Friday 25 October 2013

MJ Figures - 15mm Falklands Range

A Very nice box full of MJ figures arrived quite promptly on my Door step, well they would have if I was in, So off down the Main sorting office I went and collected my goody box of figures.

My initial thoughts were "WOW! what nice figures" and my thoughts are still "WOW! what nice figures".

Initial Order. The Helicopter is from Corgi.
I ordered almost every thing; Even the penguins. The only packs I did not order was the Gurkha's and the Panhard armoured car. Within my box contained a free pack of Gurkha's, so that was a very nice surprise, and I suspect it was a cunning plan to get me to purchase more...Well...Damn and Blast it will work and I plan to buy more of the figures next month.

So my Initial order contained the following:

2x FALK01 British Parachute.
2x FALK02 British Parachute.
2x FALK03 British Parachute.
3x FALK04 British Marines.
1x FALK05 British Gurkha. (freebie..Yay)
1x FALK07 Foxholes.
1x FALK08 Argentine Infantry for Foxholes.
1x FALK10 Rapier.
2x FALK11 105mm Gun. (Argentine)
2x FALK12 Scorpion, Scimitar Tank.
6x FALK14 Argentine Infantry.
1x FALK15 Penguins.
2x FALK16 British Casualties.


Some of the packs, with quite nice header cards.
I first saw these figures in the late 1990's and was interested in them back then, but they dropped off my radar for quite a while. I do like these figures a lot, although they do seem to be chunkier them most 15mm.

As I say I do like these figures (I seem to repeat my self here a lot) but some of the figures are in strange poses. Several appear to have a back pack on with no detail that I am yet able to to identify and several are in funny poses.
FALK04 British Marines has been dropped from the product lists at the time of writing this, So I will have to wait to see if they re-appear before I can expand the Marines further. I do hope that they are just out of stock.
The figures in the main are very good casts with little if any flash. The down side is that a lot of the barrel ends are missing.

The Argentine figures are all very good, except for the guy who has a weird machine gun and I am not too sure why there is a second bazooka being carried in an nonchalant way which does not look like a Bazooka, This figure is going to be modified by mug-gins here.

I do like the range of figures but I do feel that the range needs revamping and expanding. Each pack comes with a variety of poses and with some different weapon choices.

The infantry packs are not consistent enough and you will have to buy extra to make up sections and platoons, leaving odd figures left over.

FALK01


FALK02

FALK03 and FALK04

Each pack contains a mix of infantry and command figures.  I feel that a revamp of the contents is needed. Putting the Radio operators, Officers and Snipers into one pack as a command pack would work nicely, along with making sure that the Infantry packs each have a machine gunner (I went back and relooked at the packs and in the main every pack does have a GPMG gunner). That way you know exactly what to order.
The Argentines have two Bazookas and what looks like a top magazine fed Machine gun ????. This needs rectifying and again maybe a FN Mag figure would be better suited or the heavy barrel Fal.
The Gurkha's are nice and I may order some more, but they do have an oddly posed figure with something strange in his hands.

This range seriously needs to be expanded with LMG (aka Bren gun), sustained fire modes of the GPMG and FN Mag, .50 cals for both sides, 2" mortar teams, Carl Gustav Teams, Blow pipe teams for both sides, recoilless guns Milan's and 81mm and 105 mm Mortars along with a BV202. and some of the light AA guns for the Argentines. I have had an email form MJ and he has plans to do a BV202 at some point, which I will be buying a few off for sentimental reasons...
Authors own BV 202 MK2E on the day it went to a museum.


All this said it will not prevent me purchasing more of the range, I love these figures despite some shortcomings.

And finally back to that dodgy posed figure... If you can tell me what he has in his hands, It really help.

And the WTF pose is that award goes to.
Oh, the other downside was that my CVR(T)'s only had the scimitar barrel and the Scorpion 90 barrel, to which I will be unable to make up scorpions, but it is no real biggie, and I suspect an email will sort that out.
Hopefully I will have these painted up in a few weeks time, so look out for some Battle reports in the future.

Jon



Thursday 24 October 2013

Retro gaming night - Space Hulk

More retro gaming this time with Space Hulk.

A couple of games later and my friend decided it was not for him :( as it was too tactical.
First game I was the Genestealers. Second game I was the Marines.

Mission was to flame the room Top Right of picture.
 Scott takes the first go as the Marines and slowly advances keeping most of his Marines on over watch. He manages to keep pulling the high command point counters.
Marines Looking good.
 The back marker is on over watch to protect from a few Genestealers lurking behind the Marines. The Marine Sergeant is on lone over watch down the  second corridor and had already fought off several Genestealers in hand to hand fighting. The flamer armed Marine is escorted by two Marines who were on over watch. The board was looking good with only 1 blip and 3 Genestealers in the vicinity; easy pickings for the Marines...
Ermmm.... Where did every one go?
 Well that was a shock for Scott, After the Sergeant again fought off another Genestealer, it looked like it would be a case of just mopping up, but the Genestealers luck was about to turn and 3 Marines fell in quick succession....
"20 metres, 10 metres, 5 metres...They are coming out of the walls"
 The Sergeant was about to become Genestealer fodder as Six Genestealers appeared next to him. The Lone Flamer armed Marine hears the bursts of Storm Bolter fire abruptly stop, and all he could hear in his ears was the crackling of a silent coms relay...  What was that scratching noise coming from down the corridor.... Mission Failed....

Next it was my turn and I played a blinder. Although I lost most of my Marines in quick succession, I had managed to get my Flamer near the target room, but had not enough command points to finish the job. With my last marine facing down 3 Genestealers to the front of him and two behind he need to make this count. With 4 action points and 1 command points he needed to kill the Genestealer in the lead...
1st Shot... Missed
2nd Shot... Missed
3rd Shot... Hit
4th Shot...Miss
5th Shot... Hit
With the last shot he knew he was doomed but the mission would be completed as none of the Genestealers would be able to reach, let alone stop the last Marine from flaming the room.
Hurry up and flame that room dude. I am in deep doo da!!!
Game on...

Saturday 19 October 2013

OH Dear!

What have I just done, I just went on MJ figures web site and raided their 15mm Falklands range....OH DEAR!