"Incoming!"

The goodies from 15mm.co.uk arrived yesterday, a day ahead of schedule.  It's been a long wait, but I was able to finish the projects on my painting table, as of last night, so waiting served a purpose.  (As soon as the weather warms up a trifle I'll give them a clearcoat and take some pics.  Not sure where I'll post them, as everything I was working on was premanufactured scenery.  They had been sitting in the closet for far too long, and in one of my usual bouncing-between-subjects moods, I swept them all up and painted them.  But as they're not really sci-fi related I don't know where I'll post them.  Prolly at my other blog.  I'll let you know.)

Anyway, I tore into the box containing the ASQL rulebook and figures.  Here's a photo of the contents.  You can click it to see it larger; 15mm figures are pretty hard to get good images of.

Here's the Human Imperial Army [ASL05]:

It looks like there are:

16 Imperial Troopers (Bolt Gun) [Laserburn #300]

2 Imperial Officers [Laserburn #304]

2 Senior Imperial Officers [Laserburn #305] 

5 Imperial Trooper (Rapid Fire Bolt Gun) [Laserburn #308]

6 Assault Droids [Laserburn #311]

1 Military APC Glaive-Tracked Variant [Laserburn #V008t]

1 Robo-Turret - Heavy Laser for Glaive [Laserburn #RT01]

33 total miniatures including a vehicle.

This cost £13.00.

In the other bag are The Greys [ASL10]:

1 Grey Alien Command [HOF47], 5 figures which includes:

     Commander pointing

     General with large headset and cape

     Grey with Pysker Amplification gear

     x2 Grey with distance viewing device

1 Grey Alien Science Team [HOF48], 10 figs which includes:

     x2 Grey with heavy cases and slung weapon

     x3 Grey with capture claw probe

     x2 Grey with Atomic counter gear

     x3 Grey with info pad in hand

1 Grey Alien Soldiers [HOF49], 5 figures which includes:

     x4 Greys in simple combat suits with energy rifles

     Grey with support size 'death ray projector'

1 Grey Alien Flying Saucer [HOF50]

6 Robotic Servants [HOF44]

5 Robot Scout Drones [HOF45]

32 total miniatures including a vehicle.

This cost £15.00.

The ASQL rulebook cost £12.00.

Shipping was £3.60.

The total cost to me in US dollars, after the excruciating exchange rate, was $71.26.  Removing the rulebook and shipping, this means that 65 figures cost approximately 72 cents per figure (lumping together vehicles and infantry).  That's still pretty affordable, and completely unattainable in 28mm scale in metals.

I realize the Laserburn molds are rather old, so that explains the fairly-substantial flash and mold lines on the figures.  I'm o.k. with doing some work on them, as long as it's not excessive (which it's not), but that one guy on the right is gonna be blind I think.

The Grey molds are pretty new and they are very clean, only a little work is needed to get these guys ready for painting.

However, I'm a little surprised by the figure selection:  essentially two-and-a-half Science Teams, an extra Command Team figure, and 5 count 'em 5 total actual Soldiers (you know, the guys with the guns....).  I'm not philosophically opposed to "substituting" figures as needed, but I never expected to need to substitute almost half the force!

Ah well, that's what happens when you let someone else pick your army.  I did go into this with my eyes open, so it's fine, although I would have preferred 7 more Soldiers (5 for a second Soldier squad, the sixth to fill out the Command Team and the seventh for the Science Team.  (Y'see, each code has 4 individual poses, so adding a Soldier to each of the other Teams keeps from duplicating poses.)

Now to start reading and filing metal!