords) for £25.00, bringing the individual miniatures down to just £1.25 each – a bargain price!

We'll have lots more Sea Peoples releases coming very soon, as well as New Kingdom Egyptians and Nubians, amongst others. These miniatures are ideal for use with On Bloody Ground – The New Kingdom. Or alternatively, any other set of Mass Combat or Skirmish wargame rules. We hope you like what we have so far, and thanks for looking.


Alternative Armies: Free article Skeletrov Cossacks for Flintloque and Slaughterloo


Alternative Armies: Part one of two World of Valon articles to enjoy; next week for the other. Following the recent release of the 55524 Skeletrov Cossacks we present the ‘Uniformation’ article for these bone riders for use in Flintloque and Slaughterloo. Giving you their uniforms, game statistics and more. See and download here or head for the Free Downloads page for everything for every system we publish. Check it here


Thursday, May 29, 2025

Wargame Shop: Your Magnificent 7 - Cinematic Western Gunfight Rules


Wargame Shop: A set of cowboy rules that allow you to recreate your favourite classic western movies on a tabletop. Each player becomes a director that casts seven characters into their roles that form a functioning frontier group. These groups are represented by seven popular western categories form the movies, these are the Lawmen Posse, Outlaw Gangs, Hired Hands, Gunfighter Band, Cowboy Ranch Family, U.S Cavalry Squad and lastly the Native War Party. Each frontier group has its own attributes that can be used to distinguish them from the other factions.

Cast experience for characters starts with the fledgling stars, the Greenhorns and progresses through Competent, Practised, Expert and finishes with Renowned movie stars. There is even a chance that characters will progress to become legendary, the megastars of the movie screens. Once the directors have cast the parts for their seven cast members and chosen a leader, then it’s time for Lights, Camera, Action… Does it start with a fast-draw showdown or just a random encounter or do you follow the script from your preferred western movie?


Both directors square-off against each other across the Wild West film set to determine who gains the upper hand by rolling initiative. The winner activates their most experienced cast first, whilst the loser activates their least experience members first. Directors alternate through their cast until all seven characters have performed their actions. When activated a character can expend their allocated actions on moving, shooting or brawling; possible combinations can be selected if characters have enough actions. Actions are all based around our founding gaming principles of action and reaction. What are these you might say? Well for instance, a character raises his revolver to shoot, their target rolls and notices a gun pointing at them, so they react; but do they go prone, dodge to cover or shoot their own gun. If it’s the latter then both characters have a ‘shoot-out’ and the winner fires first, they may fire simultaneously, but the loser will still fire last if they are still alive that is.

Autonomous extras or townsfolk, has we like to call them, can get in your way, run for cover when the shooting starts, seek out the local Town Marshal if they identify characters has a wanted felons or even have a ‘shoot-out’ against them. Directors gain clapperboard tokens as the production unfolds and these can be spent enhancing a character’s action scene, extending their performance with a Director’s Cut. The Director’s Cuts allows either a cinematic action or a cinematography technique to be performed once in their activation. What you’ll need besides these rules are a friendly opponent, seven 25/28mm miniatures that represent your magnificent 7 frontier group, a tabletop with Wild West terrain, an imperial tape measure and two six-sided dice.

Alternative Armies: SHM111 Farfield and Mauser New 15mm Release


Alternative Armies: The SHM (Self Help Miniatures) Range expands today with a new aspiring sculptor’s first molded miniatures. Two 15mm scale characters sculpted by Ed Willems great for your sci-fi table. See the whole range of over one hundred codes of aliens, robots, humans, creatures, vehicles and more. Rather odd and unique. Check it here


Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Element Games: New Warhammer 40K Space Wolves!


Element Games: New Warhammer 40K Space Wolves! Check them here


Alternative Armies: Celebrating a Year of Halcyon Minatures with Mini Event until 2nd June 2025


Alternative Armies: It has been just over a year since Halcyon Miniatures partnered up with Alternative Armies to produce their range of high quality metal and resin 28mm miniatures. This sci-fi range has grown to over forty codes since with all manner of space adventurers, soldiers, knights and more for a space opera setting; even some mighty Warlouses and the hulking Gnawbuck Mutagen. We felt a wee celebration was on the cards so until 2nd June 2025 these excellent offers apply to every ‘HAL’ Halcyon code. Here we go! Check here


Alternative Armies: Another Cold Dawn a Free Flintloque Scenario


Alternative Armies: Part two of the World of Valon articles to enjoy. Following the recent release of the 55524 Skeletov Cossacks we present a full size free Flintloque scenario which sees them face off against Elf Dragoons in a snowy cavalry action. See and download here or head for the Free Downloads page for everything there is to have. You will need the free Uniformation article for the Skeletov Cossacks for this scenario. Check here


Saturday, May 24, 2025

Wayland Games: The Wolves Of Fenris Prepare Their Hunt!


