1st Corps is owned by Brothers Simon and Michael Curtis. We have been wargaming and collecting for over 20 years and are fascinated by all periods.

Our aim is to offer products of the highest quality, detail and authenticity that are also great value and backed up by fast and friendly customer service.

Every figure comes complete with all the weapons, shields etc it needs.

Variation We try to put as much of it in our packs as possible our figure packs contain upto 8 different figures.

Command packs and standard packs all contain an even number of figures, no more annoying missing or left over figures.

We cast all our products here in Yorkshire in lead free pewter.

We live in Snaith, a small rural market town located 20 miles south of York in the north of England.

Simon- is the full time member of the team. He does the mold making, casting, dispatch and is responsible for some of the figures you can see on this site. . When not busy with that lot he likes going to the cinema, having a pint and game of darts down at the local hostelry. He also enjoys being taken for a walk by his golden retrievers, Rebel and Cadet

Michael- is also responsible for many of the painted figures on the site as well as product planning and dispatching orders. Mick swears he has no time for anything else! But we know he likes to travel and have a beer down the local hostelry playing darts, and has even been seen down the local gym the next day trying to make amends!

Agema Miniatures is a small firm of avid amateur historians and passionate wargamers. Comprised of Greg and Rita, Agema aims to bring you some of the best and most comprehensive wargaming figures in 28mm hard plastic and metal available.

As a fan of ancient history, Greg has always been wowed by large tables full of fantastic miniatures that really capture a sense of the drama of ancient conflicts. Having cut his teeth on Tony Bathʼs Ancient Wargaming, he progressed to WAB and recently to Hail Caesar!, at each iteration of rules wishing for a range of figures that fully gave justice to the great games being played and the epic conflicts they represent. As for Rita, she also loves history, but is still a novice to wargaming. Instead of playing out the battles on the table, she prefers to paint them. Rita is behind the graphics on this website.

With the advent of high quality plastic figure production, Greg decided that if you want something doing, you have to do it yourself! Plastic gives the gamer the opportunity to build large scale armies relatively inexpensively, and with advances in production techniques, at a quality to rival many metal ranges. Thus the idea behind Agema Miniatures was born.

We have always loved the Hellenistic and Punic Wars – who could not be enthralled by the Herculean conflict between Carthage and Rome, Hannibal and Scipio! And weʼve always thought that the available figures for the period havenʼt really done it justice – certainly not in the field of plastics. So, we hope to redress that balance.

Starting with a small sprue of Roman Velites to establish our name and intent, we hope to progress through Legionnaires, to Carthaginian and Libyan troops, to Spaniards and Celts.

Weʼd love to hear your thoughts, recommendations, questions and advice, so feel free to drop us a line, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We hope youʼll join us for the journey!

Crusader Miniatures are a UK based company making 28mm sized metal figures, all designed and sculpted by Mark Sims. The figures are designed for wargamers, miniature figure painters and collectors of model soldiers. Our ranges cover a huge expanse of history, from the armies of Alexander the Great to the British Tommies of World War Two. To explore further, click on the page links listed to the left.

Essex Miniatures Australia is distributor for the following companies which are listed alphabetically.

Britannia

C in C Miniatures

Dixon Miniatures

Essex Miniatures

Front Rank Figurines

Hovels

Redoubt Enterprises

Tin Soldier Figurines

Veni Vidi Vici

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