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Miniatures Adventure => Age of the Big Battalions => Topic started by: garyapsledene on September 16, 2008, 08:20:44 PM
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I have to say the Victrix customer service is second to none, earlier today I emailed Steve of Victrix to ask of the progress regarding Victrix new hard plastic Napoleonics, and was surprised to get a full and complete report a few hours later.
Hi Gary,
We will be putting some news items up hopefully by the end of the week. But the basic jist is that there is going to be a slight delay on getting the first releases out, we are looking at them coming out about 6 weeks from now which will be end of October/first week in November. Everything is looking fine it is just that there has been a delay at the pattern Making stage due to holidays being taken by key people in August which has put us a bit behind. Frustrating but not a massive delay.The first sets to be released will be the Waterloo and Peninsualar centre companies followed a month later by the Flank companies sets for both, sooner if we can!
We are going to be making some seperate Head conversion packs for Light Battallion shakos, Guards in oil Skin covers, Hanoverian line and Landwhere heads and some seperate back packs and some speciality figures like a guards officer, Light company Bugler etc...to convert the plastic sets.
The French are being sculpted at present and are looking very nice indeed, fusiliers have been done so far and starting on the Grenadiers/voltigeurs. We shall show some photos in the next few weeks and possibly a sneak peak of one of them by the end of the week. Currently we are looking at other avenues of production so we can increase the speed the sets are released, once we have that sorted we will be able to give a more accurate release date for the French.
Hope that answers everything?
Very best regards,
Steve.
Those of you who havent heard of them, their website is as follows
http://www.victrixlimited.com/index.php
The idea of having Head conversion packs is the best news for this range, this I am sure, will give you the widest possible range of figure types for your wargaming.
I look forward to their ranges coming this year, and can see a few boxes in my Christmas bag!!
Gary
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These look bloody excellent. Hard to tell as we're looking at the outsize masters, not the finished 28mm product, but to my eye they look way better than the various plastic Romans currently out there, and actually, I think even better than the Perrys ACW stuff.
But somebody please shoot me if I ever get into Napoleonics again ;)
They don't half look tempting though...
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These look bloody excellent. Hard to tell as we're looking at the outsize masters, not the finished 28mm product, but to my eye they look way better than the various plastic Romans currently out there, and actually, I think even better than the Perrys ACW stuff.
But somebody please shoot me if I ever get into Napoleonics again ;)
They don't half look tempting though...
Blimey, they do look good ;D
I think we are both safe as long as we support each other, you know the kind of thing, stick together, share our thoughts, must not give in.. will not give in.. Although I bought Sharp Practise the other day primarily to use with my Alamo stuff...AAAHH :o
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These look bloody excellent. Hard to tell as we're looking at the outsize masters, not the finished 28mm product, but to my eye they look way better than the various plastic Romans currently out there, and actually, I think even better than the Perrys ACW stuff.
But somebody please shoot me if I ever get into Napoleonics again ;)
They don't half look tempting though...
Steady on, Old chap! Better than Perry figures? Surely not! :o
Oh, you could be right there. They are superb.
Think I'll go and lie down a bit, till I recover from the shock.......
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And I have been thinking of buying Sharp Practise to use with Eureka's new FRW.... A period I really think fit for skirmishing... and now this....my first and greatest wargaming love is the Napoleonic Wars... I need to clone myself to have somebody to send to work to earn money while I paint and game.... preferably 2-3 clones to make money enough for all those toys... ;D
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Steady on, Old chap! Better than Perry figures? Surely not! :o
lol Hard to believe isn't it.
Actually - brilliant as the Perrys are and always have been - I'm not altogether keen on the slightly dumpy style they seem to have acquired with their own stuff in the last few years.
Interestingly, it's not evident in their LOTR stuff for GW, nor in the their 40mm figures which are beautifully proportioned.
But whilst they remain, for me, the masters of naturalistic poses, there's just something slightly squat about the anatomy of their 28mm figures that I've taken against (to the extent that I bought most of their ECW range, then sold them on and went for Bicorne / Renegade instead, because I found the foot figures in particular just too, well... short-looking.
Beauty, as ever, is in the eye of the beholder...
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Oh again, a temptation. A new collection of plastics??
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I picked up Sharpe Practice and it looks excellent. I am playing my first game on Friday if all goes as planned. I have some Old Glory marines and RN types and am eyeing the new Crusader and OG second ed. crapauds, but I think I will be adding at least a box or two of these to the forces also.
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I've seen the masters in the flesh and they really do look very nice indeed. Actually one wonders why no one ever had this idea before. Airfix once had their multipose range with 2nd world war figures in 54mm scale. and the way they were done made 1000's of conversions possible.
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I've seen the masters in the flesh and they really do look very nice indeed. Actually one wonders why no one ever had this idea before.
Probably because the cost of producing molds for this kind of minis and 'get started' has lately dropped dramatically with the introduction of new technologies.
Previously, you really had to be sure that you could sell masses of a set of plastic before even considering getting the moulds made. With lower starting costs, you now have to sell far less to break even and start making some money - that's why we see - and will see - many new plastic ranges these days and the years to come... :)
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I know they will probably never make them, but I'd love to see Royal Marines and sailors for coastal raiding scenarios.
