"Helion 1866 range now owned by North Star Military Figures" Topic

Last week I took ownership of the 28mm Seven Weeks War range from Helion.

The range isn't on the North Star website yet, I want to go through the moulds, get things organised and hopefully have it all photographed before putting them online.

But if you are a customer looking for reinforcements, please drop me an email at northstar.figs@ntlworld.com. I can get figures cast for you now before we get the stock built up and re-launch the range officially. I will also keep to the Helion price, unfortunately when they join the North Star website there will be a price rise.

Any feedback on the range from existing customers is very welcome, I do intend to add to the range, I'm already talking to a sculptor about artillery.

Sounds good (except for the price rise LOL).I'm getting ready to paint 2 units of Prussians this week.
Here's a little feedback then.
Get new horses, it's the one thing anybody has complained about.
I have 24 Uhlans and 27 hussars and over half of them have been remounted.I got some Crusader WW2 cavalry(cheap for me with army card)and swapped horses.Some of the Helion poses didn't work with the Crusader horses so I kept them on the more animated Helion ones.

Very good news. I was waiting who would pick it up. Too good a range to let fade away .
I don't think the horses is the first thing that needs attending. My list would be ;
Artillery and crew for both sides
Jägers for both
Generals
Prussian hussars
Austrian dragoons / cuirassiers
I hope you can maintain the style and detail of the range.
I'm trying to send a few Euros your way !
Max

Good news, but I am afraid I am pretty well full up, well maybe some more Guard! Arty would be good, perhaps a General command set.

Tally Ho!

Will anyone carry them in the US?

Having seen an ad in a back issue of Battlegames I did wonder what had happened to the range as it promised so much. Good to see its been picked up by North Star.

Never heard of it. Any pics to see anywhere? Scale?

large 28mm,

lovely figures,

Tally Ho!

Thanks for the feed back. I'm hoping Ian Marsh, the original sculptor, will keep the commission on, but I am in contact with other sculptors.

In regards to the USA, I've offered them to Lon at Brigade Games, so he may have the line after Fall In.

Here are some of my painted Helions.
link
I somehow can't make a link straight to the pictures. You see the album link on the left.
Cheers.
Max

Would be worth Ian doing a quick conversion of the Hungarian Infantry and turning them into Austrian Infantry, not sure why he never did that in the first place half the foot are not Hungarians.

When adding cavalry no need to do so many options, a command pack and a pack of troopers would suffice in most instances, cannot help feeling that if not so many packs had been done for one type there would have had a complete range, would have been more profitable for prev owner, could have added pack of infantry doing whatever at a later date when the basics had been covered.

Good luck and stick to the basics would be my advice.

Mark.

The best thing about the range was the variety of poses.It's the reason I never got into Foundry's Crimean War,FPW and Indian Mutiny ranges.I don't want a command pack and three troopers for each troop type.Looks boring as hell in big units.To each his own I guess.
I would love to see all those troop types Prince Valiant mentioned but on better horses.

fitterpete, I do like lots of varients, but I feel to make something viable to sell in what is a niche period you cover basics first then add the rest if it sells sufficiently to make a profit or at worst break even.

Yeah Mark it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing.I don't like to buy into a line till I see lots of variants but they need us to buy so they can make more variants.
Thing is there is no guarantee that some lines will ever get more poses even if I do buy(see lines in above post).
I have ATM 3 18 figure units of Great War Crimean Guards and Highlanders.I use 24 to 30 man units but I'm waiting for the variant poses.If they don't make any I'm stuck and the earliest Nick says they will is next year so I'm stuck at least till then if not longer or forever.

I had no idea Ian Marsh was the sculptor.

Just obtained a partially built Prussian and Austrian Armies so am very pleased the range will be back in full production.

Hi Nick

I own ca 200 Prussians (Infantry) and some Uhlans and I am very happy that you would go on with the range. I have a good relationship to Duncan and wish him all the best.
Now I will wait for the artillery.
Hopefully Mr Marsh would do the sculpting, because I like his style very much. Renegade miniatures and BTD are good examples, that new sculptors for the same range are no good idea, as all artists have their unique style…
If you use another sculptor please dont change the style to much.
Thanks again for rereleasing this fantastic range.

In the future I would like to see:
Artillery and limbers for both sides
High command for both
Jägers for both
Cuirassiers for both
Hussars for the prussians would also be nice..

Good luck
Helmut

Just recently discovered this range and ordered a few Prussians. Fantastic miniatures!!

link

Maybe this range will even expand into 70/71??

Shame they'll be more expensive…

Cheers

S.P.

They are beautiful figures, I've seen them in the flesh and Alan Marsh is IMO one of the finest sculptors around but 500 variants of charging Prussian infantry for what is a boutique or niche period was never going to be viable. The fact that Helion off loaded the line in the first place speaks loudly. Nice for the gamer/ collector but sensible in terms of marketing and sales?

I suspect that if Helion had their druthers they would have pushed out a broader range of types with less individual variations. I wish North Star well with the range but I doubt anyone in their right mind would want to adhere to the rather eccentric scheme the previous owner had for the range.

Hands up how many people actually play the Seven Weeks War, in any scale?

Hands up!

Good for you Mr Waterhouse. Do you find that without any jaegers or artillery the Austrian columns get duffed up with monotonous regularity?

Those Austrian Generals looks good!…

Amicalement
Armand

Wow. You've been digging deep here! 10 years ago …