Category: News / Events

Greetings to all ! , I hope this finds you well and happy and productive wherever you are . I hope you are well placed for 2022 ! This month is getting away from me already , Day 19 !

Thankyou for all your best wishes and correspondence over the last few weeks and months ! I am privileged to hear and share stories from all over the globe . I feel fortunate for my circumstances here in my Mountain valley relative to many other situations. Regardless of some trying circumstances , there are some great 15mm Vietnam wargaming projects getting done out there , thankyou for sharing . I have had some collectors being pretty busy in new directions. .

I’ve been slow to get what is now (in retrospect) a huge bunch of new items together . Eleven “Squad” packs , eight “Specialist Platoons” and six new “Terrain Bundles” (mostly fortifications) have been occupying the headspace and tablespace at the moment ,, for starters because they are production-ready . There is a considerable amount of new items ready to be released , and some old favourites are back . Two of the ‘pilot’ specialist Platoons (Base Defenders and US Cavalry) have been really well received over the last year, so we are encouraged we are on the right track here .

So ; all very good for now ; am moving forward , and many new things to share in a ‘sec . Let me get back to it .

Stay tuned

More to follow

Jimmi

Greeting Gents ; I hope this finds you well and happy .

Well I’ve just had about 9 weeks in some level of domestic administrative hell here ; so nearly everything I thought I would have done at this stage is still waiting . I should not have mocked Murphy’s law in the last post.  I apologise to Murphy .

? New item ? …. the Observation guntruck !

… you name it ; injuries (not mine) , no running water , CoVid lockdowns , a house electrical fire (all OK! ), large python removals , made-in-China internet hackers, some big winds, normal phone-and-internet provider problems (big winds didn’t help) , school holidays… and the return of high fire danger conditions , have all dominated my attention in the last few months.

I had to let my self-appointed security manager go !

Regardless , I’ve still managed to get stuff done and get a few special requests away .

.. so all good ; will keep moving forward .  … these obstacles are all the small stuff .

Right now I have no internet at my home or office ; so I’ve had to come into public library in our local town to post this . Accordingly I will still be a little more ‘away from the Keyboard’ until our local phone-and-internet provider extracts their firmly-wedged digit.

I have one more week of kids home on school holidays , and then I’ll be able to finish off these remaining Flashpoint reorganization projects, get back to some semblance of normalish routine and actually be able to let you know about it .

Thankyou for your comradely-good-fellowship over this time . Thanks for all the great conversations out there and continued custom, support and best wishes . .. Great to see what you are doing !

Out for now .

Jimmi

Flashpoint Delta Force and Rangers doing their best ‘smash-and-grab’ !

Hi all ! .. I hope this finds you safe and healthy wherever you are …hopefully you are also cool and dry.

Well , as the wisest sergeants say ; even the best-laid plans don’t survive first-contact.

It has been several weeks since I temporarily closed down the shop to reorganize what we do and how we do it, give the place a clean, and sort / recycle a lot of the mess and “spares” we had accumulated over the last five to eight years or so since the last overhaul. I have been doing some casting production experiments with a new metal (a lead-free pewter) of better quality than I have been using to date. I am really impressed with the results, and feel this has lifted the standards of our metal miniatures a little further. 

I have also been doing experiments with 3D printing (actually since mid-2019) to see what it can offer. I think the biggest lesson it has taught me is that robust 15mm metal wargaming figures are here to stay.  I have looked at the idea of supplying 3D printed vehicle and terrain subjects for sale ; and after doing a few “mates-rates” projects to see how this would work (including results , production time and costs) …I’m not convinced this is a viable or preferrable alternative to how we already produce the terrain and the vehicle subjects we already do. In short ; the urethane casting method we use for terrain and vehicles is cheaper, faster, less toxic, much tougher and more presentable. However …. I do have some 3D printing plans I would like to take further,  and have problem-solved a few obstacles to be able to offer some much sought-after items. More on this soon.

I had primarily planned by this moment to have totally recalibrated a majority of the metal figure stock items I have to offer. Essentially, some excellent Player feedback had asked for availability of smaller figure-packs than the Platoon sized packs we offer, plus to extend the specialist items we do. … this means planning, assembling, weighing, photographing and listing on the website each of the new items and ‘adjusted’ stock items.   

