Recently, a European Federation scout paid a visit to the GJ 3470 (Kaewkosin) system, roughly 96ly from Earth. But it seems that they weren't the first to get there. Deploying long range scans, they found a space station of unknown type orbiting the system's single planet (the as yet unnamed GJ 3470 b). Moving closer in, sensors found that there were in fact several of these larger stations, and each was accompanied by a cluster of smaller installations.

A small midweek bonus today. We sell loads of little 7mm dice - but not as for people to throw, they're too small for that. Instead, they're very handy as markers to show various statuses on the battlefield - wounds, health, damage, shock (if you play TFL games you'll know about that) and so on. But the dice can easily be knocked over, even a good sneeze can send them flying across the table.

We return once again to the reports of Lt Algernon Carmichael-Jefferies of the 22nd West Kent Lancers, written during his long reconnaissance patrol across the Syrtian plains of Mars. On the third week of the expedition we set up camp on the bluffs overlooking one of the smaller Syrtian cities. On the second day we observed a new (at least to us) class of large warship hovering in the skies above what appeared to be a port area - it must have arrived overnight.

We promised a holiday release, and here it is - and appropriately, it has to do with beaches (vaguely). We've previously previewed several 6mm landing craft of various types, and we even took a few to Colours. Today they hit the website (as well as the beach), along with a couple of others that you haven't seen before. The largest is the Air Cushion Tank Landing Ship; this carries either 3-4 MBTs, half-a-dozen smaller APC-sized vehicles or up to a company of infantry on foot (as long as they don't mind being squeezed in).

As is traditional this time of year, Tony's off on his holidays for a week with the Brigadieress and hound to recover from the rigours of Colours. The website remains open for orders, but we won't get to any of them until he returns on Monday 21st. This time it's Lincolnshire, a major battleground in the English Civil War, so who knows what ideas he'll come back with for the Small Scale Scenery range, which is the usual result of his holidays ! We've left a release scheduled for next Friday, and we should still be able to answer emails, just with a bit of a delay.

Today's offering is a series of new 6mm vehicles, mostly rear echelon. The American Republic logistics train runs on the carrying capacity of the M-421 Connestoga, a flat-bed GEV load carrier. The Connestoga can handle bad ground including marshy areas and its light armour means that it can operate just behind the front line. Derived from the same chassis is the M-422 Rosecrans Armoured Ambulance, named for a Civil War-era Union General who had a major hand in developing the first field ambulances.

We have two related Small Scale Scenery releases but at opposite ends of their respective size scale this week. For the last couple of years we've been promising a customer at Colours that we'd make some WWI aircraft hangars, specifically these - Bessonneau tent hangars. We thank him for his patience, and expect him to purchase a minimum of ten sets tomorrow 😉 .

We have a couple of new sets of 6mm Power Armour today; firstly, Germy has created a variant of our existing models with riot shields, useful for close-combat, boarding actions or some serious crowd control. The second set is a completely new design, a solid, chunky, square-edged power suit which we've named Titan suits. Six each of four different figures, including one wielding a missile launcher.

Our CDSU (Chinese Socialist Republic) 6mm forces get some new heavy weapons today. We have a pack of three remote machine guns, three missile launchers and two heavy mortars, each with two crew. We'll have stock at Colours this coming weekend. And this is a good time for a reminder to get those orders in - you're drinking at the last chance saloon as far as orders for the show are concerned. SF300-571 - CDSU Heavy Weapons - £3.25 Missile Teams Mortars Remote MG

Having brought out the Celtos Dragon Lancers at Salute, today we add some new Fir Bolg undead. The Fir Bolg are the dead hosts of Anwyn, spirits doomed to eternally wander the lands. Wraiths are incorporeal spirits, visible but lacking substance. At times they bind themselves to the rotting bones of the dead to give themselves a physical presence, stalking the hills and vales in search of fresh victims.

Just a gentle reminder to get those Colours orders in sooner rather than later; we have truncated working weeks both this week (due to a family wedding) and next (August bank holiday) so we'll be even more stretched for time. In case you need tempting, we'll have some new 6mm bits and pieces available on the day ahead of their scheduled website release dates.

