1:72 Wine Cellar released!

This year, the Alpha-ARES veteran wargaming club has merged its prestigious yearly show into the larger format DAU Barcelona event, that is sponsored by Barcelona municipality to promote gaming habit among population. Historical wargaming will have its room there, next Saturday 18th; and, as it couldn't be otherwise, Minairons Miniatures will be attending to it once again.

Next to our stand, a group of gaming friends from AJJRR Reus town gaming club will hold a gorgeous 1938 Gandesa battle scenario using 1:72 scale (20mm) miniatures from Minairons and other makes. The spectacular scenario shown is going to incorporate the first ever assembled and painted model kit of our long since announced Wine Cellar --a large scenery piece reproducing an architecural feature common to many villages in southern and central Catalonia. Model kit is packaged in a sturdy cardboard box, that also serves as a central core around which the rest of building components are assembled.

As said, this is a large scenery piece, likely to capture watchers' sight not less than a cathedral. The whole boxed kit weighs around 0.59 kg and, once built, building model size is to be 26.5 cm long x 16 cm wide x 16 cm high approximately. It is already available on Minairons website at the price of €59.95 --however, during DAU Barcelona event only we shall retail it at a 15% discount, as a promotion. Don't miss the chance!!

1/72 Wine Cellar update

Our upcoming 1/72 Wine Cellar is getting close to a release deadline. Please watch some pictures on the painting work in progress started on a first sample recently cast:

More on the Wine Cellar

When some days ago we posted some preliminary captions on our forthcoming 1:72 Wine Cellar, someone requested us to post a few pictures else, showing the model along with figures of several scales for comparison, not just 20mm. Well, here they go at last:

In the photos, a Warlord 28mm Tommy, a 20mm German officer from Xan and a 15mm Soviet soldier by Battlefront.

Hope this helps!

1:72 Wine Cellar WIP

Despite still awaiting a roof to top the thing, I've thought you would like to see what our upcoming modernist styled Catalonian Wine Cellar is starting to look like. Better than trying to explain it in words, let's share a few captions on the prototype:

Please note the main trick we're using to make a relatively lightweight model kit from this otherwise massive building: the thick cardboard box of its packaging is going to be the building main body, on which socles, windows, false towers, terraces and other architectural details are to be fixed, so as to build the ultimate kit.

Such trick will allow us to set an affordable pricing for the model kit, as well as to keep its total weight below 400g --a measure that ought to permit shipping expenses economy too, while still allowing for a durable, tough model building on tabletop.

Two long side terraces will allow for miniatures to be placed on top, so as to help using the building not just as a simple background decoration, but as a terrain element by itself. And last, users will have the choice not to glue the roof on top, thus allowing indoor practicability too.

Upcoming 1/72 scenery range

I believe this will be exciting news for all 20mm SCW wargamers: we at Minairons are about to start a new 1:72 scale scenery range, specifically intended for re-creating the common (and not-so-common) Spanish landscapes of those years.

True that some first timid attempts were performed not long ago, by creating a couple of battlefield scenery pieces (a bailed out command Panzer and a downed I-15 fighter), that have proven to be successful enough to encourage us to try and expand the range with a new series of elements --either large buildings or simple widgets.

So that, taking advantage of the mutual trust arisen after our retailing partnership with Surus Creations (by which we became a vendor of their Belchite 1:100 scale SCW scenery), we alongside met a further agreement with them for a similar 1:72 scale range to be made in exclusive for Minairons, under our own make.

Little afterwards, work started on a first project --under some kind of deliberate news blackout, admittedly: a modernist style Wine Cellar, inspired on the numerous cooperative farming facilities built between 1914 and 1925 by the Commonwealth of Catalonia, a semi-autonomous government institution of these years.

Despite work on masters is well advanced now, so that some preliminary pictures might be already shown, we've preferred to let the whole prototype be finished before sharing with you. Pictures will follow in few days, I promise. meanwhile, I've thought you would like to take a glance on the thing plans, so as to get a first taste on the thing:

Front view

Side view

Architectural detail

Some kit elements (such as chimney, for instance) have been devised as optional, depending on whether the user plans to build an industrial factory in an urban background, or as an oil or wine cellar for his countryside settings instead.

As said above, work on this superb building masters is well advanced now, so that we'll be able to show you pictures of it in not too many days' time.