MERCHANTS OF VENUS

Brigademodels.co.uk 50p - £4

Brigade have recently been enjoying the need for space ships afforded by the popularity of rule sets such as A Billion Suns. In consequence they have a lot of new models out! For a start they have some Merchant Freighters (hence the tortured, sub-Shakespearian title) and a handful of smaller military ships.

Dealing with the merchants first, they are (all in solid, one piece metal castings): Coreopsis Grain Transporter; Free Drogher Freighter; Trefoiler Light Tanker; Sidereal Wanderer Cargo Ferry; and a Nova Arrow Passenger Liner (I guess passengers are freight!). They are a real varied bunch with the three chambered Trefoiler being a particular favourite and vary in length from 35mm to 50mm and all are £2 each. There’s also some new rather smaller combat ships: again these are all metal castings but less than 20mm long. These are the Harrier Attack Corvette; Vigilant; Thetis; Galashewe; and Steregushchiy class scoutships. All are 50p each.

All of these ships – like Brigade’s ‘Nefs

– need mounting on a base and this has been problematic recently as the usual clear bases have all but disappeared (pun intended) due to moulding problems with the supplier. This has been fixed with a new source of slightly different, roundbased, clear bases. These are more robust than the older ones though a little more expensive at £4 for 10 and still need to be purchased separately.

As an aside Brigade also have some spiffing new 15mmm scale Desert Raider

figures in most of the usual configurations of rifles and heavier weapons, all dressed in suitable SF desert style gear (and with some chaps mounted on lizards!) but I’ve run out of space to review those so check out their website or catch them at a show!