Pardulon.com is a German site selling some great looking modular 28-30mm resin fantasy buildings and accessories. They represent a nice alternative to Hirst Arts buildings because they really capture the bowed walls and ramshackle rooflines of a medival city.
Definitely worth checking out, if only for inspiration. I particularly enjoyed their very practical looking stables.
My modelling New Year’s resolution is to finish some of projects I started in 2005 (and earlier). A project that’s been nagging me for a while is the textured Mordheim table and canal that I started early 2004.
So over Christmas I put together another three Hirst Arts flat 1′ square tiles and textured, painted and varnished the three canal tiles. This means I can put together a texture 3′ x 4′ long Mordheim table with a central canal and bridge. I’m still working on two simple sewer entrance blocks that can be used to end the canal in the middle of the table, or replace the bridge with a single large 1′ tile.
The canal still needs a little work but looks pretty good imho. I’d like to do a lot more detailing, in particular triming down some of the chains from the Chaos Tank accessory sprue and placing them around the two canal stair sets. I also want to use some of the hooks from the same sprue and detail the mooring posts a little more. In my experience terrain projects are never finished…eventually I just tire of detailing them and move on.
‘Vincent of Vega’ has posted a bunch of shots of his Warhammer Village made from Hirst Arts blocks online.
They’re all superbly constructed and great inspiration for Hirst Arts builders out there. I particularly like the way he’s used some of the curved arch pieces to construct fireplaces. He’s also mixing balsa wood and Hirst Arts blocks which is always nice to see considering my love of this wood.
I recently picked up a couple of packs of Peter Pig 15mm WWII figures from TradeMe. A pack of Germans swigging beer from bottles and a pack of Brits swigging tea from tin cups. I intend to use them to add a little spice to my Flames of War army and terrain. As I want to mix them with Battlefront figures I thought I’d compare the two.
Battlefront packaging is just as professional as Games Workshop’s with a foam packed blister on printed cardboard. Peter Pig’s is the common ‘piece of paper in a stapled baggie’ packaging that most small companies use. Packaging isn’t really that much of a concern for me since I usually order online.
However more professional packaging usually means better protection for the figures during shipping, so Battlefront win this round.
Scale is often an issue in our hobby. Games Workshop figures have an ongoing issue with scale, slowly enlarging their figures over the years and often not maintaining a good sense of scale between plastic and metal figures, even those in the same army.
Battlefront figures while technically 15mm (or 1:100th) scale seem to suffer from a little ‘scale creep’ as well. I’ve noticed while sculpting terrain that while I reduce my scale 1:100 from historical measurements, the resulting pieces can look a little small next to Battlefront’s infantry figures – see the Zeltbahn diorama below. This leads me to suspect Battlefront’s infantry aren’t quite to scale.
The photo compares a Battlefront British infantryman on the right with a Peter Pig British infantryman on the left. The Peter Pig figure is around the same height but is noticeably more ‘slight’ compared to the wider and larger limbed Battlefront figure. This is probably most noticeable when looking down on the tin helmets from above (a photo I neglected to take alas).
I believe the Peter Pig lines are probably closer to a true 15mm (1:100) scale than Battlefront’s are currently, so Peter Pig wins this round.
The figures from both manufacturers have comparable detail in their kits, weapons and uniforms. However the Battlefront sculptors seem to create a better looking face in 15mm but then their heads are larger so they’ve got more material to work with. The amount of flash and mold lines are also similar for each manufacturer which is good and suggests Peter Pig (the smaller company) certainly know what they’re doing when it comes to casting their products.
Interestingly enough the SMLE rifles for both figures are the same length (the BF figure has a bayonet) so possibly Battlefront’s figures just look larger because of their width and the thickness of their limbs.
No clear winner for detail so this round is drawn.
Here’s a little dry fitted mini ‘bivvy’ diorama that would work as an objective for a German army. The Zeltbahn tent is a custom sculpt with a Battlefront BMW and sidecar behind it. The box and seated figure is also from Battlefront. The standing and kneeling figures are both from Peter Pig. Despite the obvious difference in helmet sizes between the central and flanking figures I think the three fit together nicely as a motorcycle/sidecar team having a rest stop.
As the majority of my 15mm figures are currently Battlefront I’ll be sticking with them for my main force. However Peter Pig figures are definitely comparable in size and quality so I feel comfortable mixing the two manufacturers. I imagine more Peter Pig figures will sneak into my forces in the future, simply because they sell a number of specialist figures (mechanics etc) or figures in different non-combatative poses (drinking beer/tea etc.) that can be used around terrain pieces, objectives and to just make some interesting ‘mini’ dioramas for your larger units.
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