All you fans of skirmish games out there, Cipher Studios has good news. The world release of Hell Dorado has begun!

Cipher Studios (makers of the critically acclaimed skirmish game, Anima Tactics) acquired the license to the game, from Asmodee Miniatures back in 2009 and have been tempting us with new models ever since.

But what is Hell Dorado? I hear you cry!

Hell Dorado is a heroic scale miniature skirmish game, set during the 17th century. The players control of a war band, who have travelled into the realms of Hell to explore, do battle, and claim territory. The members of these groups range from from simple fighting me to the daemons of Hell themselves and even Chinese Immortals... giving the player a diverse series of factions from which to choose their forces.

Although the rules started out in French, Cipher intend to release the game world-wide and we are assured that the release of the English rule book is immanent, but, for the moment, we'll have to make do with the English rules available in the starter sets.

So far, it's not clear whether Cipher have created a new version of the rules, or if they are just re-releasing those of the previous developers, but it's not the rules that have really peaked our interest.

On top of re-releasing the original models, Cipher Studios have come up with a number of new releases of their own. I think I feel the symptoms of some serious shiny syndrome here. Just take a look at some of these:

These models look fantastic and a full list of those currently available can be found on this page of the Cipher Studios site.

On the downside, I have heard that the game itself, at least in its last rendition, was somewhat poor. Whether Cipher Studios will be improving the game's short comings is yet to be seen.

If you have any opinions on these models or have any experience with the game itself, give us your comments below.

Do you think these models going to be the game's only highlight? Or is the game actually worth a shot itself?

BoW Sam