Hi all ; everything seems to be working , thankyou for your patience .
Some new items ; I’ve just got into the storefront ; !
US ARMY AEROSCOUT PLATOON ; The ‘Blues ; ‘when the blues go out they carry more firepower than God ‘fhree five-man recon squads with M60 , plus a Platoon HQ and Medic with casualty markers..
US ARMY HEAVY WEAPONS PLATOON ; Additional useful heavy weapons for your LZ or firebase perimeter . 2x 106mm Recoilless rifle teams ; 2x M2 .50cal HMG teams and a lone 81mm Mortar and three man crew .
ARVN RIFLE SQUAD ; 10x ARVN Riflemen , a Medic and casualty marker .
ARVN MORTAR PLATOON ; 1x 60mm Mortar and 2-man crew , 2x 81mm Mortars with 3 man motley crew .
ANZ HEAVY WEAPONS PLATOON ; Additional useful heavy weapons for your ANZ LZ or firebase perimeter . 2x 106mm Recoilless rifle teams ; 2x M2 .50cal HMG teams and a lone 81mm Mortar and three man crew .
NVA HEAVY WEAPONS PLATOON ; This is a pack originally intended to be a Heavy weapons platoon for a Sapper attack !! . A 60mm Mortar and two crew for your light bombardment and signalling / illumination tasks. 2x extra-stealthy 57mm Recoilless Rifle teams with three crew and a 12.7mm AAMG with crew , plus small security and ammo porterage teams
Happy to see these projects off the shelf and on the shelves ! Hahaha
I’ve just had a few weeks off for travel and meeting (and hosting ) friends. I’m now back in the saddle here in the packing shed at Flashpoint Miniatures and ready to be firing up the forges . Thankyou for your patience , Thankyou for your best wishes and enquiry . All very good .
I’ve been busy behind the scenes responding to a raft of great suggestions from favourite 15mm Vietnam wargamers to expand our offerings a bit further based on gaming experience. I’ve added four new packs of figures and a new terrain item and extended or modified another six packs of figures , and two terrain bundles . I have five new platoon packs (24 + pieces) of figures I need to add to the catalogue , plus add another three squad packs (of 10-12 pieces). Thankyou for the excellent suggestions and discussion to help this take place . I have learned a lot I didn’t know .
The MACV-SOG RECON TEAM and HATCHETT FORCE PLATOON packs are further explored and expanded . I am now offering on MACV-SOG Hatchett Platoon with ENEMY WEAPONS AND UNIFORMS, along with a machine-gun Heavy HATCHETT FORCE PLATOON intended for raiding targets of opportunity or acting as a rescue force . I want to add some heavy weapons teams (60mm Mortar , 75mm Recoilless rifle and additional machineguns ) for players planning an trail interdiction battle.
Facing them will be an expanded platoon pack of NVA COUNTER-RECON PLATOON (26 pieces) protecting a evised and expanded NVA REAR SERVICES TROOPS (now 24 pieces ) and a to being reinforced by further NVA RIFLE PLATOONS the battle to prevent the Recon Teams from escaping . Add to this the two “VC / NVA REAR / FORWARD BASE CAMP Terrain Bundles , and I hope you have everything you need for some fearsome battles “ across the fence “. The NVA HQ PLATOON , has also gained a 61mm Mortar team , improving its indirect firepower but also signalling ability to deploy flares .
I’ll have some photos up soon .
In what I see as a long wanted revision of the US ARMY and USMC HQ Packs , I’ve added a US version of what has been popular with the ANZ range . Two new packs ; US Army Engineers and USMC Engineers ; both working to the same formulae of a Platoon Command element , a pair of minesweeper elements , a pair of demolitions /firing point elements and markers and a pair of tracker dog elements , also two additional super-handy ‘rope pullers’ who make an excellent ‘demining’ piece (or have proven useful to indicate a “temporary ‘rope bridge” for a river crossing game) plus a machinegun team for security . These Engineer Teams will give your troops the abilities to track , detect and destroy the enemy infrastructure. Particularly intended for games where finding / destroying caches is the task , also useful for ‘route clearance’ tasks . *Accordingly each of the US ARMY and USMC HQ Packs will be reduced to a single minesweeper/demolition team/tracker dog team.
