Space Marine Stalker

Space Marine Stalker
This is a photograph of the forthcoming new Space Marine Stalker model, well it is alleged that it is and the rumourmill seems to confirm it. The Hunter model comes with a single barrel, whereas the Stalker has three. It is an anti aircraft tank for the Space Marines.

Presented here as a news item.

Update: this is the Stalker model.

Update 2: changed image to an improved  one

So the next Doctor is…

Peter Capaldi is Doctor Who

Well the secret is a secret no more, the twelfth Doctor will be played by 55 year old Peter Capaldi, who is quite well known as an actor.

He replaces Matt Smith, who at 26 was one of the youngest actors to play Doctor Who, and Peter is the same age that William Hartnell was when he started to play the role of the Doctor. Peter will replace Matt in the Christmas special, and there is no news if Jenna Coleman will continue as the Doctor’s companion.

It will be interesting to see how an older actor will interpret the role.

Doctor Who: The Ripple Effect

As part of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, there are going to be eleven short novels from famous authors covering (as you might have guessed) all eleven Doctors.

Doctor Who: The Ripple Effect

The seventh book features the Seventh Doctor, along with Ace and the Daleks!

When the TARDIS lands on Skaro, the Seventh Doctor and Ace are shocked to discover the planet has become the universal centre of learning, populated by a race of peace-loving Daleks. Ever suspicious of his archenemies’ motives, the Doctor learns of a threat that could literally tear the universe apart…

It certainly sounds like an interesting story and I am looking forward to reading it.

Get The Ripple Effect at Amazon.

Get the Ripple Effect at Apple Books.

I was less impressed with the Sixth Doctor story and didn’t enjoy that short novel compared to others in the series. This one with the Seventh Doctor and Ace I have quite high expectations about.

Daleks to Return in the 50th Anniversary Special

As is quite fitting the Daleks will be in the 50th Anniversary Special of Doctor Who, with the 10th and 11th Doctors, alongside the mysterious John Hurt Doctor.

The Daleks are the second monster to be announced for the 50th and will join the shape shifting Zygons, which have only appeared in the show once before in 1975. The Daleks were one of the first monsters to terrify audiences in 1963, 50 years ago, cementing their place in British popular culture.

Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer, said:

“The Doctor once said that you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies, so it’s fitting that for this very special episode, he should be facing the greatest enemies of all.”

I am pleased to see that they have abandoned the plastic Disco Daleks and have returned to the classic style, well updated classic style.

15mm Plastic Cromwell Tanks

15mm Plastic Cromwell Tanks

The Plastic Solider Company have announced their release of a set of 15mm scale Cromwell tanks.

15mm Cromwell kit – 5 models for £18.95. Each sprue gives an option to build a 95mm howitzer close support variant and has a British commander figure and a Cullen hedgecutter.

Really quite like the idea of these models and they are very cost effective  too.

And so it begins…

As was rumoured and eagerly anticipated, Games Workshop have announced (for pre-order) their new Apocalypse rules for Warhammer 40K.

Apocalypse

Apocalypse is a new way of playing games of Warhammer 40,000. Allowing you to field as many miniatures as you like, in any combination. There really are no limits to what you can do.

There are some new models and re-releases of older models (complete with corresponding price increase of course).

For Chaos there is the huge Khorne Lord of Skulls, which looks ridiculous, unless of course you are a Chaos player and like the bizarre and the weird.
For Necron there is the Tesseract Vault or Obelisk, which I do think is a really interesting and different concept. It’s not a tank or a flyer in the tradition sense, it’s something different.

For the Imperial Guard we have the BaneBlade, though I do think we’ve seen that before… 😉

In addition there are some scenery packs. Though I am not sure if these are new releases or re-releases.

Update yes there is new scenery.

As you might expect, slightly disappointed that there are no releases for the Orks, but you never know what might happen next month…

Venturing into the Far East

You may have noticed in Wargames Illustrated and the most recent update to the Flames of War website that Battlefront are venturing into the Far East for Flames of War. In July we will see the release of Japanese tanks.

A bit like I thought about Vietnam I am not sure that this is an era that I would get into. I have always seen Flames of War very much as a tank versus tank game with infantry in support. 15mm scale is ideal for this kind of game. With theaters of action where the main fighting was infantry versus infantry, I have always preferred 28mm (or back in the olden days 20mm). The big difference, was less the scale, much more the models would be individually based.

Both Vietnam, the Pacific theatre and the fighting in China, tanks had their place, but the vast majority of the fighting was done on the ground by the poor infantryman.

What is also interesting is that the initial focus of the release will be the fighting in Manchuria. So if you thought there were going to be Marines, this won’t be happening in the initial releases.

What are your thoughts? Are you going to get the new Japanese tanks?

World War Z

A three minute clip of World War Z has been released.

Despite the poor reviews and perceptions of this film, I might go and see it, well, wait until it comes out on DVD.

The book is very different to what I have seen of the film,  so you might want to get a copy of  World War Z and have a read.

See some photographs from Glasgow where they filmed the above scene.