The Liberation Unboxing
“Greetings all” or should I say… 问候所有
As you may have seen the lovely chaps over at Blitz Minis have made a new starter set for the Chinese market The Liberation (we had a little interview with them last week). They very kindly sent one over to us to have a look at so let’s see what you get and if you are interested in getting one the best way of doing it.
If you have picked up a copy of Hit The Beach, this will look very familiar to you, with an obvious difference. There is no rulebook, but for our Chinese friends (or Chinese speakers) you can download the rulebook in Chinese with a link in the rules pack.
All of the unit cards are in English (so if you are looking to import this for the models, they will be useable), there is an explanation of what the cards mean for the Chinese players.
The box includes 1 Grenadier platoon, 2 Pumas, 2 Tigers and 2 Pak43s for the German side; while the Soviets get 1 Hero Motor Rifle company, 3 IS-2s, 2 ISU-152s and 3 SU-76’s. Like Hit The Beach two of these box sets gives you enough for a good size army, while one has a good selection of troops to learn to play with.
As a nice little bonus is a limited edition Otto Carius, the author of Tigers in the Mud (a very good book if you haven’t read it), along with his card. Literally no idea what he does…. but I’m guessing he’s 8 points and I hope he’s good!
Now before I go on, I do need to talk about postage, cost and how to get the best value outside of Asia.
The box is roughly £45/50 Euros/$59, on top of that postage for one was £34. Now, £79 for one is still saving over getting the models by themselves but clearly not the crazy value of Hit The Beach or the Team Yankee set. Having said that postage was with DHL and turned up in three days, which is bloody good!
We did a little pondering and we think the value comes in when buying two to four sets as postage is reduced quite a bit when you purchase more than one. For example, if you order two sets the postage is £45, for three it’s £62 and finally, for four it’s £80. So if you want two or you can get a group who wants four or so, you can get some good value out of this.
Having said all that, this set isn’t designed for the Western market and so the extra cost is to be somewhat expected.
One little bonus bit before I round out this unboxing is the back of the Otto Carius card has what I expect is the cover of the German Bagration book (no idea if this has been seen before).
So there it is, the new set that came out of nowhere and I honestly wish it was available everywhere, I think this is testament to the great job the guys at Blitz Minis have done in designing it for its market. But it’s not and I completely get why we have a West Front themed box instead.
I hope you enjoyed this look at the set and maybe have a think about picking one or two up.
Thank you for your time Ben.