We have started at ‘standard’ rifle-squad packs (eg; US Rifle squad ) and have added a greater range of smaller specialist packs (eg. FWF Engineers ) to force-build with more game flexibility, without having to buy additional HQ packs just for some additional critical teams or rifle squads. This was particularly the intention with the US Special Forces packs (think MACV-SOG Recon “Spike Teams” relative to “Bright Light” search-and-rescue teams) where players were asking to expand their combat forces in directions I had not considered beforehand. Once I had immersed into this rabbit-hole (my happy place! )…. I really enjoyed adjusting the composition of most of our entire figure range, and am pleased (and so is initial feedback) with the results. This has added to our catalogue of metal miniatures considerably. I’ll be posting this up just as soon as I have all the data to present.

Concurrently we have a few new urethane terrain pieces (eg. vehicle emplacements and wire obstacles ) , and the return of some old favorite terrain pieces (eg. sandbagged walls), the discontinuance of a few items that I can no longer so-reliably supply (eg. Plastic trees from China) and the non-showing of a few more items (eg; mdf urban terrain pieces) that I was hoping to begin to supply.

So .. it may not look like it , but I have been a busy boy, and there is still a bit more to do before I can show it off.

So Yes ! … Flashpoint Miniatures is alive and thriving !  … I have been working effectively, but as these things unfold I have found so much more that I want to do , and have been using the time to set up Flashpoint miniatures for another five years of awesomeness in 15mm Wargaming pieces.

And if you are reading this, ..yes ! … I have two short letters to write and I will be casting up a few “walled cemetery” bundles that have been requested via email . There has been a steady stream of requests like this always in the background. Thankyou for your continued support , friendship and custom.

Otherwise, we are all good here in our mountain hideaway. The CoVid situation in Australia is increasing here again after a few months of respite, so I am inclined to be laying low right now. The ground and skies are really only just drying up now from the repeated soakings we had earlier on in the year, and I am still to complete some major drainage repair and improvements to the land where the production factory is located. Murphy’s law says that I will get the drainage ready just in time for the next fire season.  Hahahaha. 

Hope this is useful .

See you again very soon.

All the best Jimmi

Greetings Gentlemen !

I hope these times and days are finding you well , safe and happy !

I am still working on the behind-the-scenes details of re-cleaning and re-engineering some of what we do , but am not anywhere close to where I thought I would be a few weeks ago. I have been continually hampered by mother nature and brother logistics, but I am moving forward cheerfully enough. Hahaha !

I have marked everything in the Flashpoint Shop as “out of stock” while I work on new items for the range of figure packs. I will be back on deck with a bunch of new and ‘old-favorite’ items just as soon as I can. I am using this moment to make some fundamental changes to what and how we supply our ranges of Vietnam War and Ultramodern (now ‘Post-Ultramodern’ ??) metal figures , and urethane terrain-piece bundles.

Plus we have some new factory equipment and we need to get it working nicely. I am looking forward to exploring this, and it will allow for expanded possibilities on what we can offer.

We will likely not be continuing to supply the “made-in-China” trees and palm trees we used to, as this seems to have become difficult and unreliable.  I was hoping to also introduce a range of really nice MDF lasercut urban terrain pieces , but my mainland-Chinese-based supplier for this ( a lovely chap doing this a hobby side-project , but living where there has been mass-CoVid and big flooding for the best part of a year now ) seems to have gone quiet.

We will have to wait and see. I hope everything works out for the best. … It usually does.

I will let you know here and at the usual on-line hangouts for more news and details as I have it ready.

I might even get something painted ! Hahaha !  .. I hope you do too !

All the best from down under , I hope all stays well where you are .

Jimmi

Greeting 15mm Vietnam Wargaming Gentlemen ,  to 2021 . !

Happy New Year to all !  I am hoping that you are well, safe and happy (in a healthy way) at this time.

Thankyou for your well wishes and comradely good fellowship over the last few weeks and months and year or so ( going back seven or eight) . I am fortunate that I get o ‘chat’ with / to a lot of people across various countries , situations and experiences. From ordinary people across Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, England , Ireland, Scotland , USA , Canada , Spain., France , Netherlands, Germany , Poland, Czech R , Bahrain, Delhi, Singapore , Jakarta, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan , Sth Korea, Japan and Vietnam I regularly hear first-hand street-level news from (and get to ask questions) .