Wayland Games: The Space Wolves are forming a hunting party this week as you can now pre-order the Space Wolves Army Set. Packed with a pack of fierce units, this Army Set is a great start to any 10th Edition Space Wolves army. Also available is the latest Crusade installment, Armageddon and the new Chapter Approved 2025-26 Mission Deck and Objective Set. Jump into the Narrative and Matched Play aspects of Warhammer 40K and pre-order now. Check them here


WIP Games and Miniatures: New 28mm New Kingdom Egyptian Infantry!


WIP Games and Miniatures: We've Just Added the First of Our New 28mm New Kingdom Egyptians to the Website! These are white-metal miniatures that are supplied with shields for £1.50 GBP each. We also have the first two Unit Builders available, which contain 20 miniatures (the current two poses either carrying kopesh or open handed for spears) for £25.00 GBP, bringing the individual miniatures down to just £1.25 GBP each – a bargain price!

We'll have lots more New Kingdom Egyptian releases coming very soon, as well as more Sea Peoples and the first of our Nubians, amongst others, which you can also see on our Facebook page here These miniatures are ideal for use with On Bloody Ground – The New Kingdom, which also has a dedicated Facebook group. Or alternatively, any other set of mass combat or skirmish wargame rules. We hope you like what we have so far & Thanks for looking.


Sunday, May 4, 2025

Alternative Armies: Fomorian Axe Warriors New for 28mm Erin Celtic Mythology


Alternative Armies: From the cold sea brine come...Fomorians! New 28mm Celtic Myth. Final new release of the Spring Mega Event (20% off auto on all orders until 6th May). See the article for details, pictures and more. Thank you. Check it here


Thursday, May 1, 2025

Empress Miniatures: New WWII British 75mm Pack Howitzer


Empress Miniatures: Todays new release is the 75mm pack howitzer and the three crew. The elevation mechanism on the 75 was very unusual and when modelling could have created a very difficult model to assemble. We therefore took the easy option of providing two different sections for the front trail. This enables the gun to made in the firing position or in various moving and glider loading positions. Another set based upon the Arnhem battle with the crew taken from original photographs.


Eureka Miniatures: New Fantasy Hawkmoon Order of The Wolf Cavalry Preview


Eureka Miniatures: Something ancient and terrible stirs in the shadows of the Tragic Millennium... Behold a glimpse of the upcoming Order of the Wolf Cavalry for our 18mm Hawkmoon range. These figures embody the brutal elegance of Moorcock's dystopian vision.

Long lances poised for the kill, tattered banners bearing forgotten heraldry, and armour that speaks of both technological regression and terrible purpose—these are not merely soldiers, but harbingers of a world where science and sorcery have merged into something altogether more sinister.


Alternative Armies: Skeletov Cossacks new for Flintloque and Slaughterloo


Alternative Armies: New Flintloque! Skeletal Cossacks on bone horses. The Dark Czar has more troops to fight the Ferach invaders. Five poses (as singles, pack or saver Slaughterloo unit) See the article for details, pictures and more. Second last Spring Mega Event (20% auto off all orders ends 6th May) releases. Thanks. Check it here


Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Alternative Armies: Malig Gun Team and Grima Controller Team New 28mm Ion Age


Alternative Armies: New 28mm Gun Teams for The Ion Age! Malig Goblins (IB91) and Planetary Militia controller Grima Combat Robots (IB98). To go with the portable weapon platforms. Near 300 poses now in the range. By request of wargamers these new sculpts. Mega Event ends 6th May. Thank you. Check it here


Alchemist Miniatures: New Alkemy Chimera Characters!


Alchemist Miniatures: New Alkemy Chimera Characters!




Warlord Games: Armies of Great Britain, Plastic Winter British, & More New Pre-Orders


Warlord Games: Armies of Great Britain, Plastic Winter British, & More New Pre-Orders




Ready-Made vs. Scratch-Built Scenery – Which Way to Terrain Heaven?


