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@ch0senfktard:

@John:

@ch0senfktard:

@John:

Guys, they said on facebook, it would be in a few weeks. That is all I know at this time.

I’ve been checking their fachebook page, but I have never seen any posts saying that.
I hope that really is the case.

HBG really has to pick up on their game in engaging with followers.
No posts for almost 4 months now. Not cool.

ch0senfktard, there are two facebook accounts, and I can’t remember if it was on their main facebook page or their Global War account. I agree with you that they need to post more often and communicate better.

At this point we can only hope that we can get them soon. Sorry, that is all I know.

Yeah, it’s on their Global War page. Thx for aiding in clearing things up, John.

Post was on July 18th.
“… the third German set is a few weeks out with a ton of new German units …”

No problem, glad I could help. :-)

I’d like to ask a question that I hope Coach or someone else can answer.  HBG’s latest newsletter, which arrived in my mailbox a moment ago, includes the following two paragraphs:

“We also should be receiving our next German Set 3 from China next week, but give us 3-4 weeks to QC and start shipping them to the pre-orders. We will not be offering future pieces in sets but only in pieces in quantity of 5 so please be aware. You will see the sets slowly going away.”

“We are waiting on the proofs for our base set of pieces for GW1936 so we will show them when we get them.The France set will follow these as soon as we can.”

I’m confused by the fact that the second paragraph, which refers to the upcoming French set, seems to be contradicted by the first paragraph, which appears to be saying that HBG will no longer be producing sets (or at least not sets of the type that they’ve produced up to now).  Would anyone have some clarifications to provide about this?  Thanks in advance.

I was wondering about the phasing out of sets too.  I wonder why.  Are the complete sets not as popular as selling individual pieces in sets of 5 each?  I guess that would work for people that just want certain units and not others in the sets.
For example, with the new Germany 3 set, I really didn’t want the He51 bi-plane but just accepted it as part of the set.  Maybe they are retooling the molds to make one certain unit at a time in large numbers so they can order that way.  I mean, they would obviously sell more of the Panzer IV or Panther tanks than they would of Graf Zeppelin carriers.

Still, I do wonder like you if the France set will still be sold as a set or will they start the 5 each piece sells with that one.

Looks like those of us that pre-ordered will be getting our Germany 3 sets around Sept 1 or so.  So looking forward to seeing them.

@Flashman:

Regarding the proposed Civil War game, do HBG need to produce anything other than ships in terms of plastic pieces?

Who doesn’t already have plenty of infantry, cavalry and artillery for this conflict; yet we lack warships and ironclads entirely.

I would also be in the market for generic ship models for the ancient, medieval and sailing ship eras. As well as space marines, aliens and starships of course.

I don’t want to think the company believes it needs to produce entire games in order to make it worthwhile  expanding into new periods of history.

I want basic Napoleonic ships far more than I need 23 different types of Italian tank in 8 new shades of brown.

Off Topic, I know, but have you tried the “Civilization” pieces from Eagle Games?  Don’t even know how available they still are, but back when they were still in business, I stocked up on them…

@DrLarsen:

@Flashman:

Regarding the proposed Civil War game, do HBG need to produce anything other than ships in terms of plastic pieces?

Who doesn’t already have plenty of infantry, cavalry and artillery for this conflict; yet we lack warships and ironclads entirely.

I would also be in the market for generic ship models for the ancient, medieval and sailing ship eras. As well as space marines, aliens and starships of course.

I don’t want to think the company believes it needs to produce entire games in order to make it worthwhile�  expanding into new periods of history.

I want basic Napoleonic ships far more than I need 23 different types of Italian tank in 8 new shades of brown.

Off Topic, I know, but have you tried the “Civilization” pieces from Eagle Games?  Don’t even know how available they still are, but back when they were still in business, I stocked up on them…

Being curious, I did a little checking around, and sure enough, somewhat to my surprise, whoever bought out Eagle Games’ stock (“Eagle-Griffon Games”?) still has Civ military units available in 5 or 6 different colors.  Last time I set up a Napoleonic Era Game (built on Eagle’s Napoleon in Europe Components), I used Civ “caravels” as frigates and their ships-of-the-line for, well, SotL… Last Time I set up a Roman-era game I used the Civ “galleys” as light galleys (as they’re much smaller than Eagle’s CotE galleys) Depending on how picky you are about sculpts, I suppose, but they’d at least get the job done.  Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be available anymore in red, blue or green, but you could always paint…  Nice thing about the Civ piece-set is that they have an infantry, cavalry, artillery, and a ship piece in the set for Ancient, Medieval, Gunpowder, and Modern Eras, so they could be used to give you some basics for many periods of history… Ironclads is a tough one; closest thing I know of is Eagle’s War! Age of Imperialism (W!AoE.)  Their naval piece is basically a stylized Victorian pre-dreadnought; once again, they do still have them by the runner on the website in numerous colors…