I hear that for the most of it my friends across the world are doing ok with respect to the challenges of health, lockdowns, job changes, finances, managing children or dependents and general clarity/sanity. There have been a few losses along the way , (…mostly to sanity hahaha! ) but overall I would like to believe we are all doing well enough to get through these challenging times in good shape. Despite the bad press. Remember to look after yourself (in a healthy way) and look in on the humans around you too . Hygiene (including mental hygiene) is important.

I am back on deck in the Flashpoint Factory and Shop after a few weeks of prioritizing digging drainage and repairing landslips after recent heavy rain and flooding where I am . The workshop has had a great clean (hahaha!)  , and I have some new items to post up in the shop. I am still responding to some mail / email from over my (waterlogged ditch-digging) holidays , there has been a bit ! …. thankyou Gents  !

Lots of great stuff to share !  I am looking forward to what positives this year has in store !

If you haven’t already found this Community please come and say hello. This the watering hole of the most experienced collective of Gentlemen Vietnam Wargamers and generally good chaps in the internet chat rooms ;  

https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/

and/ or for those surrendered to the social media platform of Facebook ,  you can find many of the old faces and some new ones too at an alternate RV here  ;

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FieldsofFireRedux

or send me an email here (which gets to me sooner than leaving a comment through the shop website )  

jimmi@flashpoint-miniatures.com

All the very best for 2021 !

See you out there .    Good gaming  !  

Jimmi

I am hoping you have a safe , healthy and Merry Christmas and New Year period in the next few weeks .

I am taking a break over the Christmas new year period so won’t be patrolling the Flashpoint Miniatures shop for a few weeks into January . You are welcome to place orders but I will not be processing them until January but I will process them in the order that they come in . …. After a busy few months , I need to be looking forward to doing another round of cleaning and restocking and renewing.

…. This time last year (December 2019) we were worried about burning down in huge Australian wildfires, since then things have only got weirder. I have heard many personal stories over the last year , enough to know that I have had it pretty easy compared to some ,… Nonetheless in every measure this has been an ‘unprecedented year’, I hope you are all doing Ok. I feel pretty fortunate to live where I do at this moment. Thankyou friends and customers who have been a big base of support and comradely good fellowship over the last year .

I have a few orders on the table still to post, but after that I’ll be cleaning and restocking , maybe some painting and hopefully getting in a few games myself .

I’d like to offer some new ‘character’ packs, squad-sized packs, plus a few terrain items from next year. I’ve had these “ready” for a little while but not had a ‘quiet time’ (understatement)  to redo the website shop to fit them in somewhere. I’ve also got a few reorganization -jobs on existing packs in result of some excellent feedback / discussions over the last year of trials. Some of you will have seen the “overstrength” HQ packs in the last few months already, as some new ideas have been trialled . The feedback has been pretty good . Hahaha!  

But most of all I am looking forward to some time off over the next few weeks to spend with my young family and we will be back soon .

All the best for the holiday season .

Jimmi

Flashpoint Miniatures  

I hope this finds you well, safe and happy.

I am back from cleaning, counting and sorting, I have restocked and have cleared the decks of waiting pre-orders and have been firing the forges up again. For all sorts of reasons (my other job is as a health professional and my other job is a landholding farmer ..both very busy right now too) … I have not completed as many behind-the-scenes-tasks as I would have liked to, but I have had a few enquiries asking if I am Ok and ; yes ! .. I am ready, reinforced and resupplied to be processing new orders.

Thankyou to our patient customers over the last few months, things (like postal services) are taking longer than they usually do. But we have been fortunate to post and freight orders away in a timely way and (so far) to account for everything heading your way. Likewise some of your bigger purchasing projects / ‘pre-orders’ have stretched me and in some cases ‘destocked’ me as soon as I’ve restocked ! hahaha! …  but I welcome seeing your projects and will accommodate your special and sometimes larger requests as I can.  

Thankyou to our old and new friends who have shared some great pics of what their lockdown projects have entailed. There has been some great work getting done. I very much enjoy how other people make their armies and terrain come to life. I learn a lot from seeing other ideas and approaches that I would not have thought of. There is a great value in sharing ideas, I hope you enjoy this too. Find the Vietnam Wargming communities through here https://www.facebook.com/groups/FieldsofFireRedux/ and here https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/

I have lots to share ! , there will be a few tweaks here and there to what we are offering in the larger platoon packs, … all good . I want to offer some ‘rifle squad packs’ to be able to buy line infantrymen in a more flexible way, and offer some heavy weapons and specialist troops in a similar way. I am also hoping to bundle up some firebase fortifications and introduce appropriate terrain bundles for VC or NVA basecamps, and more to follow.

