Joe Debold takes a first (and second!) look at Steel Dreadnought Games' Naval Thunder - Battleship Row and gives you a report on what he finds.

Now if only we could pry him away long enough to play some other games...

When Baueda Miniatures announced that they were working on a 1:48th scale set of miniatures and skirmish rules, I jumped on the chance to try them out. As soon as they announced pre-release, I ordered a "Play Set" of the first four figures from both German and Russian armies.

While in Cincinnati in July, I picked up a pack of Wild Republic Paint and Play Medieval Knight Play Set  - along with a ton of other stuff - from Boardwalk Hobbies (great hobby store, btw, an eclectic mix of models and wargaming miniatures with some solid reference books for historicals). I actually bought it on a fluke because I bought a nephew who is interested in painting the pirate set, and thought “what the heck, I’ll get one”.

Then my 20 month old went nuts over them. He loved them, wanted to play with them all of the time, even though they were still unpainted – solid white soft resin. So I decided to move them to the top of the painting list.

A year or so ago I picked up some MiniArt 1:16th scale Knights from a hobby store. They were old, so I assumed that the ones in the store were all I was going to get ever, so I bought them all - five of them. When they were done and placed upon a shelf, I had done some of the Orders from our gaming world, and I decided I wanted to do at least the top 10 Orders, because I liked the way they came out. So I went out to search for some used kits and see how badly I would get burned and guess what? They're still available! So I not only bought six more, I decided to review them for you, because if you have a gaming world these are great to paint up as the different Knightly Orders. Note that these are 1:16th, which makes them about six inches tall, not very suitable for gaming. These are full-blown models, with interchangable parts that you can swap out - want the sword in hand? Glue the hilt to it. Want the sword in the scabbard? Glue the hilt to it instead. The models have some rough spots - the newer ones I received have fewer issues than the old ones I picked up, but they still had issues common to less exacting model brands. One of the models in this review - the one labeled Doornian General - is a really old Tamiya model and not a MiniArt. I picked it up at a different hobby store for a steal and it went together much better than the MiniArt ones do. With all of that said, if you spend the time and use a bit of green stuff you can get these into shape. The legs have a tendency to gap on you, on some of them I patched the gap, in some I didn't. While this was just oversite on my part, it does give you the opportunity to see how well they do/don't fit.