If you’re into tabletop games, whether it’s Warhammer, Bolt Action D&D, or something a bit more niche, you’ve probably faced this age-old hobbyist dilemma: Do I buy that awesome pre-made terrain kit, or do I go full mad scenery scientist and build my own from discarded foam, fountains of glue, and sheer willpower?

Let’s be honest – both options have their unique charm. But each option comes with its own highs, lows, and if not careful hot glue burns. So whether you're a seasoned hobby vet or just dipping your toes into the miniature world, here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of each option to help you decide what’s right for your table.

Option 1: Buying Ready-Made Scenery

Let’s be real — time’s tight, and you can only spend it once. Sometimes, you just wanna jump into the action and roll a mountain of dice. Buying ready-made terrain makes that super easy: open the box, drop it on the table, and boom — you’re good to go. It’s plug-and-play, and most of the time it looks awesome right out of the box. These kits are built to last and often come with some pretty slick paint jobs too.

That said, the downside? This stuff can get pricey fast. A couple of kits and suddenly your gaming budget's toast. Plus, if you’re into the creative side of the hobby, you’re kinda missing out. There’s nothing quite like playing on a table full of hand-made, one-of-a-kind scenery you built yourself!

There's some pretty cool scenery available on the market which is playable straight of the box! My personal favorite is the lovely Battlefield in a Box Scenery range by Gale Force Nine. Everything you need to bring you an exciting and authentic battlefield, ranging from burnt out buildings to Rocks, Rubble and Ruins, Battlefield in a box has everything you need to make your table top come to life. Check the full range here and explore the endless options of pre-painted scenery!
Option 2: Scratch-Building Your Own Scenery

One of the best things about making your own terrain is the sheer creative freedom. If you want to build a haunted forest filled with glowing mushrooms and throw a crashed spaceship right in the middle of it—go for it. No rules, just whatever wild idea you feel like bringing to life.

It’s also surprisingly budget-friendly. You’d be amazed at what you can whip up using foam, cardboard, and random bits from your recycling bin. With a little creativity, even trash becomes treasure. And honestly, it’s super satisfying. There’s something really cool about watching a bunch of junk slowly turn into something game-ready. That moment when you step back and say, “I made that!”—yeah, it feels pretty awesome.

Now, it’s not all perfect. Terrain building can be seriously time-consuming. Crafting that epic wizard’s tower or sprawling dungeon might take hours—or even days—depending on how deep you go. There’s definitely a learning curve, too. Your first few builds might come out a little rough around the edges, but that’s all part of the process. You get better every time. Oh, and fair warning: it can get messy. Like, your workspace might start looking like a craft store exploded. But if you’re cool with a bit of chaos, it’s totally worth it.

Looking for some scenery inspiration make sure to check the internet for free online tutorials, Youtube or grab some books written by hobby experts explaining everything you need to start scratchbuilding! For example the Wargames Terrain & Buildings - The Napoleonic Wars Modelling Book here (link) by scenery master Tony Harwood.  

In this volume, master modeller Tony Hardwood shares his years of experience and presents the reader with a wide range of projects for the Napoleonic era. With the aid of step-by-step photographs, he guides the reader through building and finishing each of these models, which are organized in three sections of increasing complexity and encompass a range of scales and different materials. Nine projects are included but the techniques and skills demonstrated along the way, along with valuable advice on tools, construction materials and paints, can be adapted and applied to a much wider range of structures to grace your battlefields.


Final Thoughts

Honestly? Neither’s better—they both have their perks. If you’re in a rush or getting ready for a one-shot, pre-made terrain is a total lifesaver. But if you’re into crafting, want something one-of-a-kind, or you're trying to save some cash, building your own stuff can be super satisfying. Most hobbyists end up mixing it up—buying some key pieces like buildings or trees, then adding their own spin with DIY scatter terrain, custom touches, or cool themed bits. It’s really just about finding that balance between ease and creativity.

At the end of the day, whether you’re buying or building, it’s all about making your tabletop feel alive. So grab your glue gun (be careful) or your wallet—whatever suits your style—and make something epic. Because when your party finally reaches that haunted ruins scenario, they won’t be asking where you got the terrain. They’ll just be asking how to survive it. Happy hobbying!