So please, Yes !  I welcome you to say hi and see if there’s anything I can help you with. These are interesting times and a great opportunity to get some interesting wargaming projects done.

Ventilate your painting space often. Get up and walk around and talk to other humans and family members occasionally.

Keep staying well safe and happy. Remember to breathe and drink water regularly.

All the best for now

Jimmi  

Hi all ,

I hope your lockdown experience is treating you nicely , and you are maybe even getting your chosen projects done. I’ve been really busy here in the packing shed over the last two months ! .. Thankyou !

I have made some new friends and seen some interesting new projects over the last few months , and I really enjoy seeing how you are painting and deploying your Flashpoint miniatures and terrain. There are some really cool wargaming and scenery making projects out there to be shared .

We have a few “new” things we would like to get finished , so are closing the shop for a few weeks to finish what we need to , do some restocking (we hadn’t been able to keep up with, because we have been too busy packing and mailing stuff out the door) , get a bit of ‘painting’ done (you will see) , and prepare for some busy times ahead. I plan to open the shop at the start of July. I have only two orders to finish and get out the door .

I sincerely hope you are all travelling well and happy through these lifetime events retaining your physical and mental health as well as a good attitude to life the universe and everything. I am lucky to have my young family around me, I still get to do plenty of walking, and I have plenty to get done. I watch the news but don’t get too carried away by things. I think this helps.

Some good news !!

… If you are looking to connect to other avid Vietnam Wargamers an old favourite veteran wargaming website has recently risen like a Phoenix , you can visit it here ; https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/ ; be careful of the guys in Hawaiian shirts.

… If you are active on Facebook you can find the FB group here ; https://www.facebook.com/groups/FieldsofFireRedux/ ; and you can find links to the FB sites of the popular rules such as ‘NAM and ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’.

Hope to see you out there

want to say ‘Hi’ ? my best contact email is jimmi@flashpoint-miniatures.com

All the best for now

Jimmi

Flashpoint Miniatures

Hi all !

Hahaha ! .. spoke too soon !  Armageddon season is not done with us yet !

I hope this finds you well, safe and happy, and maintaining your sense of humour !

I hope you remain well, safe and happy, and maintain your best thoughts and intentions.

Luckily, we live in ‘back-country Australia, and we are now in our sixth month of existential crisis (drought, fires, floods, plague) and am getting better organized, leaner and creative as we need to evolve. There are now all sorts of movement restrictions where I am, but at this moment I am well stocked and supplied to be able to continue manufacture items, and able to freight via Australia Post easily enough. So I can still accept orders and send until this changes.

While I am here may I suggest (especially for customers from the USA) to elect to send your parcels via Express Post (if you can afford it) for the short term. My advice is because of the way that the US handles incoming mail.

Although , saying this ; I’ve just had a run of ‘Panic buying’ (hahaha!) as some of my regular customers who have emptied the shelves of some items that I will need to manufacture before they will be back ‘in stock’. If your megalomaniac lockdown plans require something that is listed as ‘out of stock’ let me know and I can make effort to get to it sooner. I will understand the importance and urgency of your plans.

What projects do you have planned for the lockdown ??

We are in our second week here in Australia and I’ve only just been able (D+8) to sit down and get some project management organized. Hahaha!  …Look forward to me doing a US Cavalry Platoon , and a NVA Sapper Company, and finishing off my ‘urban’ buildings , and a VC Base Camp complex , these are all “want to do” projects for some time now. I will look to share as I get it done.

Please feel free to say G’day and show me what you are doing.   

Otherwise , Happy painting ! Happy gaming ! enjoy your chance to ‘lock in’ and get some great projects done . Share as you go. Remember to get up and stretch and exercise (involving some deep breathing), practice to visually focus on distant objects periodically too , It does make you more productive on the painting desk and will only be beneficial to your health and mental health otherwise to establish it as a habit in the longterm .

Remember to check on your loved ones, stay connected and take care of yourselves * .

We are all in this together , separately .

If you interested to meet a nice collection of gentlemen Vietnam wargamers come and join us on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/FieldsofFireRedux/ 

All the best,

Am keen to hear what you might get up to

Jimmi 

* But not too much that you get soft and poorly motivated.

Comfort is a slow death. Pain is just weakness leaving the body. ….Hahaha!