[Review] Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V Tank.

 Welcome back,
                                today’s update is another product review, one that I’ve been meaning to post for months now, namely a review of Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V Tank that I used as a base for my British landship.

Pendraken Miniatures only really appeared on my scope a few months ago, just before Christmas when I was looking at various options for some Martians for my current project. Although I didn’t find anything that I thought might be suitable for the Martians I was however intrigued and after a brief look around the site and their massive range of miniatures I decided that there might be other products that I could use.

Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank

First up is the website, the website is really user friendly and all the various ranges are clearly laid out on the left hand side of the page by period, clicking on each range brings up all the various factions or nations for it in the centre of the page. Once you have clicked on the faction you are taken to the miniatures themselves. Here however the experience is a little less smooth, the miniature ranges seem to be arranged by the date that they were released, this is fine but most of the miniatures lack any sort of picture and although all the miniatures are well described it still means searching through a full page of products and with infantry, cavalry, artillery and armour all mixed in together it could be really easy to miss what you were looking for. 

The pictures that Pendraken have added to their webstore are on the whole pretty average but adding a touch of wash would sort most of them out. It is not all bad news however, Pendraken do have a rather active Flickr page with many of their products featured on there, the vast majority of these pictures are far superior to what’s on the webstore but there is a certain amount of trawling involved.

Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank with Baccus 6mm Colonial's for scale.

Once my order was placed I received a confirmation e-mail to let me know what I had ordered and a further e-mail to let me know that my order had been dispatched, it did take about a fortnight from ordering to my product arriving but I did place my order just before the New Year at what I must assume was a very busy time (combine that with all the postal disruption pre-Christmas and I think Pendraken did extremely well).  My products arrived fairly well wrapped and without any serious breakages, though I would have liked a little extra protection for the small and potentially fragile sponsons.

The Mark V* Male tanks that I ordered were priced at £4.00 (this has since risen to £4.25 an unwanted but more than acceptable rise with the rising cost of metal and the increased rate of VAT figured in) which I believe is a very reasonable price once the size and the weight of the vehicles is figured in. The casting on a whole was incredibly good with only a couple of small area’s needing any cleaning work, one area of concern however was the thin guns, one of which inevitably snapped off, not a massive issue and one that was easily rectified. On a whole the models were incredibly easy to clean and work with and once I’d converted them they were really easy to paint.

A converted Pendraken Miniatures 10mm Mark V* Male Tank

In summation I wouldn’t hesitate to order from Pendraken Miniatures again but I would be much more likely to order from them if they added some of their lovely pictures from their Flickr page to their webstore.

Ease of Ordering:  6/10

Quality of Service:  8/10

Quality of Product:   9/10

Packaging & Delivery:  8/10

Value for Money:  9/10

[Review] Renedra Wargames Accessories Bases.

Hello,

           Back again and with another review, this time it's plastic bases from the wargames accessory manufacturer Renedra.

I've been aware of Renedra for over a year having ordered bases from them previously for a stalled 2mm project, so when it came to my 6mm project i already had an idea of what i wanted.

The website is really user friendly and laid out in a way that allows you to immediately find the online store. Each item has a picture and a description so that there is no mistake as to what you are buying, an excellent feature for a site that primarily sells bases. My last order from the site was at the beginning of the year and already the range of products that Renedra produce has increased, for those of you interested they also do what looks like a great range of 28mm Civil War accessories for Perry Miniatures. 

Once ordered the bases came within a couple of days, they were nicely packed in a bubble wrap filled postal envelope and each pack of bases came in a separate bag. There were no breakages and everything arrived in good shape, no real surprises here but i thought it was worth mentioning. What was a surprise was the hand written note on my invoice thanking me for my custom, a wonderful gesture from the great folks at Renedra and just one more reason to keep going back to them. Anyway on to the product.

Renedra 50x25mm Base: As they came delivered.

Renedra 50x25mm Bases: On the sprue.