The new Terrain item is CIDG/PF STRATEGIC HAMLET FORTIFICATION PALISADE WALLS a dozen palisade walls these are intended to augment the CIDG /PF STRATEGIC HAMLET FORTIFICATIONS Terrain Bundle . Simple tabletop experience has shown how useful these are in providing deliberate tabletop obstacles and cover.
So ! .. a lot is new ! …. I’ll aim to have some photos to show soonest .
The first ‘coming soon’ ; NVA WEAPONS PLATOON is intended to expand the hands-on heavy weapons available by providing a ; 61mm Mortar Team, a pair of 57mm Recoilless Rifle teams and a 12.7mm AAMG team. .. This will be a ‘weapons platoon’ source for the NVA SAPPER COMPANY which was originally intended to have a heavy-weapons component . The Weapons Platoon will be immediately useful to any Company level NVA Infantry Unit .
The final ‘coming soon’ “BLUES PLATOON” subject is organised as based on the experiences of the oral history of Kregg Jorgensen in his book “Acceptable Loss” . I am looking forward to this .
Back in the saddle , getting stuff done , good stuff here and good stuff coming.
I am closing the shop for a few weeks as I am coming up to a busy period of travelling and receiving a few visitors I’d like to be able to look after . I am just finishing up on current orders I have already to date, and I plan to be away from next week.
Thankyou for your engagement , support and custom over the last few months , It has been very busy .
I have been producing and packing my little heart out over the previous few months. I’ve found a new metal supplier I am very happy with (after the previous one closed down) , and have been enjoying producing the metal figures, seemingly finding some of the best, crispest, castings and efficiency I have ever achieved since I took this on more than 10 years ago. I also have a waiting list of new moulds for reconditioning for some of the most favourite / popular urethane terrain pieces and some new terrain pieces and vehicles / boats on the horizon.
Likewise a much promised overhaul of the HQ packs is imminent with the appearance of some ‘specialist squad ’ packs for engineers / interpreters / medics and “personalities” on the way also.
I’ve had a lot of interest in the US Cavalry Platoon (ie ; ACAV Platoon figures) and have been shipping these out just as fast as I can produce them. Thankyou for the feedback you have offered on what is most needed by your tabletop forces or games rules.
I hope you are well and happy and productive while I’m away . I’ll let you know here or directly when I get back on deck in a few weeks from now .
My last few weeks over Christmas and New Year have been punctuated with the usual Australian Summer countryside festivities ; shopping expeditions (primarily for seafood) , visits to and from nearby relatives , torrential rain and local flooding with some roads cut , eating and drinking too much , helping local neighbors flooded out or flooded in , some family interstate travel to less-nearby relatives (who by coincidence has just recovered from their cyclonic rain and local flooding), more eating and drinking, an overly friendly giant python , and a paralysis tick.
.. At least my snake problems solved my mouse and rat problem. Summertime in Australia !
I’m now just back to the packing room and factory floor and have to first catch up on some already waiting orders. So, I’m back on deck from now, subject to seasonal disasters and support demands of my teenage daughters (one of which is about to move away interstate to begin University in about a fortnight).
Never fear ! I have about half of the already waiting orders nearly ready to post , I have to do a pile of urethane casting of fortification pieces in the space where I have some tarps and tents strung up drying (/dried) but other than this I’m ready to go . I even have a new fan and a set of speakers for the packing shed. Great days ahead !
I hope you are looking forward to 2024 . See you soon .
Again ; if you haven’t found this community ; here is one of the best known Vietnam wargaming forums , with some of the best known old salts of the genre . Do yourself a favor and seek out https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/
Also ; find us on one of the many Facebook pages ; https://www.facebook.com/groups/FieldsofFireRedux
Greetings all ! It looks like the year has flown past already ! I hope this finds you healthy happy and productive.
