The Fellowship by Hinchliffe

 Blogger behaving oddly ATM, and only allowing me to post pictures over a week old...so apologies if you've seen this already on my Instagram page @broadsword_miniatures.

I think these were released as a set by Hinchliffe for a short while , but all have individual codes. Old school quirkiness, long arms ( a Peter Gilder trait), Gimli towers above Legolas and one of the hobbits is much smaller than the others. All available now from Broadsword Miniatures individually or £17.50 for the unpainted set . I've also just received my backdrop book from Handiwork Games, which is an excellent product, put to use here.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

 Just a roundup of things that have been happening.

It was Colours at Newbury Racecourse yesterday, and I took Broadsword Miniatures  to add to the Oakbound Studio stand. 

Geoff busy with a customer.

I had my best day trading ever, mainly thanks to Martin Hackett ( author of the old Fantasy Wargaming book) buying a large goblin army, so thanks Martin.

It was very hot, but not as bad as I feared, and we were quite close to an open door on the first floor of Newbury Racecourse stand, so got the odd gentle zephyr to cool as down.

I managed to get away to do a bit of shopping.

From top left... some spears and a horse from Gripping Beast for a Bretonnia project. Box of flock and 6 bramble patches from The Last Valley, an old Osprey book with some lovely colour plates of jousting knights, 2 packs of Colonel Bill's ECW vignettes to paint for sale, 3 figures from a rummage box and some Wraiths from Crooked Dice.

So not too excessive. I left a bit earlier than Geoff to get home for my oldest son's 21st gift giving. It's his birthday on Monday but he has to be back at camp , so we shifted things forward a bit.

What better gift to give a Light Dragoon trooper, than a 1796 Light cavalry sabre?

Finally , I've added a few more painted groups to the Broadsword Miniatures page.

MYTHIC WORLD GNOMES

 I recently tested the Mythic World dwarf moulds I bought from East Riding Miniatures with some success. I'm renaming then Gnomes as they are diminutive even for dwarves. Initially they'll be sold as a mixed bag of 20 got £20 to work through the stock that came with the moulds.

20 assorted Gnomes for £20 ( plus postage) while stocks last. Please note you may get the odd duplicate, but I'll try and put in as much variety as I can.

MYTHIC WORLDS FANTASY RANGE TESTERS

 I had an afternoon off on Tuesday and spent a jolly few hours at Oakbound Studios trying out some of the Mythic World moulds I bought from East Riding Miniatures last year. So far some very nice figures. I have put pictures on the Broadsword Miniatures page of this blog, but here are a few tasters.

Some wood elves

assorted skeletons

a pugnacious boarman

a gnarly goatman

centaurs which fit in well with the Hinchliffe ones.

I hope to get up to Geoff's again soon to try out the dwarf moulds.... some very nice beardies there.

WHAT'S AFOOT?

 Sorry about the hiatus in posts.... So much going on at the moment. Youngest lad starting secondary school, purchase and testing of a campervan, my other hobby of metal detecting kicking in because it's harvest time, and sundry other excuses. Here follow some hasty shots of what's going on in Broadsword Towers.

First off, I have taken delivery of 10kg of preliminary Hinchliffe fantasy castings courtesy of Oakbound Studios... thanks Geoff, that must have taken some time to spin. I now need to check through them to make sure the moulds are behaving.

I've also started painting one of each Hinchliffe Fantasy figure for display and advertising purposes. I'm doing my best and trying to create a mid 80s Oldhammer look. Probably a bit darker than I'd do them for my own collection.

 Over the past few weeks I've also been trying to get some terrain finished for my Robin of Sherwood figures. Something I've been meaning to do for ages. I bought some excellent trees from The Last Valley, and managed to get a grubby early mediaeval village finished. I'll do a proper set up shot soon, but just to prove I've done it...

As a palette cleanser, I also cracked open the Toyhammer box, and prepared some baddies for painting. Here they are underway.... I so enjoy block painting over a white undercoat.

There is more Toyhammer goodness coming in the form of a lovely Wooden castle my Dad made back in the early 60s. Just right for these fellows to attack.

Next post will hopefully be very soon.

RANGERS OF THE NORTH

 Back to the Minas Tirith'84 project with some more goodies, The Rangers of the North or Dunedain. Again I've used Hinchliffe, Foresters from the fantasy range to be back in production soon. These are old castings with a high lead content which made their bows very bendy and difficult to straighten out.. part of the charm of old figures I guess.

I followed the colour scheme from memory but I think it's right. The only inaccuracy I can see is the silver brooch should be on the other shoulder. They certainly have splendid comb overs, similar to their sculptor Peter Gilder.

Other news . I've finished painting the riders of Rohan, which just need varnishing and the bases painting so hopefully I can show you those soon.

The existing Hinchliffe moulds have been spun and the castings examined, so in a week or so I'll be listing the first figures for sale.

I've been tinkering with some Grimdark British Mythology figures... actually assembling 28mm kits. Something I swore I'd never do, but I've quite enjoyed it. This project will be called Perfidious Albion, and may go in a very different way to my normal shiny figures. More soon..

THE BEASTIE

 I'm now part owner of this very heavy spin caster.

Here it is safely installed in its new home at Oakbound Towers. It's pleasingly old fashioned dating from the 50s apparently.

Unfortunately we didn't get time to fire it up, but with luck I should be able to post about first casts soon.

Many thanks to Geoff for organising it all and driving, and to son one Robin for providing muscle lifting the thing. 

A NEW VENTURE - BROADSWORD MINIATURES (Hinchliffe Fantasy Range)

 Recently I had the opportunity to purchase the rights and existing moulds to a classic old school fantasy range, The Hinchliffe FA range designed in 1979 by Peter Gilder, a demi-god of wargaming in the 70's and 80's. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to get this fun and quirky range back into production and the existing moulds and master figures duly arrived at Broadsword Towers.

Currently about a third of the 100 figure range have usable moulds and I plan to get these into production as soon as possible. The remaining codes in the range should fit onto 3 more moulds which will be produced when funds allow.

Some of the weird and wonderful old school characters which will 

be re-released in the future.

For a look at the full range check Lost minis Wiki

HERE

I have teamed up with the excellent Geoff Solomon-Sims of Oakbound Studio and we have clubbed together to buy a spin casting machine which we are collecting in a week or so. After that I should be taking orders for the first re-releases. Initially orders will be through the blog here (I'll post contact details at the appropriate time), but will hopefully soon be on the Oakbound site.

There is a new page on this blog to showcase the figures (visible on the web version only for some reason),so do check that via the tab at the top of the page. In the future it will be regularly updated with pictures of the Hinchliffe fantasy range and, hopefully soon, bespoke Broadsword Miniatures.

I'm really excited to be getting this classic range back into production and maybe contributing a bit to this great hobby of ours.