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I know they will probably never make them, but I'd love to see Royal Marines and sailors for coastal raiding scenarios.
You can get those in metal. Most of that kind of wargaming 'oddities' will probably come as metal minis for many years to come. To make plastic sets, you still have to do ranges people will need for building units... but a mixed set of sailors and marines, including a couple of swivel guns and small naval guns would be nice....
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I know they will probably never make them, but I'd love to see Royal Marines and sailors for coastal raiding scenarios.
You can get those in metal. Most of that kind of wargaming 'oddities' will probably come as metal minis for many years to come. To make plastic sets, you still have to do ranges people will need for building units... but a mixed set of sailors and marines, including a couple of swivel guns and small naval guns would be nice....
Yes, I've seen them. They are quite nice figures, but not as good as these. And more expensive, no doubt :(
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Blimey, they do look good ;D
I think we are both safe as long as we support each other, you know the kind of thing, stick together, share our thoughts, must not give in.. will not give in.. Although I bought Sharp Practise the other day primarily to use with my Alamo stuff...AAAHH :o
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How difficult would it be to convert plastic French to passable Alamo Spanish ?
I was looking at them for US War of 1812 proxies
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I know they will probably never make them, but I'd love to see Royal Marines and sailors for coastal raiding scenarios.
Write and ask - they may not have any plans, but then again if you don't ask you won't find out.
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How difficult would it be to convert plastic French to passable Alamo Spanish ?
Very easy I'd have thought.
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I wonder if they could be used as a conversion base for some Gundam Wing style scifi uniforms.
(http://www.fuunsaiki.com/cosplayguide/treize.png)(http://www.fuunsaiki.com/cosplayguide/relena-uniform.png)
(http://www.fuunsaiki.com/cosplayguide/zechs.png)(http://www.fuunsaiki.com/cosplayguide/noin.png)
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I can only hope that those Victrix miniatures will be compatible with other existing 28 mm napoleonic lines. As here are the same people involved as at Valiant Miniatures, namely Julian Blakeney-Edwards and Stephen Hales, I'm a bit concerned about compatibility. The WW2 plastics are very nice sets indeed, but so big that they won't fit into any other 20 mm range ... That has lead to a lot of disappointed collectors and gamers and much angry comments on the web.
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Why dont you ask them, they are very good at replying to any questions.
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Hi all
Latests news from Victrix, plus first pictures of the French.
Also first pictures of mounted British Generals and Colonels by the talented Paul Hicks
www.victrixltd.com/news_1.php
cheers
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The officers look nice and the French muskets look much better than the oversized ones the Brits are lugging around.
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Hi all and Admiral Benbow
I got in touch with Steve of Victrix regarding the concern about compatibility of Victrix with other ranges.
This is Steve's reply:-
Hi Gary,
One of the things we thought was very important to do was to make sure the
figures were compatible in size and bulk with an existing metal range. The
figures are 28mm to the eye and are compatible in size and bulk with Perry
Miniatures, Eagle miniatures and probably the new Alban miniatures although
I don’t have them in my possession at present, they look of more naturalistic
Proportions.
Hope that helps?
Very best regards,
Steve.
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Gosh - lovely stuff.
Are those horses by you too Mr Hicks? They look really excellent.
Bit of a shame that there's a great big delay announcement though... These new plastics ventures do seem to be having their fair share of teething troubles with 'tooling' and injecting... :(
By God, I am weakening fast in the face of these. They look so damned good. I vowed I'd never touch Napoleonics ever again back in about 1985!
But these... These look appealing in a way the recent plastic Roman and ACW offerings just didn't. They look substantial. They look proper. They look... Irresistible dammit! o_o
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I have to admit that the French muskets look more in proportion than the British versions. Specially after comparing the pictures in the British gallery and the French photos, the musket butt looks almost twice the size. :o
Any thoughts on the French shako, too wide at the top?
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OOH me likey very much
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Any thoughts on the French shako, too wide at the top?
I wasn't sure if they really flared out that much or if it was a trick of the eye caused by the photo angle.
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They are Ebob horses.
Paul
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Well they're jolly good, and set your riders off a treat. Lovely.
On the musket front, I have been in a few erm.. events and theatrical productions in which we have had cause to run around with replica Brown Bess muskets, and I can tell you from first hand experience they are bloody huge - not nice neat, well-proportioned things like modern rifles.
Those Victrix British muskets don't look out of proportion to me.
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I've handled and fired a fair few originals and repros myself. It could just be the photos I have seen, but they just looked too thick to me. Not enough to put me off of them though.
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I am not complaining if the musket too thick or not, just want to get my hands on them as soon as possible!
Not so sure about the French shako, but like everything we are seeing here, its just photos and maybe trick of the light.
The Horses are Ebob?
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Well they're jolly good, and set your riders off a treat. Lovely.
On the musket front, I have been in a few erm.. events and theatrical productions in which we have had cause to run around with replica Brown Bess muskets, and I can tell you from first hand experience they are bloody huge - not nice neat, well-proportioned things like modern rifles.
