Last weekend our team had a great pleasure to take part in the Joy of Six convention. We invite you to read the second part of our account from the trip to United Kingdom and our participation at this convention.

The organizer of Joy of Six is Baccus – the world’s most famous miniature maker in 6 mm scale. Despite the fact that we are to a certain extent competition, all companies that appeared at the convention are very positive about cooperation and know that our activities contribute to the promotion of hobby and the scale of 6 mm. I would like to thank Peter, the boss of Baccuss, for the organization of the convention, which has already had a dozen or so editions. Every year attracts more and more exhibitors and viewers, which is a very positive phenomenon.

The convent is held in Sheffield, in the main hall of Hallam University, about 200 meters from the train station. This is undoubtedly an attractive location, right in the center. The organization, signs (at the entrance and then in many places in the corridors), informers (all dressed in yellow, visible from the distance), the pre-convention information (maps with the exact location of each position etc.), and the possibility of eating lunch in one of the halls of University.

If I had to list things that are worth improving, I think that the convention could be longer. It starts at 10.00 (of course, the exhibitors are admitted much earlier), and by 17.00 you have to leave the building. In practice, this means that at 4pm you have to start packing, so it is only 6 hours of the convention itself. This can be a problem mainly for clubs that try to fight big battles. Also from our perspective – travelers “from far away” a two-day convent would be an interesting alternative.

The convention was located in three large halls and a corridor between them. Two rooms and the aforementioned corridor were occupied by exhibitors and clubs, presenting their games, the third room was occupied for lectures. We did not have time to participate in them, but it is always a positive aspect of the convention – it allows you to share your knowledge, experience and discussion on important topics related to wargaming.

Of course, the greatest impression was made by battles. The 6 mm scale is ideal for playing big clashes that look epic. The battle at Poltava made the most impression on us. There were many more big games and many of them we had the “jaw dropped effect” – thousands of miniatures on beautiful battlefields made a stunning impression.

Historical systems dominated, but there was also a bit of fantasy and science fiction.

Our team (Adam from Bolter.pl, Witold and Maciek) set up a stand, the biggest attraction of which was our latest sets of figures produced in 3D printing technology. They aroused great interest, some guests took pictures of them close up to show them to friends “or they will not believe that they are printed miniatures”.

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On the second table, we put miniatures for “learn to play” game – a small clash between the two Union and Confederate corps. We had the opportunity to show Gods of War: Lee rules to many people. The game mechanics we talked about, especially those related to the fog of war and command&control, aroused great interest. After finishing work on the second edition of the Polish version of the rulebook, we will start translating it into English.

We were aroused by the offer of many stores, the best impression was made, among others by latex fields, rivers and roads that can be laid on any hillyterrain. The offer of ready hedges or forests was also interesting. In addition, of course, you could buy miniatures in a huge number of historical periods, fantasy and science fiction.

It was already our second visit to the Joy of Six convention and next year we are going to go again. We are very happy that together we can promote and develop a 6 mm scale hobby – the best scale for large battles. Once again, many thanks to the organizers and cordial greetings to all participants, especially those with whom we had the pleasure of meeting.

We invite you to look at the photos from Joy of Six.

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Revolution!

Today, we would like to share with you one of the most important information in the history of our company.

After almost a year of trials and hard work, we have succeeded. Thanks to this, we can present today a new line of miniatures in 6 mm scale. Miniatures printed on a 3D printer! Thus, the world of great possibilities opens up before us.
Most likely, no one in the world has produced historical infantry miniatures on a scale of 6 mm with such a level of detail yet. Miniatured are as detailed as our metal patterns, with many other advantages.
Technological progress in the field of printing and hard work of all people involved in the project made it possible to realize it.

Our first line of printed miniatures will be minis for the Second French Empire, under the reign of Napoleon III. Soon, printed sets of British infantry will come out.

This miniatures can be seen and bought this weekend at the Joy of Six convention in Sheffield, and then at our distributor, in the Bolter.pl shop (it’s in English).

About miniatures

New technology and new material raises many questions like “what are these miniatures?”.
We invite you to look at the gallery, which presents printed minis. Please click on the picture to enlarge it.

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Due to the printing technology, all figures are placed on a trays. Under the strip with minis, under the base of the cannon or a single cavalry miniatures there is a small tray, connected to the miniature by a series of supports. All minis in sets will be equipped with such trays. They should be cut off gently together with the supports. You can use a very sharp knife / scalpel or modeling pliers (there are different techniques).

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Behind us are months of trials and errors and constant corrections when it comes to various parameters of the printout and the sculpture itself. Printed figures are quite hard and not very plastic – they will not bend, but using large force can of course break them. Damaged ones, however, do not spill “into fine”, so you can always glue them together. These physical features of figurines must be kept in mind when cutting them and preparing them for painting.

Hard minis will luckily also mean that we will miss the bane of this scale – rifles bending in to every direction of the world. From now on, all rifles will always have the same shape!

Another positive is the use of hard, wire spars banners. The new sets produced in the 3D printing technique will contain sections of the appropriate size wire, which should be pasted into the shoulder of the ensign in a place specially designed for this. Thanks to this, we will miss the second bane of some metal minis – breaking banners. It will also be more convenient, from the point of view of the sequence of painting figures and planting the flag, than it was before.

Painting printed minis is very similar to metal ones. We described them well on our website, in the painting guide. Basically, it is worth remembering that the undercoat is also the basic color of the uniform. On this scale, we do not put a separate undercoat on which we paint the right layer of paint. We immediately put on the color of the uniform.
The painting guide is here:
LINK

What’s next with metal?

Metal miniatures will still be a part of our offer. There will be more sculptures that we will cast in metal. The Sioux will be the next nation to publish, and their minis will be metal ones.

Both materials have different properties and advantages. We will use it, for example, to create minis of important characters, which we mentioned a long time ago. The closest example will be General Custer.

The introduction of new technology will first of all speed up the process of creating new minis. The design and production of the whole line for a new nation can last several weeks, not several months.

Therefore, both techniques will harmonize with each other.

Second French Empire

Presenting the minis of the French, we can immediately inform that the nearest faction that will be released for Gods of War: Lee will be the Second French Empire. The Army Book will contain two army lists: for the Crimean War of 1854 – 1855 and the Second War of Italian Independence in 1859. We think that it will be a feast for all fans of red trousers, Imperial Guard, Cuirassiers and French Foreign Legion.

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Army builder

The French army has already been added to the Army Builder, which has also undergone many changes. Some of its graphic appearance has been changed, and many new functionalities have been added, including possibility of saving and uploading roosters, summary of the size of our army, or naming your divisions. We will describe them in a separate entry, for now we invite you to explore the army of the Second Empire, remembering that it is still a test version of this army and some small things may change. English version is available!

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The British and the future

In the near future we will complete the missing sets of minis for the British Empire and of course for the French. Most new minis for both nations will be 3D printed.

We have already written about the plans for the next armies at the beginning of the year, but we will remind about this in a separate entry.

Post scriptum

Preparations up to this moment lasted about a year and cost a lot of effort and work for all the people involved. We would like to thank them very much in this place. We hope that you will like the minis and that they will allow faster development of historical wargaming in 6 mm scale.

En avant! 😉

Today we proudly present first chapter of 2nd edition of Gods of war: Robert E. Lee wargaming rules. During next weeks we will publish next chapters up to the last one. They will be available to download for free. As fast as we will finish publishing all chapters, we we start to translate it into English.