New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry

[Emperorbaz]

I want to like plastics, I really do. But what are these all about? What are they wearing on their heads?

[Phil Robinson]

I want to like plastics, I really do. But what are these all about? What are they wearing on their heads?

The helmets are kinda weird, nothing like anything I have come across, but hey ho, I await to be enlightened by the more learned.

[THE CID]

They look fine, just can't get away with plastic figures, in fact I hate plastic.

[Hupp n at em]

If the only thing wrong for the period is the helmets, surely any number of the other plastic sets released have appropriate headgear?  Headswaps in plastic are an absolute cinch assuming the head to neck join is the same type. 

Luckily, I have a gazillion spare Perry plastic horse heads, and as I did with the FF horses, I shall just graft Perry horse heads onto the GB horse bodies...  

Out of curiosity, how did you accumulate so many spares? Are there more than required in most of their mounted sets? 

[delbruck]

Quite nice. They appear to be GB's best release in a long time. Two of the horses look the same as in their old plastic sets, but it looks like they have added a third horse pose. The helmets seem to be a variation on traditional attic helmets rather than spangelhelm. I am somewhat surprised not to see any figures in armor. I hope this means another box is due to be released.

It will be interesting to see the sprue. I hope there are more heads than they show in the pictures.

[Ogrob]

Out of curiosity, how did you accumulate so many spares? Are there more than required in most of their mounted sets? 

I think there's 23 heads in the Heavy Cavalry set. I assembled close to a box worth of Fireforge horses (10 or so) with spare heads from just one box of Perrys. Just the horse sprue I think comes with five heads to four bodies for spare unarmoured heads.

[Captain Blood]

Yep. The Perrys are extremely generous with the amount of spares and options they cram into their sets (Gripping Beast take note!), so that in the WOTR mounted men at arms set, you get twice as many horse heads as horses, allowing you to up the variety. And leaving a pile of useful leftovers. I have about 100 

Yes, those helmets look more Hollywood than historical. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in the archaeological record for the early-mid Dark Ages. But as mentioned, easy enough to swap out. There are a lot of great plastic heads around. One of the things I do like about Bob Naismith’s sculpting is a lot of the great characterful heads and faces he comes up with across his work for a variety of manufacturers.

[Duncan McDane]

The clothing looks a bit generic to me (but maybe not to others who know more about the period than I do...) so could these guys be used for 900-1000s if you swapped heads with the Viking, Saxon, or Dark Age Warriors box?

No chainmail/armour so I'd say no, unless you'll want to play a specific scenario in which some village militia hastily  have to go after some cattle thieves...
But in a pitched battle, they'd look out of date - to me, at least -, even when used as light scouts/outriders/skirmishers on horseback or even slave cav.
But it's really up to you what you think and like, what you want to do with them. If you like them, go on and use them and if opponents start bickering find yourself other opponents  .

[Mad Doc Morris]

Too generic for my taste, and others have mentioned the weird helmets and horses already. If various bits and pieces from other sets are required to improve on the original models, why bother with plastics in the first place? I'm sure that most people will buy, build and paint these models as they come, taking them for a decent representation of Dark Age warriors. They are not. If that's the price for cheap-ish plastic sets, I'd rather stick with metals.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

If various bits and pieces from other sets are required to improve on the original models, why bother with plastics in the first place?

Because some of us already have a big pile of extra bits from other sets to modify these figures with (which I see as a joy rather than a burden), or because we want an excuse to get some other sets we don't yet own! A set of generic (if you don't use the few particular helmets) guys who can easily be used for or be modified to be used for all manner of peoples across several centuries is very much part of the appeal to me. Worked a treat for the Dark Age infantry and glad to have a somewhat corresponding cavalry set to go with them.


As for the period, it's only the diagonal straps on the lower legs of one of the bodies that very much gives off the Late Roman vibe (again, ignoring the optional heads). Norman heads and kite shields and they'll make fine poorer Normans or Bretons; with other heads they can be stretched really quite far for the British isles too: even those that can afford it won't be wearing chainmail all the time (and the Viking or Anglo-Danish elites traditionally fight on foot anyway). To the best of my knowledge, we don't have enough knowledge of changes in tunic styles or leg wrappings to date the basic guys in this set to anywhere very specific - but I may be wrong.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Not sure I like them... but  I'll wait until I actually see the figures. It wouldn't be the first time that I have been agreeably surprised by the actual product.

[Gibby]

I think these look really good. Ideal for the fantasy market to be honest, whatever the historical issues they may have.

Plus, they're nearer the mark than the TV show Vikings that had cavalry in almost Tudor-era helmets!

[Captain Blood]

Plus, they're nearer the mark than the TV show Vikings that had cavalry in almost Tudor-era helmets!

They were Tudor era helmets - burgonets to be precise. The exact same wardrobe items used for the French army in The Borgias (only 100 or so years wrong there, unlike equipping the Anglo-Saxon armies of C9th Wessex in them, where they were around 800 years out 

The perils of using the same costume designers across multiple streaming series...

I loved Vikings. But for a programme made under the auspices of the History Channel, such horrendous historical inaccuracies are honestly inexcusable...

You can hear the conversation now...
Producer: 'Right then, what are we going to do to give the army of Wessex a distinctive look?'
Wardrobe: 'Well, I've got a quote for 15 grand for fabricating 200 fibre glass simple spangelhelms, which are broadly accurate for the period, but will take six weeks to arrive'.
Producer: 'Or?'
Wardrobe: 'Or I've got 200 burgonets in storage left over from 'The Borgias'. They'll cost nothing and I can get them by Monday. But of course they're totally wrong for the period... I mean, not like a little bit out, but from the wrong Millennium... '
Producer: 'Fuck it. Helmet's a helmet. Stick 'em in the burgonets. No-one will ever know... '

Good old History Channel... 

[jazbo]

They look good to me and good value for cavalry which many people struggle to afford in metal.

The whiny comments about helmets, horses and being generic just shows how far we have come and how spoilt some of us are nowadays.

But for those of us not so anal as to reject a good value set over a possible helmet issue, when we don't even know half of what they actually wore or looked like anyway, we'll done gripping beast!

[delbruck]

Gripping Beast also did odd looking helmets in their Late Roman box. One has to wonder why they don't use basic  well know helmets in the their plastics sets. I really hope a plastic cavalry box in armor is to follow. It would be nice to see a variety of standard spangelhelms.

Overall though, this box looks like a very nice release. Certainly much better than the Late Romans.

BTW, can anyone tell me how Westwind heads fit on GB plastics?