Welcome to Hydra Miniatures!
News
First Birthday Sale and New Releases
Hydra Miniatures is pleased to celebrate its First Birthday! We would like to share the celebration with our loyal customers by having a First Birthday Sale. All items (except rulebooks and new releases) are 10%-15% off until November 28th (owner Matt Beauchamp's real 40th birthday.)
We have also added a batch of new releases. Our Gen Con pre-release figures (Comet the chimp, Warbot Destroyer, and Heavy Support Legionnaire) are finally seeing general release. We have also added two new items. The first are the Minibots--child-sized worker robots that can be used in swarm attacks. Our second figure, Blocko the Squarebot, was created to commemorate out First Birthday. This figure is modelled after classic motorized robots and is the first in our Special Edition range.
In addition, all of our new releases will be available at Fall-In 2008 from Recreational Conflict. For our European customers, German retailer Miniaturicum will be carrying all of our products (including the new releases) at Crisis 2008 in Antwerp, Belgium.
Playtest Status and More War Rocket Previews
Hydra Miniatures would like to thank everyone for applying to be official playtesters for War Rocket. The War Rocket development team only expected a maximum of 12-18 applications and were stunned to get a whopping 63 applicants! The caliber of the playtesters is very high and the decision making process will take a little longer than anticipated. We hope to notify everyone about our selections by the middle of next week.
Also we have two work in progress photos of new War Rocket ships. The first ship is a class 2 patrol ship from the Imperial fleet of Marduk the Tyrant. This ship is designed by master 3D sculptor Phil Beauchamp and this three-piece white metal casting will be approximately 2.5 inches (60mm) long.
Our second preview is from the Zenithians--the Saucer Men from the Eight Dimension! This small class 1 attack saucer was designed by our talented new digital sculptor Stephen Meli. This Zenithian saucer will be a one-piece casting approximately 1 inch (25mm) in diameter.
Stay tuned for more War Rocket news!
Playtesters Needed for War Rocket
Attention Space Cadets!
Hydra Miniatures needs a handful of dedicated playtesters for its upcoming pulp sci-fi spaceship combat game War Rocket. These speedy game rules do not attempt to simulate space combat using the laws of physics. Instead, War Rocket uses the laws of action adventure to provide a fun and fast-paced game experience.
You can play a game of War Rocket with fleets of 10-15 ships in less than 90 minutes with minimal use of tokens and absolutely no paper record keeping! The game emphasizes speed and maneuverability over firepower and encourages the types of space dogfights that are the mainstay of pulp sci-fi stories and serials.
The War Rocket rules contain a number of scenarios with specific objects to encourage tactical decision making and narrative campaigns. The advanced section of the War Rocket rules includes ship customization options like force-fields, lucky pilots, and disruptor beams. Space phenomenon like asteroid fields, planetoids, and quantum vortexes as well as a bestiary of space creatures add extra depth to your War Rocket games.
We require playtesters to play 3 or more games with their wargaming group and report the results to the War Rocket development team. Playtesters will receive playtest credit in the final printed rulebook and will earn credit towards free War Rocket miniatures.
If you are interested in being a playtester, please write a paragraph describing your previous gaming experiences and explain why you think you should chosen as an official playtester. E-mail your paragraph to hydraminiatures@yahoo.com with the phrase “War Rocket playtest” in the subject line. Playtest applications will be accepted until Monday, September 29, 2008 and the lucky playtesters will be notified by e-mail shortly thereafter.
Workbench Previews
Sculptor Matt Beauchamp has been busy sculpting new products for Hydra Miniatures' upcoming October 2008 release and we are posting some photos to wet your appetite. Also, you can see some early WIPs of our 2009 releases as we focus more attention on the development of our Primal Dawn prehistoric fantasy rules and ranges. Read the complete story and see more images here on our blog
New Miniatures at Gen Con Indy
Hydra Miniatures is very excited to introduce three new pre-release miniatures at Gen Con Indianapolis from August 14th-17th. Our entire product range will be sold by our good friends Dark Platypus Studios --booth #2553 in the Exhibitor Hall. These pre-release figures will be available in very limited quantities at Gen Con and should be officially released in late September or early October 2008:
Comet, Galacteer chimp sidekick ($3.50)
Destroyer Warbot with double pulse cannons ($15.50)
Heavy support Legionnaire with pulse cannon ($6.75)
In addition to these previewed miniatures, our next release will hopefully include Dr. Deiter Zahn (Galacteer Science Officer), Simon-6 (Galacteer robot) and the minibots (Robot Legion.)
Enjoy the Con!
Saurian Idol Returns!
Good News!
The new and improved Saurian Idol has returned to the Hydra Miniatures online store. In addition, our Thrilling Expedition bundles that contain the Saurian Idol have also been reintroduced. In order to achieve high-quality castings, we outsourced our resin casting operations. The new castings are amazing--absolutely perfect with no bubbles or seams. Seriously, these are the cleanest castings we've ever seen! However, these high-quality castings cost Hydra Miniatures more to produce so we have raised the price on our Saurian Idol castings to $6.00 each.
Make the Saurian God happy--buy a Saurian Idol today!
War Rocket Update
We have really high standards of quality at Hydra Miniatures and we've had some technical difficulties getting clean castings of the rockets. We've resolved the problems and development is picking up steam. Our summer 2008 release date was a little overambitious and the project will take a little longer to "do it right."
In the meantime, here's a link to a posting on our blog where you can read more and see photos of some WIP models at hydraminiatures.wordpress.com
Thanks for your interest. We promise that this game and miniatures will be "top notch!"