Having trialed various base sizes with card beforehand i knew exactly what i required for my 6mm infantry companies, a nice 50x25mm base. Each pack comes in a variety of colours (green, brown & grey) a nice option for those who don't like to paint the edges of their bases but since i prefer a nice black painted edge i plumped for grey. The underside of the bases are very slightly textured to prevent slipping on the games table whilst the topside is nice & smooth. The pack that i ordered cost £2.00 for 15 bases, that works out at less than 14p per base, a real bargain i'd say. The bases are very high quality moldings, the plastic is hard but easy enough to work with and once cut off the sprues the bases are ready to use. Having based up a few stands of miniatures now, i can say that the bases hold sand very well and once painted and flocked they look amazing. Personally i prefer to base the figures on the textured side and have the smooth side on the table, not that it makes all that much difference.

Renedra 50x25mm Bases: Off the sprue.

Renedra 50x25mm Base with Baccus 6mm Infantry.

So yes a very dull review but i got exactly what i ordered and fantastic service to boot. Renedra will definitely be receiving more of my money in the future for bases, I think I've decided on 25x25mm for artillery pieces and 50x50mm for cavalry bases. Now i just have to finish what i've started.

Ease of Ordering:  9/10

Quality of Service:  10/10

Quality of Product:   9/10

Packaging & Delivery:  9/10

Value for Money:  9/10

[Review] Baccus 6mm Colonial British Infantry.

Well I'm back already with another update, hopefully one of many. 

As I begin to build up this blog from it's foundations I thought I'd review some of the purchase's that i've made in this last year, we start off with the British Infantry from the Baccus 6mm Colonial Range. 

I have been a long time fan of all thing's small scale, the ability to field mass formations and fight battles rather than skirmishes has always appealed to me, so when i discovered that Baccus produced a range of 6mm British Colonial Infantry I just had to have some. 

Finding the Colonial Range if you don't know where to look on the Baccus website is a bit of a pain, unlike most of the 6mm product ranges that Baccus produce it is not listed on the dark green side bar, instead you have to click on products and scroll down to the page to find them. A minor inconvenience but one that could lead many people to over look this range.

Once you've found the range it is divided into five sections, the British, the Boers, the Egyptians, the Mahdists and the Zulu's, a nice touch that allows you to find the models you're looking for almost instantaneously.  The British Range consists of 24 individual packs divided between the Zulu Wars and the Sudan Campaigns of 1885/6. Each individual pack is laid out well giving a description of the contents, a price for the EU and the Rest of the World and in most cases but unfortunately not all a picture of the product. 

The packs of British Infantry that i purchased British Infantry - Marching (CBR21), British Infantry - Firing (CBR22) & Highland Infantry - Firing (CBR24) all came with a total of 24 strips of figures, 4 Command strips and 20 Line strips, each strip consists of four models to give a total of 96 figures. At £5.50 (for EU residents) for 96 miniatures this works out at just over 5p per individual, very reasonable if you ask me and one of the reasons I love 6mm.

Baccus 6mm: British Infantry - Firing (CBR22)

My order with Baccus was dealt with very quickly, and i received the goods within a week of ordering them. They arrived well packaged, each individual pack was separated into individual bags and placed into one bubble wrapped postage bag along. There were no breakages and nothing rolling around in the envelope, perhaps a minor thing but one that has constantly frustrated me about many of my e-bay purchases. Whilst the bags were labelled in marker with the website code it would have been nice to have a little sticker saying what they were.

The models themselves are very high quality castings with little or no flash present, there is an unbelievable amount of detail present on each figure, faces, webbing and weapons are all easily distinguishable and they are a joy to paint. If i was to be hyper critical about them, my two very minor criticisms would be that first of all the bases of some strips are less well cast than others and can taper off into nothing and that secondly the marching packs are very tightly packed together, this is fine if you intend to base them up as a strip but if you want them marching in a more loose order it's quite difficult to get a pair of cutters in between the bases. Like i say very minor criticisms.

Overall I'm incredibly happy with them and Baccus will certainly be receiving a lot more of my custom.

Ease of Ordering: 7/10

Quality of Service: 9/10

Quality of Product: 8/10

Packaging & Delivery: 9/10

Value for Money: 9/10

I hope this has been an informative read, please don't hesitate to ask any question, where possible i'll deal with your queries.

Haarken