MG144-G15 Schützenpanzer HS-30/ Spz 12 (144th)

[Aotrs Shipyards]

So, before we start, a few announcements.

First off, for those of you who did not see the post on Facebook, I have completed the revisions and updates to all the modern ranges for direct sales. They have all been sprued up for TheShop3D and will be put up there in due course (so as not to dump, like sixty or something models on them all at once!) The full German range is already up.

Link to the current iteration of the catalogue.

(Note that today’s release is still listed as unreleased, but the price is there anyway!)

On top of that, now we have had chance to assess the Prusa and the running costs, the time component of the cost has been reduced, which means that the price of the direct salves models has been dropped by an average of 28% (less on small models, more on bigger models)!

And, as a direct contrast to that…

Regular readers will have perhaps gathered I do not suffer fools gladly, and corporate fools rather less than most. Late last night, Shapeways sent an email around, which I shall quite for you:

Dear Shapeways Customer, We hope that you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. With the holiday season around the corner, we’re upgrading some of our services to help you serve your customers better. We’re also giving you an early notice of some price changes due to fluctuations in the market. Please note that some of the changes may require updates to your product listings. We’ll notify you again when the changes go live on October 19, 2020 so you can make the adjustments if needed. Nylon 12 [Versatile Plastic]Prices Changes for all colors and finishes will take place on October 19. Once this change is live, new orders will automatically be adjusted. Your markup will remain the same but the total price for affected models will change, and you may wish to review your product pricing then and make changes as needed.

Change to what, you might ask? I don’t know! Isn’t it exciting! Clearly this is to build anticipation for the change, like it was a plot twist on a movie, or an industrial secret!

In seriousness, one feels it is very unlikely to be a decrease (else they would have said so). Nor am I going to give them any credit for actually telling us the price is changing, unlike the unannounced change to the minimum part cost I discovered recently. As time of writing, there has been no response to the uproar this has created.

Pre-post Tuesday edit: The new prices have hit. As far as I can tell, it is approximately a +10% price increase to WSF, scaling up from a slight increase to the floor (which is back up to $5 again). As they STILL have not said anything (once AGAIN, I got an annoucement saying the prices had changed,, but not detailing – that ought to be illegal), I have had a sampling of the more recent releases, and it seems to be about 50p to a pound on most of the slightly larger models and a +£1.50 on the largest starship I looked (bigger than most tanks). So not good by any means, but I suppose better than the price doubling or something. (Purportedly, there is bulk pricing now automatically applied, but aside from actually going through the process of attempting to purchase something, there is no information available on that.)

Now, as it so happens, I just happen to have here in my hand another resin print from TheShop3D: a VASTLY better and tidier version of the BMR-3! (And, I would again like to note, cheaper than even their own nylon-12 (which is itself now cheaper than Shapeways’ in the identical material by the increase of this price-hike…)

I have not tried painting the resin yet, but Dad has now just discovered a fresh can of black spray paint, so that’s next on the list (unlikely to be done before the sci-fi release though). I HAVE, however, just conducted a drop test from table-height panelled floor of the dining-room to the with a) the sprue of bikes, b) the MT-LB and c) the sprue of infantry and am happy to report they all simply bounced, so we can conclude that the resin is not brittle and thus pretty drop-resistant, which is a great sign!

(I haven’t tried printing the BMR-3 on the Prusa yet, but one feels given the fact that I got the Leopard 2 minelayer to print-

– note lack of stringing – that it ought to be better!)

Right. After all that, down to the release itself! This month, as promised, I have for you the Schützenpanzer HS-30 aka Spz 12 in 144th!

MG144-G15 Schützenpanzer HS-30/ Spz 12

Direct price: £3.10

The Shop3D price: £3.45 (Resin)/£4.58 (Nylon) Link

Shapeways price: $5.55 (£5.19) $5.65 (£5.28) Link

---

Photo of Prusa i3 Mk3S version.

Next month’s release is a bit up in the air. I have been working hard on getting the moderns done and ready for upload to TheShop3D and continuing the prep-work for the Aotrs grand releases, so I haven’t done anything new yet. I might cheat next month, ever so slightly, and release the Galactic Terrorist APC and infantry in the moderns spot (the only part of it not released because of finding aplace to do the infantry): the GT is technically scifi, but fits with ultra moderns, since they are, by their own time period, low-tech, and all of it is based on modern vehicles anyway. (Their APC is based on the Vodnik, on an applique-armoured version I found a picture of while doing the Vodnik) and their infantry are largely suitable for moderns – suicide bombers included…!)

(No, my goodness, I did not heavily take inspiration from Command & Conquer Generals, why do you ask…! No, I certainly did not create a ground army entirely just so I could shout “AK-47s! For everyone!” in a terribly unconvincing accent!

…

And I totally do not have a series of stock phrases to be quoted every time a GT vehicle enters the battlefield…)

[Author]

Posts