Bow and Blade Games is a family run business formed in Summer 2018 by Chris Sutherland, based in the County of Cumbria in the North West of the UK.

We specialise in the retail of gaming accessories for Wargamers and Roleplayers across the UK. Trading mainly in Dice, basing accessories (grass tufts, flock, static grass), paints & Sculpting supplies from brands such as Vallejo, Green Stuff World and Army painter as well as tools & other accoutrements like glues, modelling putty’s and other related items.

Bow and Blade Games now also produces a range of 3D printed items in FDM printed PLA and in high quality UV cured resin.

We have our own range of in-house sculpted items (sculpted by Chris!) as well as items we have purchased commercial licences to print. Such as the Fantastic “Familiars and Beasts” range from M3DM and the Awesome Animal Companions range from Critit.

Over the course of 2020 we’ll be extending this range to fill some gaps and also do some things like 3D printed dice boxes and custom dice & bases to compliment our existing ranges.
So stay tuned and check back regularly to see what the latest is at Bow and Blade Games!

Miniatures for Wargamers, figure painters & collectors, 6mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, 32mm, 40mm

Eureka Miniatures cater to lead tabletop miniatures gaming. We produce our own ranges, including miniatures and rules sets, as well as the ranges of manufacturers Eureka is licensed to produce or distribute the following.

Irregular Miniatures
Kriegspiel Miniatures
Grumpy Miniatures
Laughing Monk Miniatures
Shadowforge Miniatures

See our other distributors Eureka Miniatures UK and Eureka Miniatures USA.

Eureka Miniatures USA is the distributor for Eureka Miniatures and AB Figures in the United States.

Foundry Miniatures Ltd manufacture the world's largest range of 28mm metal miniatures for gamers, collectors, modellers and painters.

Clifford Ansell was looking for an interesting retirement job that would keep him busy. Cliff had spent much of his life working in the mining industry (apart from a few years away with the Royal Navy in the 1940s) he ended up a mining engineer and an expert on mine safety, ventilation and dust suppression. In the 60s Cliff moved on to a second career as a maths teacher: he taught maths at Bishop Dunn Comprehensive in Nottingham.

Cliff's son was, and is, my father: Bryan Ansell who had made toy soldiers with Skytrex, Tabletop, Asgard and Citadel/Games Workshop. He ended up owning GW and was responsible for games like Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 40K, Space Hulk etc.

When Cliff announced that he was going to take early retirement, Bryan suggested that Cliff might like to have a go at manufacturing toy soldiers himself.

Cliff was already experienced in dealing with both stubborn Lancashire miners and wilful, disorganised children: so it was clear that the strange mindset of the confused denizens of the toy soldier industry would be absolutely no problem for Cliff to handle.

As it happened: this was the time when Citadel was starting to change from metal based models to their new "slotta bases", and also ceasing to make historical models. Bryan was able to set Foundry up with a number of discontinued ranges - Barons Wars and Wars of the Roses Medievals, Samurai and the Vikings, Normans and Saxons, Woodland Indians, Huns and Elizabethans initially (these had all previously served as Human forces in Warhammer Fantasy Battle for some years). Further hundreds of other Citadel models followed. We still make those models at Foundry today, though we cannot manage to have them all in stock at the same time.

Michael and Alan Perry sculpted almost all these models and were keen to continue sculpting historical models for their own painting and wargaming purposes, so they continued to sculpt new Foundry ranges for Cliff for quite some years. Alistair Morrison and Dave Andrews both contributed ranges too.

So, Foundry was up and running very quickly indeed. Cliff first had premises in Sherwood, then moved to a larger unit in New Basford. The upstairs in New Basford was taken by Alistair and Trish Morrison: who sculpted the Marauder range for Games Workshop up there.

For a long period, Foundry was making many master moulds and production moulds for Games Workshop whenever they found themselves with more moulds than they could handle. Over the years many ex Games Workshop staff worked for Foundry; most notably John "Bones" Ellard, "Ep" Epworth, Andy Pattinson, Kevin Adams, Colin Dixon and Shane Hoyle.

In 1991 my father left Games Workshop and went off to Guernsey for a decade or so. In Guernsey he had three children, restored four old houses (he does that wherever he goes: not the children, just the houses) started Guernsey Foundry and made Seven Years War, Old West, Pirates and Darkest Africa models these were mostly sculpted by Mark Copplestone. When he came back to England in 2000 he brought his ranges and a couple of the Guernsey staff with him, started restoring a house near Newark and took over running Foundry from Cliff. He produced more Seven Years War, Darkest Africa and loads more Old West, then Street Violence, Vikings, Gladiators, various Romans, 16th century Swashbucklers, huge ranges of Greeks and Macedonians, Fantasy and various odds and ends.

In 2005 my father left Foundry and went back to gardening and restoring houses.

We only re-entered the world of toy soldiers because my cousin Neil Littlewood went to work at Foundry for a while, and it became apparent that there were serious problems that needed sorting out. In the end we stepped in, and the Ansell family are running the factory again.

We have moved Foundry into the huge old Carriage Court alongside our house in East Stoke.

Cheers

Marcus