From Birth to Now a Round Up of Our First Year!

 The birthday month of the Ion Age continues today with a look at our first year and also an announcement about our new direct presence on Facebook. But before all of that I would like to thank everyone who has already taken advantage of the Year One Collection, the SEORC GeoShelter early supporter offers, the free miniatures in all orders IMP12 Starvaulter Instructor and getting freebies in every order too for the month.

Its been a magic first year for us at The Ion Age and my idea for a space opera setting has been proved to be a success. So much so that we have released more miniatures than we originally intended and our website and blog have attracted many thousands of visits per month. I would like to tell you just what we have achieved and also what we have sadly not managed to get done in our first year. While we placed our 28mm range up onto the brand new website allowing long term players of Firefight to once more get a hold of their favourite miniatures our focus has been on the 15mm scale. We began with about twenty miniatures from the HOF range at 15mm.co.uk which formed our first three IAF codes and from there we really, really grew!

The main focus of the 15mm Ion Age range has been the Prydian Army in our first year. That is the Human troops of the Prydian Precinct which can be Army or forces of the Marcher Barons depending on the uniform colours. Across the last twelve months we have gone from three codes and twenty different miniatures for Retained Knights and Muster to a lot more. We now have a total of fifty poses of Retained Knight across six codes. We have a total of twenty five Muster across four codes along with a bike code for the Muster too. We created the first Desteria Knights in 15mm scale and created three codes for them totalling twelve poses. We have two character packs with a total of four poses and three limited edition codes totalling six poses. We added two types of Battlesuit as well the Havelock with its five variants and the Duxis with its eight variants as well as a pilot and drone pack. We entered into the realm on resin with new vehicles including the Skylark Patrol Flyer and five variants of the Adder Combat Car and five variants of the Adder Combat Lifter. There are also now conversion packs with a total of seventeen different heads, packs and weapons to choose from. This means a total of 102 different poses in the Prydian Army as of today (counting multi-option codes as one code only).

We have also been developing the Shia Khan Empire in 15mm scale and this time from scratch, from nothing at all. We have three codes of Legionaries totalling twenty four different poses. We have two codes of Legion Pioneers totalling sixteen different poses. Recently we created two packs totalling ten poses of the fearsome Nox power armoured troops and a modular pack of five hulking Warlord poses too. Though we had planned to do the Maligs (Space Goblins) in year two we were hit with so many requests to scale them down from 28mm that we did so for April and Salute 2014 season. Five codes totalling thirty two poses and a ball tank along with a special miniature in the platoon value pack called 'Senga'. In a year from zero there are now 89 poses. All of this for our still to come rule system.

Lastly we started a modest terrain and structure range with what has become the now famous IAF015 Hab Dome. This we expected to do modestly but this creation took off in such a way that we brought forward our plans and released five different top mounts for the Hab Dome along with a Tower Module and a Landing Pad too. Our latest expansion for the terrain line was the Block House meaning a small settlement is now possible. There are also two single pieces of terrain the Fabricator Spire and the Skylark Cradle. This month we have five SEORC Geo Shelters on offer too.

There are other things to be said too. We began a small range of Art Prints of our artwork and we stocked the great Pebeo paints and inks range. In fact there has been only one dark spot in this glowing year and its come from me. Our planned release of the Patrol Angis rules system, play tested over the festive period, has been postponed. The rules will still happen as will follow ups but something things don't go to plan and its all on me.

Why say it this way? Is it all gloating and showing off? No. Its not. I want to make a point. We are serious about this venture and about its future. We will become the biggest 15mm science fiction brand in the world with your help.

The Ion Age is on Facebook!

As of today The Ion Age is on Facebook with its own page. This is an expansion of our website and blog presence and its a place where I will be putting all the news, releases, offers, specials, articles, fiction and more. Indeed if you are on Facebook you can comment and show us your Ion Age collection. So have a look by clicking on the link and if we are of interest please hit the 'like' button. I might even run some competitions once its all purring away nicely. Go HERE.

Thanks for Reading and roll on Thursday for the mighty Corbal Tower being released!.

GBS