…But back on topic, HBG’s wonderful products:

Just picked up several of their new 3d-printed “expansion” pieces, and I’m quite Impressed.  Good concept, too; It gives the option of picking up just a few “advanced” or truly unique units for each nation that you’d never need in bulk, like an H-Class or a “Super-Yamato” or a Taiho armored carrier.  I also like having an Alsace and a Bretagne: now at least I have a COUPLE of French ships that aren’t Soviet.  (It STILL mystifies me why WotC gave France Soviet units;  have any of you out there ever even heard of a rational explanation for it?)  I don’t see the logic of some of the 3-d printed options, though… Short Sunderland sea planes?  What would we ever use that for?

What I’m eagerly hoping for to round out the set of “super-ship” expansion pieces is a US Montana super-BB, Midway super-CV, a British Malta super-CV and either a Lion or a Vanguard class for a British super-BB.  I know Variable sells 1/1800 Midways and Maltas at least on his Shapeways site, and I bought one of each to paint up for my WW2 “Mini-Museum…”  I’m somewhat mystified why he hasn’t gotten around to re-sizing at least those two to oh, about 1/4000 or so for HBG to sell as AAA accessories.  Heck, seeing as Variable also has a Sovietsky Soyuz in 1/1800, he ought to re-scale that one too, just to give us a complete set of super-BB’s…  Since the Soyuz was roughly based on the Italian UP41 design, it could be painted (or maybe even printed) in both shades of brown to give a complete set of super-BB’s for all the major powers in the game!  (Once, that is, they’ve got a Lion and a Montana to go along with it…)

@DrLarsen:

What I’m eagerly hoping for to round out the set of “super-ship” expansion pieces is a US Montana super-BB, Midway super-CV, a British Malta super-CV and either a Lion or a Vanguard class for a British super-BB.  I know Variable sells 1/1800 Midways and Maltas at least on his Shapeways site, and I bought one of each to paint up for my WW2 “Mini-Museum…”  I’m somewhat mystified why he hasn’t gotten around to re-sizing at least those two to oh, about 1/4000 or so for HBG to sell as AAA accessories.  Heck, seeing as Variable also has a Sovietsky Soyuz in 1/1800, he ought to re-scale that one too, just to give us a complete set of super-BB’s…  Since the Soyuz was roughly based on the Italian UP41 design, it could be painted (or maybe even printed) in both shades of brown to give a complete set of super-BB’s for all the major powers in the game!  (Once, that is, they’ve got a Lion and a Montana to go along with it…)

Although they’re scaled too big for use in A&A, Navwar has a huge array of 1:3000 scale cast metal warships (WWII and other eras), including some classes which were projected but never laid down or completed.

http://www.navwar.co.uk/nav/pdf/webcat.pdf
http://www.navwar.co.uk/nav/default.asp

I own a small fleet of Navwar WWII-era battleships, though I’ve never yet gotten around to using them in a tabletop game.  I’ve supplemented them with some epoxy WWII-era carriers from Panzerschiffe.  They’re a bit larger scale (1:2400) than my battleships, but the difference isn’t too noticeable when they’re side by side.  Navwar has carriers too, but I got the Panzerschiffe ones because they’re less expensive; my main interest is in battleships, not so much in carriers, so I didn’t bother to invest in a metal carrier fleet.

http://www.panzerschiffe.com/

@CWO:

Although they’re scaled too big for use in A&A, Navwar has a huge array of 1:3000 scale cast metal warships (WWII and other eras), including some classes which were projected but never laid down or completed.� Â

http://www.navwar.co.uk/nav/pdf/webcat.pdf
http://www.navwar.co.uk/nav/default.asp

I own a small fleet of Navwar WWII-era battleships, though I’ve never yet gotten around to using them in a tabletop game.�  I’ve supplemented them with some epoxy WWII-era carriers from Panzerschiffe.�  They’re a bit larger scale (1:2400) than my battleships, but the difference isn’t too noticeable when they’re side by side.�  Navwar has carriers too, but I got the Panzerschiffe ones because they’re less expensive; my main interest is in battleships, not so much in carriers, so I didn’t bother to invest in a metal carrier fleet.

http://www.panzerschiffe.com/

I actually have a fair # of Navwar & Davco ships in 1/3000 and Panzerschiffen in 1/2400.  (I basically have 1 of most of the key ship-types for each CA, CV, & BB, though my Navwar range has some gaps, as I found them a little hard to get ahold of over here across the pond…)