Origins Game Fair and Vacation Notice
We are pleased to announce that our products will be available for sale at the 2008 Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio from June 25-29th. You can purchase our products from Dark Platypus Studios at Booth #70. Also, don't forget to check out their Bendy Dungeon Walls which are nominated for an Origins award this year!
Also, we will be taking a much needed two week family vacation from Saturday, June 28th to July 12th. I'll be checking e-mail regularly, but any orders placed during this time will be processed once we return. If you need our products more quickly, try ordering from Recreational Conflict, Michigan Toy Soldier, or Miniaturicum (in Germany.)
During our break, I hope to have some sculpting time to finish some sculpts of new robots, new Vardu, some Rog dinosaur men and new Galacteers.
Finally....New Releases for June
After numerous delays, we are very pleased to unveil our latest releases:
Primal Dawn: 30mm Prehistoric Fantasy
| Kithix Hunter (large, clawed insect creature) | $13.50 |
| Kithix Hunter Unit (3 Kithix hunter models) | $36.00 |
Retro Raygun: 30mm Pulp Sci-fi
In addition, we are extremely pleased to announce that Miniaturicum has been named our official convention representative in Germany. Our products have proven to be extremely popular with German gamers and we are confident that Miniaturicum's proprietor Michael Funk will help to attract new Hydra fans by promoting our products at German gaming conventions. Our previous releases are currently available on the Miniaturicum online store, and new releases should be available for German customers in 2 weeks. Visit the Miniaturicum website at http://www.miniaturicum.de/
Finally, work is slowly progressing on development of War Rocket. The initial digital prints resulted in castings that were very low quality. These technical issues have been resolved and the latest figures exceeded our high standards of quality. We hope the next few spaceship designs will be completed more quickly. We will release some preview photos in a few weeks.
Enjoy the new releases!
New 'Lost World' Products for March
We have a very small catalog update this month. First, we have added the new supplement Thrilling Expeditions from Rattrap Productions. This exciting rulebook is packed wtih info for Lost World gaming and can be used with all three of their game systems--.45 Adventures, Gloire, and Fantastic Worlds.
We are also introducing the first item in our new range of resin scenics. Our first product is a Saurian Idol and depicts a carved stone statue of a reptilian god with human skulls piled on its altar--perfect for those Lost World scenarios.
In addition, check out our two new Thrilling Expeditions special offer bundles. For a limited time you can save up to 15% when you purchase the Thrilling Expeditions rulebook, Saurian Idol, and Ugg spearmen together. The deals can be found on our Rulebooks section of the store
Finally, we are putting the finishing touches on a large batch of figures for our Retro Raygun and Primal Dawn ranges. Expect a big release in mid-April.
War Rocket--New Game Planned for Summer 2008
Our 32mm pulp sci-fi figures have proven wildly popular and we are currently working on more pulp sci-fi goodies. In addition, we are extremely excited to announce our upcoming product War Rocket-- the game of pulp sci-fi space combat. The rules are being designed by master painter Dave Pauwels and will focus on the smaller spaceship missions that are the mainstay of pulp sci-fi comics such as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, or Dan Dare. War Rocket is designed to be a fun and fast, mission-centered game in which each player controls no more than a dozen sparking, buzzing rocketships.
The miniatures are being created by veteran 3D designer Phil Beauchamp and the masters are being output using a 3D printer. Metal castings are made from these resin masters and the detail on these models is incredible. The scale of the rockets is approximately 1:285 (6mm) and most spaceships will be 1 to 3 inches long. However, we'll be designing larger battleships that will be 4-5 inches long.
Currently there are four factions in development: Galacteers (Galactic Space Patrol), Imperial Forces of Marduk the Tyrant, Zenithian saucer-men, and Space Pirates/Marauders. The two ships in the illustration above are from the Galacteer faction.
Stay tuned for more War Rocket information!!!
Hydra Miniatures Announces Convention Representative
Hydra Miniatures is pleased to announce that Recreational Conflict is now our official convention representative and will be selling our products at major U.S. gaming conventions, including Fall-In, which is held in Gettysburg , Pennsylvannia, from November 9-11, 2007 . Convention gamers will now be able to see our extremely popular 30mm Retro Raygun and Primal Dawn ranges in the “flesh” before they buy.
Recreational Conflict is a relatively new company that specializes in products from many small and upcoming game companies. Their goal is to expose gamers to many interesting products from the “little guys” in our hobby. In addition to being the official U.S. convention representative for Hydra Miniatures, Recreational Conflict also represents Tiger Miniatures, Rebel Minis, and The Virtual Armchair General. Recreational Conflict also carries a large stock of painted figures, handmade terrain, and loads of collectible miniature game singles. Visit their growing website at http://www.recreationalconflict.com. Recreational Conflict will be attending Fall-In 2007 at booth 42, which is next to Crusader Miniatures USA and across the aisle from Dayton Painting Consortium.
Pre-order Fantastic Worlds with Limited Edition Figure
We are pleased to announce that we are taking pre-orders for the Fantastic Worlds pulp sci-fi rules from Rattrap Productions. Everyone who purchases a copy of the Fantastic Worlds rules will receive a free limited ediiton miniature of Buster Gordy, savior of the universe (shown below.)
The miniature is a collaborative project from sculptors Matt Beauchamp and Scott Francek. A few details still need to be finished before the miniature can sent to the caster. Pre-orders will begin shipping during the first week of November 2007.
Fantastic Worlds and the very popular .45 Adventure series of pulp rulebooks from Rattrap Productions can be purchased from our online store here.