Stop destroying EU micro-businesses: Immediate moratorium on cross-border EPR fees

YouTube video by Pazoot

We've had a couple of river patrol boats in our 6mm Neo-Soviet range for a while. They've been crying out for an update so we've remade the hulls as one-piece resin models with lots of extra detail. The BKRL River Gunboat has two Bizon tank turrets with plenty of anti-tank firepower, while the Fire Support version has a Bizon support turret along with a twin gatling air-defence turret and a Vihkr 12-round rocket launcher for indirect fire.

In the past couple of months we've had to deal with the new EU small parcel tariff, and then there was the new requirement for a 'withdrawal' button on the website. What next, you may ask ? Well, you may be aware of this from other small manufacturers, but the EU has just launched another new set of regulations for e-commerce retailers, this time regarding packaging and recycling.

We're just under four weeks away from our next (and penultimate) show of the year, Colours in Newbury on Saturday September 5th. This takes place in one of the grandstands at Newbury racecourse, which is a nice light and airy venue and always seems to be on a sunny, fresh autumn day (except for that time a couple of years ago when it was about 32°C...).

Lake Titicaca is the largest freshwater lake in South America, and lies on the border between Peru and Bolivia, high up in the Andes Mountains. The Bolivian armed forces maintains a sizeable presence on the lake; although landlocked following the War of the Pacific, the Bolivian Navy still exists as a river and lake patrol force. In addition, the Servicio Aéreo Naval…

We haven't added to our range of 6mm Advanced Buildings for a (long) while; despite this, they seem still to be pretty popular. Today that changes, as we have five new additions to the range. The first building is a simple two-storey affair with attached garage/workshop - in terms of layout it's almost like a modern domestic house. Next we have a medical centre.

Sometimes customers send us ideas for new products. Occasionally these are not practical ideas, or things that we don't think would sell in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile, so they quietly get forgotten. More often they are good ideas, but we have to fit them into our schedule and they disappear into the pending pile for an age until we can get around to them.

Today we have a new addition to the Small Scale Scenery range's railway collection. This is a large British Terminus station, based on the one in Norwich. A Terminus Station is one where the line ends - trains either have to terminate here, or reverse direction to continue their journey, there are no through trains. This example dates from the mid 1800s and has an ornate facade with a cloister vault roof over the central entrance. You'll need some work with a fine brush to pick out all the detail on this one ! SSS-8232 - British Terminus Station - £4.00

For domestic/logistical reasons (burnt out car windscreen washer pump; broken chassis on mechanic's van; loose exhaust tailpipe) we're slightly behind with the post this week. Orders have been cast and packed but are stuck in the out tray. This should be sorted by the weekend (MoT has been passed; new exhaust going on tomorrow) and all outstanding orders will hopefully be on their way on Saturday morning.

More extracts from the report by Lt Algernon Carmichael-Jefferies (22nd West Kent Lancers) on his Mars expedition. Mars is sparsely populated compared to Earth, so we were able to infiltrate ourselves by patrol cutter relatively easily and set up a surveillance post overlooking one of the larger known cities in the region. The southern hemisphere appears to be heavily marked with craters, canyons and other rifts and in the main the larger population areas are based in these lower zones.

For this week's release we have a new Chinese merchant spaceship, the Xingguang (星光) - this translates to 'starlight' or 'starshine'. It's a solid, chunky freighter built for carrying bulk cargo. The model has a one-piece resin hull with metal detail pieces. SFS-5030 - Xingguang Heavy Freighter.

It's "fun" being a small manufacturer trying to negotiate international rules and regulations nowadays. The latest thing thrown at us is a new regime of customs duties being levied by the EU on all packages originating outside of the Union. This is presumably aimed at the likes of Temu, Shein, AliExpress et al, but of course, being a rather blunt instrument, it hammers the little guys as well.