But like you said, they’re too big for A&A.  I also tried 1/4800, but they’re too small.  One would want a true “Super-BB/ CV/ CA” to be noticeably bigger, not a little smaller than the standard type.  I suppose if one replaced entire navies it would work, but I haven’t been ready to seriously contemplate this yet… I remain hopeful that HBG will come through with a few more of these and then we’ll have a range sized just right…

I thought I’d post this chart that organizes all the current HBG sets/ colors/ nations since I found it helpful in planning/ organizing my own collection… Hopefully this works…

HBG Colors & Nations.doc

Aha, it looks like that worked… Now here’s the other one, a comprehensive list of all the sculpts HBG has done.  Feel free to let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll make corrections…

HBG Supplemental Set Piece-Type List C.doc

Nice chart but it’s a bit small and hard to read (even when clicked to expand it).  Would you have a larger version?  Your posted files are in the 20 to 75 KB range, but the forum allows posts up to 1536 KB in size.

Yeah, I noticed that too after I posted.  I also attached the MS Word file, so you could try opening or downloading that.  I could also try converting it to pdf?  Part of the problem is that with 12 sets and almost 30 unit types, it’s hard to get them to fit without making them small… But maybe I’m missing a trick?

I’ve just downloaded the Word files and cranked up the magnification, which made the contents of the charts easily readable (at the expense of no longer being able to see the whole chart at once, which is fine; all one has to do is scroll either sideways or up and down). Thanks for the idea.

Yeah, one way or another, it’s a lot of data to try to take in all at once…  Which does give some perspective on just how much HBG has accomplished over the years…

@DrLarsen:

Yeah, one way or another, it’s a lot of data to try to take in all at once…  Which does give some perspective on just how much HBG has accomplished over the years…

And even just sticking to the OOB sculpts, we still have a lot of information to absorb.  If we take the OOB Global 1940 2nd edition sculpts, replace Britain’s American-pattern naval transport with the British design from A&A 1941, replace Russia’s British-pattern aircraft carrier with the Russian design from A&A 1941, give China an American P-40 Warhawk from A&A 1941 as its Flying Tiger fighter unit, and ignore France’s non-infantry equipment units because they’re foreign-patterned, that adds up to 101 individual sculpt designs spread out over nine nations and fourteen unit categories.  As I once read in a book about wargaming, “For those who like complications, World War Two is ideal.”

http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=a9d6c9feeb404498732dab770&id=5f954f9aef&e=61dfa6b239

" We have received our  German Set 3 from China and are in the middle of QC, and will be sending out the pre-ordered sets next week. We will not be offering future pieces in sets but only in pieces in quantity of 5 so please be aware. You will see the sets slowly going away. We have had a major issue with these pieces, we have had 100% failure on the Bismarck and Leipzig ships so these 2 pieces will not be for sale BUT they will be included in the pre-ordered sets plus 2 extra Panzer IV tanks and 2 extra Panzer V tanks to compensate for the defective pieces. We are very sorry about this but it is beyond our control."

Soooo… that is really bad news. I assume this is part of the reason to stop selling full sets.

100% failure sounds to me like the pieces are very warped or disfigured somehow. Apparently they are okay enough to include in the pre-orders but not for individual sale? I don’t quite understand. Very unfortunate since both of these were pieces I was REALLY looking forward to getting. Kudos to HBG for including extra tanks to compensate for the problem pieces.

Couple questions for HBG should they be inclined to answer: (1) Any chance of these molds being included or revised for future re-production? (2) If not, could these models be made available through Shapeways (in their appropriate A&A/Battle Pieces scale)?

In their comments section to their Facebook post linking to that newsletter, HBG said they will do 3D printed runs of the Bismark and Leipzig.

When will that be, who knows.
But I’m glad that it will be a thing. I was looking forward to the Bismark the most and didn’t realize it until I read that the pieces were defective. Hope to see those 3D printed pieces on their website soon.

Some good news for those of us waiting for the French sets.

Coach has said that they are starting on them very soon.  I’ve been waiting for these for a while, so I am looking forward to them.

@jim010:

Some good news for those of us waiting for the French sets.

Coach has said that they are starting on them very soon.  I’ve been waiting for these for a while, so I am looking forward to them.

That is great news. I’m looking forward to that set. Thanks for the info. :-D

@John:

@jim010:

Some good news for those of us waiting for the French sets.

Coach has said that they are starting on them very soon.�  I’ve been waiting for these for a while, so I am looking forward to them.

That is great news. I’m looking forward to that set. Thanks for the info. :-D

Keen as for the French. Obviously I’ll be using them for EW French and Vichy forces, in addition I’ll be painting quite a few sculpts as Belgian, Romanian and Spanish republic forces