In these days of the “screaming 2020’s” decade every month upright is an achievement ! Every meal a banquet . etm .
We will be taking a break over the Christmas New Year period , and I need to do a little bit of local travel and host visitors in the next few weeks , so orders arriving after about now (24th November ) might take longer than usual to process. Thankyou for your patience .
We’ve been flat out the busiest of all time in the second half of this year. Thankyou for another year of excellent engagement and support of us here at Flashpoint Miniatures . I’m happiest with the MACV-SOG and MIKE forces rethinks we did this year .
For all the Thankyou’s we’ve had ; You’re welcome ! .. Thankyou for sharing our enjoyment of what we do and how we do it, and I’ve learned from and been inspired by the amazing spectrum of people I have met and shared with here . Please keep it coming !
… I’ve got more coming from here ! , including a few secret projects .
I’ve just been away from FPM for a few weeks but am now happily back to the packing shed !
By way of brief explanation ; in my primary profession, I am a Physical Therapist (or “Physio” in our Australian dialect ) who since 1999 has had keen interest (and hands-on clinical practice and consultancy ) in the field of children with Autism and other related Neuro-Developmental disabilities.
I’ve just been involved in a ‘once-every-five-years’ academic project to update the national ‘diagnostic guidelines’ that determine how (and by whom) Autism is diagnosed, and what happens afterwards , including access to funding for families who need it. This has been a collaborative project where I have been academic-ing well above my ‘pay grade’, so I’ve had to focus diligently on all the reading and writing I need to do to keep up and make a worthwhile contribution to this . My immediate role here is done , I’ve been honoured to even be invited onto the team to walk with (behind) the giants, and our submission is now in the hands of the serious career Medical academics, lawyers and bean counters .
So… back to something more fun than reading medical journals and writing into the late night.
I already have a few orders waiting ; including some sizeable ones that have been waiting for a few weeks already , but I am back in the saddle here at Flashpoint Miniatures and I’ll get these waiting orders moving. Thanks for your patience and comradely-good-fellowship so far. I am looking forward to the work I have ahead.
I am closing the shop for a few weeks as I am coming up to a busy period of travelling and receiving a few visitors I’d like to be able to look after . I am just finishing up on current orders I have already to date, and I plan to be away from next week.
Thankyou for your support and custom over the last few months , It has been very busy . I have also solved the website back end problems that have been haunting the shop sales-comms between Paypal , customer and Flashpoint . Hooray ! .. this had been reported by a few customers in the last weeks , but all good now.
I hope you are well and happy and productive while I’m away . I’ll let you know here or directly when I get back on deck in a few weeks from now .
Just a short G’day to let you know that I’m overtly back in the packing shed and working away . I’ve just now caught up on a swathe of orders that had arrived while I was away (in January) and I’m up to orders from the end of last week. All good so far. A running start to 2023 !
There have already been a pair of large-ish ‘club’ orders come through, so it’s good to see some interesting big group projects underway out there . This should be a good year for 15mm Vietnam tabletop wargaming .
I hope your 2023 has been good so far , and only gets better .
Hi all , Happiest Merry Politically Correctest Christmas, New Year and holiday season wherever you are !
We have made it through another year of the 2020’s …
Here is hoping that the holiday season (or at least the blizzard season up north , or the monsoon season down south ) affords you a few extra painting or gaming days this season.
All orders are away enroute and I am closing the shop for a few days from here over the Christmas and New Year period . I’ll let you know when I am back and processing orders .
Thankyou for another most excellent year of Flashpoint Miniatures . Next Year we are coming up to ten years since we got started at Flashpoint miniatures so I am looking forward to doing something special.
Hi all , I hope you are well and in a happy place .
I’ve been busy as ever recently with some bigger projects and thus have had a few items like US Army Rifle , HQ and Mortar Platoons listed as out of stock for a short bit ; but they are back ! ..they always were really , but there was a short while where I was manufacturing just to get orders completed .