Those Victrix British muskets don't look out of proportion to me.
I agree I did have an indian parttern one that sat over the mentlepiece for a long time, big heavy beasts
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A little note to say that Victrix has now included the British Flank Companies for both the Peninsular and Waterloo wars.
http://www.victrixlimited.co.uk/online_shop/index.php?
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Hmmm. Speaking as someone who hasn't played Napoleonics for 20 years - and has no intention of starting again, despite the admitted appeal of what Victrix are doing - can somebody please remind me as to the difference between British flank and centre companies?
Much as I like the product, it seems peculiar to go to all the trouble of making 4 variant sets of what are basically, bog standard British Napoleonic infantry ???
(I'm guessing one sort had furry epaulettes and a longer tassle on the shako, or something equally unimportant to all but the purest purist?)
I'm sure a lot of people will find the accuracy laudable, but reading the Victrix statement in Gary's other post, about how very costly it is to produce plastic sets, and the very high sales volume required to achieve a return, I really do wonder why they started out down this route of tooling 4 different sets of a basically similar product when they could have just pressed ahead with one box of British infantry, and - ooh, I dunno... French infantry?
Just a bit odd...
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Hmmm. Speaking as someone who hasn't played Napoleonics for 20 years - and has no intention of starting again, despite the admitted appeal of what Victrix are doing - can somebody please remind me as to the difference between British flank and centre companies?
Much as I like the product, it seems peculiar to go to all the trouble of making 4 variant sets of what are basically, bog standard British Napoleonic infantry ???
(I'm guessing one sort had furry epaulettes and a longer tassle on the shako, or something equally unimportant to all but the purest purist?)
I'm sure a lot of people will find the accuracy laudable, but reading the Victrix statement in Gary's other post, about how very costly it is to produce plastic sets, and the very high sales volume required to achieve a return, I really do wonder why they started out down this route of tooling 4 different sets of a basically similar product when they could have just pressed ahead with one box of British infantry, and - ooh, I dunno... French infantry?
YOu must know how anal some Napoleonics gamers can be :D one wore Belgic whilst the others wore stove pipe. I am assuming that the tooling would be limited for the different sets possibly heads etc.
Just a bit odd...
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The flank companies have a sort of 'wing' on the shoulders instead of a coloured epaulette with a furry edge (apart from that, there may be some equipment differences, but I don't know).
The biggest difference between the pre-1815, and the Waterloo uniform is the shako. Could easily have been included as an optional piece...??
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I had thought that the flank companies would come in skirmish and assault poses. if not it does seem a bit silly as they could have just done a sprue of "wings".
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I had thought that the flank companies would come in skirmish and assault poses. if not it does seem a bit silly as they could have just done a sprue of "wings".
They could have done that anyway - a skirmish pose is essentially just a firing, or a loading pose. Remember, that rarely the entire company would be skirmishing at any particular time.
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True, but I am thinking of it from my biased "Sharp Practice" and "Song of Drums and Shakos" skirmish game point of view. I want maximum pose variety for that stuff.
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What'd like to see in plastic are the earlier (1790's-1806-ish) French in long tailed coats and bicorns and their Austrian opponents.
While the Brits and later French from both Victrix and Perry are excellent they are already well represeneted by at least a dozen manufacturers in metal. Now I know that kicking off a new range in plastic is probably at this particular time a bit of a risk, but I'd have thought that plastic would have been the ideal way to capture the irregular feel of that earlier period and at the same time tap into the period of some of nappy's greatest victories.
Similarly the Austrians - France's implacable foe.
And finally..
Is anyone looking at 28mm WW1 plastics?? given the quantity of figures required for something like Warhammer Great War and the simplicity of uniforms compared with Napoleonics I'd have thought this was a sure thing...
Keep up the good work tho - its always good to see well designed figures in any period.
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Eureka have the early French covered and are working on the Austrians. Not as cheap as plastic, I know, but well worth the expense IMO. I bought the "one-of-everything" deal at Fall In and I love them.
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The 3 up galley from Victrix is up and now showing photos of the French Infantry, which as I understand is a box of 60 figures with fusiliers, voltigeurs and grenadiers. And a choice of bicornes bearskins for early French and belltop shakos and bearskins for the later French. As well as infantry this will include Officers, NCOs' Drummers, Horn player, Porte Aigle, Eagle bearers and Porte Fanion.
http://www.victrixlimited.com/3-up_gallery/index.php?
Intesting enough, but why didnt they do the same for the British Infantry instead of putting Flank and Centre companies in separate boxes? :?
I plan to use most of the Victrix flank figures for Light regiments as Victrix states that they will plan to release Light Infantry heads (stove pipe shako).
Perry are expecting to release the British Infantry as well, but their set will include shakos for both the Peninsular and Waterloo eras. Also will include Riflemen! :P
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I've got 72 Crusader and Front Rank French infantry which is more than enough for Sharp practice, but I suspect I will fail my discipline check and grab a box of these also.
Actually if they aren't too out of scale with my Eureka early French I may grab a few boxes...