Khurasan releases the Mekanoids!

Here is a little something that snuck on by me while I was grinding away on the 15mm Crusader.

Jon over at Khurasan released the 15mm scale Mekanoids. I had the pleasure to design the Dictator and Hatchet gunship. You can see details of the release posted on TMP and purchase them here.

These kits have been a long time coming and I am very happy to see them in production.

On the bench

What’s next? The smaller 15mm scale Crusader.

5.5” (140mm) tall with FAR less parts, this model will satisfy a few aspects left wanting from its full-scale 28mm brother. This kit will be far simpler to build, no cutting, cussing, and a bit more survivable on the game table regardless of its smaller size.

I had to go slightly larger than a true 15mm conversion on this kit due to the part thickness and casting concerns. I did not want any part thinner than 2mm. The model is roughly .5” taller than it should be, but as there are no windows or hatches to denote scale, this should not be an issue. I will keep this fact in mind when designing future releases and make sure no part is thinner than 4mm on the full scale 28mm models.

The desire to make a model with fewer parts and a lower cost, required making the model a more fixed pose affair. Not wanting to have all the models look the same if you are fielding an armored lance or armored company, I decided to make a few customized parts to aid in changing the pose from one model to the next. To accomplish this I created three versions of the waist hydraulics, this will give the upper torso a twist. The upper body can face directly forward, to the left and to the right. To change up the leg pose I created a neutral posed leg set, a leg set with the left leg advancing and one with the right leg advancing. All total nine poses possible not counting how you decide to position your weapons. This should give you enough freedom to field an entire table, without the cookie cutter look.

Price? Nothing set in stone, yet… I need to get a quote from the caster but I hope to come in at the $45-$60 range. My hope is that with the smaller model and FAR fewer parts that the kit will not be such a rubber hog when it comes to the molds and resin.

ETA? It’s being printed now, then I need to spend about 2 weeks benching the model to get rid of the stepping on the surface. After that, it’s up to the caster and their time table to get this into production.

Here are a few part renders.

Body parts

Detail parts

Leg parts

Sword parts (left only)

Vulkan parts (left and right available)

Mauler parts (left and right available)

Waist hydraulics

Twist due to waist hydraulics

Leg poses

Neutral leg pose

One leg advancing (left and right available)

 

Orders are in to the caster.

He is completing another customers order and will begin production on Monday. I will have him send the pre-orders in batches of ten or so to get them out to you ASAP.

Any changes to any orders will need to be completed by Friday, May the 6^th 3:00 PST. After that any additions will have to be shipped separately from your main order. If you have a change to an existing order, you can contact me here. Please reference the name and PayPal email of your original order so that I can match up the changes.

A note on armor upgrades:
I received a price for the per-arm armor, and updated the website with this option. The caster has a minimum price, I have cut my margin on this item to try and keep it as affordable as possible.

All Crusaders are shipped with the armor shown in the pics, if you purchased extra weapons they will not have the additional armor.

There have been some questions about the armor upgrades and what fits what.. Each arm type has its own armor, Shooty weapons such as the Vulkan, close combat weapons such as the Scythe and Sword and finally the Claw. Each of these is designed to be either right or left.

I do not have armor for all the weapons, some are being printed right now..

Here is what is available as of today:

Left hand Mauler

Right or left Vulkan Cannon

Left hand Reaper Scythe

Left hand Executioners Blade 

Being printed today: (These will not be ready to ship before the current pre-orders have been completed. You can purchase them later and they glue right onto the assembled model.)

Right hand Mauler

Right hand Reaper Scythe

Right hand Executioners Blade

All the best,

Mark-

Pre-Orders Are Now Closed…

I would like to thank my customers and the gaming community for a very successful pre-order. We filled 50 slots in far shorter time than I had imagined. I will be batching up the orders and sending them off to the caster tomorrow morning.

Does this mean that you cannot place an order? No, we will continue to accept orders and all orders will be filled in the order they are received.

The completion of pre-orders will allow me to give my caster a group order and receive a discount that I passed along to my customers in the pre-order pricing.

Some of you have noticed that the instructions for the Leviathan Crusader have not been posted yet… I will be working on these and updating the link ASAP. They will be posted before the first kit has shipped.

Once again, to all my current and future customers, THANK YOU for your business… I sincerely hope that you enjoy your purchase.

All the best,
Mark-

48 Slots Filled!

Once again, thank you!

I am feverishly working away on the files for the 15mm version. The armor for the Crusader is a challenge. I have to make it integral with the arms and legs due to the thickness of the half scaled parts and the desire to have as few parts as possible in the kit, so we can keep the costs down.

With all the slots almost filled, I am chewing my nails down thinking about my caster and making sure he QC's everything to our expectations... I have done what I can, soon it will be out of my hands and with any luck, I will not need to be contacting him to resolve issues. He runs a big shop and I have been clear about my expectations but it sure is nerve racking to hand off a project that has taken sooooo much time and energy to get it to this stage.

All the best,
Mark-

41 Slots Filled!

A big thank you to my customers and to the hobby sites that picked up the news of this release.

It strikes me, that just fifteen or so years ago a homegrown business would have had a very difficult time reaching interested customers… ahhh the internet :)

And now to a rather embarrassing oversight on my part, a small problem with the Armor Upgrade… As of today, I do not have the Right hand Mauler claw armor or right hand Close combat weapon armor for the Scythe and Sword.

Currently, only the Left hand Mauler claw armor, left hand Sword or Scythe, right and left hand armor for the Vulkan are available. This does not effect the base Leviathan Crusader, as you have seen from the pics, it has the armor it needs to complete the model.

This was an oversight on my part when I had the model printed. I did not have all the armor printed because I did not have the funds available at the time of the initial print to get everything done. I never made the molds for the armor myself so it slipped my mind. With the long delay between printing the model and production, this fact was left rambling around my empty head until today, when I contacted my caster asking him why I had not received copies of these armor components.

I am having them printed now and will need to bench the components to clean them up and make them ready for the molding process. The will likely be ready in 2-3 weeks but I do not want to hold up any orders.

I have contacted the customers affected by this issue and updated the website with this information.

Still working on getting a price for individual arm armor….