It has been an interesting and rewarding task for me to ‘custom’ a number of rifle platoons ; particularly the US Army rifle platoons as I have a good selection of figures that when required to lay out “ x18 US Army riflemen” I have twelve sculpts (in helmets) to choose from ; add to this M79 grenadiers , LAWs rockets , M60 gunners , leaders, RTO , medics etc . … and each time I see the Platoon come together .
I’ve had a longstanding goal of being able to offer the US Army Rifle and HQ platoons in “early war” (with M14s predominately) , “Mid war” (essentially what I’m presenting now as a standard packing) , and “late war” (more bush hats and bareheaded figures). I have done this as custom-packing jobs already, (including a two Rifle Company and HQ “early 173rd Airborne” force) , but not really listed these as a regular item because I am flat out as it is with what I am offering already. … but I can do (and enjoy doing ) special packings especially for big orders.
I have recently added a US Army ‘Cavalry Platoon’ as a specialist US Army platoon which is conceptualized to crew a four ACAV-M113 Scout Platoon. This essentially has two components ; the ‘crew’ figures (; M60 gunners , Vehicle commanders and drivers ) and the ‘dismounted’ figures which first prompted the pack. I am looking to divide this pack into these two parts to make them more accessible, intentionally particularly useful for the players who are 3D printing vehicles
I intend to add a US Army ‘Air-Cavalry “Blues” Platoon’ ; of a planned total of about 20 figures (Including casualty figures) ; this has been another longstanding project I want to complete with Flashpoint figures. These will be ‘planned’ / modelled from the book “Unacceptable Loss” which fielded 18-man ‘Scout’ Platoons which were essentially three five man recon patrols (with a M60 each) and a three man Platoon HQ of a Platoon Commander with RTO and Medic .
What I have been mucking around with recently has been the MACV-SOG ‘patrols’ that I had originally planned out as a ; ‘Recon teams / Rescue teams’ pack . ..but after a little bit of outside advice , have now got a few different versions of MACV-SOG patrols planned , an ‘orthodox’ version (with US weapons) an ‘Enemy equipment + uniforms’ version , and a new packing of “Hatchett force Platoon” as a “exploitation” force , or you want to plan for something along the lines of Operation Tailwind. So at the current moment I have plans for two quite different looking MACV-SOG packs and a Hatchett Force Platoon pack for your deniable operational needs.
The MIKE Force Pack and MIKE Force HQ pack will be tweaked to remain a bit different still ; primarily representing the smaller stature Montagnards (with some unique figures) it will be intended to be useful along side the Montagnard CIDG Pack and “fortified Hamlet’ terrain bundle , plus the ‘Green Berets’ pack . The MIKE Force HQ will be intended to add a few heavy weapons and specialists for the bigger jobs that your MIKE Force Companies might be asked to perform, but right now it is a massive 48-figure pack , so it is listed as ‘out of stock’ temporarily to rethink it’s composition so we can make sure it will fit into the helicopter platoon that needs to carry it into battle.
At this moment I have a ‘Popular Force’ Village Patrols pack nearly finished on my painting desk . Nearly at the other end of the spectrum from the boutique special forces packs ; this has been a fundamental rethink of the ‘Ruff-Puffs’ pack. I’ve made a point of re-using some of the figures from the ‘Local Force VC’ pack to represent the ‘Government’s Part-time militia’ who along with the ‘strategic Hamlet fortifications’ terrain bundle will likely spend their tabletop career defending their village from the Commie Hordes. …I’ve actually thought of a gimmick for this pack which I might try out ; two different command groups supplied either by request or at random ; one command group ostensibly pro-Government and the other pro-Communist (the LVC got to get BARs from somewhere). I like how this idea has progressed from feedback from collectors.
I hope this is helpful for seeing the behind-the scenes machinations of what I’ve been up to apart from just manufacturing and filling orders. I have also been active with game design , writing, and trying out some new product ideas, I am using my time well and welcome the friendship , discussion and feedback that you gents keep coming . Even if I don’t know the Markings for Aussie APC Squadrons (I do now) this is exactly the questions and discussions that make this interesting.