Don't forget that we'll be at the Joy of Six show at Sheffield Hallam University in the heart of the city this coming Sunday. For those sweltering in the heatwave that's covering much of the UK this week, the good news is that the forecast is for a cooler day, around 23-24°C, which should be much more comfortable in the venue (it's forecast to be as much as 35°C at the workshop tomorrow, so Tony would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as he toils in the heat).

We have something new in the 28mm Great War range this week - actually three somethings. We have a trio of heavy mortars, one each for the British, German and French armies. The French get the Mortier de 58 mm type 2, otherwise known as the Crapouillot or "little toad". The finned projectiles were fitted to a launching tube that fitted within the barrel, with the large warhead projecting beyond the muzzle. For the British we have a 9.45" Heavy Trench Mortar, which also picked up the unusual nickname of "flying pigs".

Phil is rather proud of his Welsh heritage, which is why we have a small Welsh fleet in our spaceships range. Recently he's turned his hand to modelling some famous Welsh castles, the first of which are up for release today. We're starting with one of the most famous, Harlech Castle in Gwynedd. Built between 1282 and 1289 by Edward I during his invasion of Wales, it withstood a siege during the uprising of Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294-5 but fell to Owain Glyndwr in 1404 before being recaptured in 1409.

This week's release arose from a conversation at Joy of Six last year; someone suggested that what the Small Scale Scenery range needed was some canal pieces (take a bow, Des). His interest was in Cold War games and he pointed out that Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are criss-crossed by canals of various sizes which would be vital linear obstacles during any Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe.

'Krasnoarmeyets' means 'Red Army Man' - which is what we have today. Two new packs of figures in our 6mm sci-fi range, both Neo-Soviet infantry and heavy weapons. The infantry pack has 27 figures in six poses - squad leader, RPG gunner, LMG and three riflemen. The heavy weapons pack has a variety of weapons including heavy mortars, tripod gatlings and grenade launchers, shoulder launched missiles and backpack gatlings.

May has flown by, so we're approaching June and our next two shows. First up is Broadside in Gillingham, our local show, run by Milton Hundred Wargames Club. We'll have the usual range of stock, with a full range of fleet packs, army packs, Slammers detachments etc, alongside Celtos and the new 28mm SF range. We've been told that there will be Voidfighter game running in the hall so we'll make sure we have plenty of Squadron Commander miniatures with us.

Today we have the new Shikishima class Battleship for the Japanese Space Force, which we originally released at Salute and is now available on the website. It follows a similar design to our other Japanese ships with a large habitation ring around the fuselage and turrets spaced around the hull. Owners of our previous vessels will be pleased to know that we've tweaked the ring design slightly to make it a better fit.

Further extracts from the reports by Lt Algernon Carmichael-Jefferies of the 22nd West Kent Lancers. The Syrtians maintain a powerful aerial fleet of flying warships. Unlike the small hovering silver craft of the Olympians, those of this Southern empire are closer in design to our own ships, although their arrow-head like profiles are somewhat removed from human configurations. Unlike Earth built vessels, they appear not to use steam power, having no recognisable funnels or chimneys.

Extracts from the report by Lt Algernon Carmichael-Jefferies of the 22nd West Kent Lancers on his three week reconnaissance mission to the Southern uplands of Mars.

It's been a couple of weeks since Salute, and our major achievement since then has been to clear the small backlog of orders that built up during the leadup to the show. We've also had quite a few orders since then, so it looks like we were able to reach some new people as well, which is great. Having managed to get back to normal, the obvious thing to do is go on holiday and let the orders pile up again!

The sàirdseant looked to his left and his right, surveying the ranks of the lannsairean. Their polished armour gleamed in the waning sun as they patiently waited on the ridge while the battle raged below. He could clearly see his lord Nuada in the centre of the action, his silver arm flashing as it caught the last rays of the day.

The first of our Salute releases to reach the website are the three 15mm VTOLs for the Hammer's Slammers New Ukrainian Air Cossacks. There is already a detachment list for these using other models, but there should shortly be an updated version which features these instead. With the advent of accurate line-of-sight powerguns in the Hammer's Slammers universe, the life expectancy of high-flying aircraft and VTOLs is quite short.