Link review; Secret Weapon Miniatures

so tonight's review is for Secret Weapon Miniatures.

This company mainly specializes in very detailed resin bases for our models.  They also make a smattering of conversion bitz, some hobby tools, and basing materials.  I'm going to focus on their bases tonight since that's what i've purchased from them.

The bases come in a nice resin casting, much like Forge World uses, but with none of the annoying miscasting we're familiar with. (my guess is he visually checks the bases in each batch before mailing them out, since he's still a small enough company to do that sort of fan service.)

The bases are very detailed, and super nice to paint, and come in 3 main styles;
 40K's Beveled style:

Warmachine's Round Lipped style:

 And Display Plinth style:

He also sells them in a nice selection of sizes to meet the needs of any model or gaming system;
20mm, 25mm, 30mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, 120mm, 95mm*120mm Ovals (Trygons/Storm Ravens, anyone?), Bikers/Cavalry, and Objective Markers.

Since most of you readers are probably 40K gamers, i'll just focus on the beveled edge bases.  There's a total of 18 styles as of the writing of this review, plus a 19th choice; Hollow Blanks.


As you can see from the category image, the core of the base is hollow, so that you could mount your model and any skulls, or dead trees, etc, into the base, and then fill it with Clear Effects to make it look like the mini is standing in a pool of water.  Or if your creative, you can mix some coloring into the clear effects and make swamp water, or blood! *muahahahahah!*

Back to the 18 styles.  To save alot of typing, i find pictures are always better, so the following is a gallery of the different base styles they cast, all in 40mm sized bases for easier viewing:

Steel Invasion

 

Bone Fields

Blasted Wetlands

Alien Invasion

Ruined Temple

Urban Rubble

Urban Streets

Urban Invasion

Flight Deck

Steel Plating

Iron Deck

Trench Works

Flagstone

Desert Basin

Desert Mesa

Desert Sands

Desert Wasteland

Runic Mountain

So that's the gallery of his designs, which you can see is a nice variation, and the other sizes of bases are all designed differently as well, so one pack of 40mm, 25mm, and 60mm bases each, will all be different; he doesn't randomize the bases that get put in your order, so the styles you see in the photo are the exact ones you will receive when you buy a pack of bases.  

And that brings me to the pricing.  Out of all the sites i've looked into, this is by far the best for both cost, and the quality of product you're paying for.  a pack of 10 25mm bases, or a pack of 5 40mm bases, or a single large oval 95x120mm base, all run for $10 a pack.  60mm bases, which there's 2 different styles for each theme, sell for $5 a base.  Biker bases sell in packs of 3, for $6.  He also does combo kits, where you get 20 (2 sets) of the 25mm bases, 5 (1 set) of 40mm bases, and 1 of each (2 total) 60mm bases, for $36.  That saves you $4 if you're planning to buy those sizes anyways.

As i also mentioned before, they sell some nice accessories as well.  One of these, being spent shell casings.  These come in packs of 50 shells for $7 to $9, depending on the weapon type.  they make shells for Bolters, Infantry-Held Heavy Bolters, Vehicle-Mounted Heavy Bolters, Dreadnought/Infantry Assault Cannons, Vehicle Assault Cannons, and Shotgun Shells.  they're all made to be the correct size that you can glue one into the ejection chamber on any of these types of guns and it'll sit in there perfectly.  And then of course, place a few extras on your bases to show the model's been firing away.

There's also a few Terrain pieces he's recently added as well that look worth mentioning, such as the 10 Gothic Tank Traps, 3.5" tall Power Generators with glowing power rods, or the 5 Jersey Concrete Barriers.  

Overall, my opinion of the products and the customer service is very satisfactory.  The product is excellent, and i think i might just order some more from them again in the future.  They were also very fast in sending out my order, and none of the bases i received, (i had ordered the ruined temple bases combo kit) had any flaws at all.  It's very nice to order resin products that don't come bent, miscasted with missing sections, or annoying bubbles.

So check em out in My Link Picks on the right of my blog here, and see if you'd like to buy something.