New plastic Byzantines

[Lord Ekard]

Ok, great. Some more pictures?

Not at the moment, you can follow the Fireforge FB page to check them ad soon ad we will publish

[Koppi]

Really great news. I sold my Crusader byzantines years ago. The plastics are A MUST HAVE for me.

[Condottiere]

Looks like they based those two sculpts on the outdated and inaccurate Ian Heath's Osprey...

The lamellar on the figure on the left is wrong and doesn't even look Byzantine...

Pick up Dawson's Ospreys or even his Armour Never Wearies Scale and Lamellar Armour in the West, from the Bronze Age to the 19th Century for a good idea on how lamellar is worn on the body.

While pteruges are a possibility, by this time the upper arms and below the waist would've been protected by mail, scale or inverted lamellar. One could differentiate in the art by looking at whether the pteruges are stiff or not. 

[FierceKitty]

Byzantines - my favourite medieval armies.

[tomrommel1]

They shout Dorne to me too!

[jamesmanto]

Oooh!
I can see these making some very nice Men of Gondor.
 

Thinking the same thing! 

[ErikB]

Cool!

[Khurasan Miniatures]

Hmmm. They're not really blowing my skirt up, although the slightly disturbing paintjob on those eyes possibly doesn't help.

Is there likely to be enough interest in Byzantines to financially justify this set? I guess only time will tell.

I can't tell which Byzantines these are because the image is blocked where I work (I just get a black x), but I can tell you my Byzantine range is one of the bestselling "ancients" ranges I make, so yes Byzantines are definitely popular.

[ErikB]

Hold on, I'm confused.  Is this range from Fireforge or from Khursan?  Or made by Khursan and marketed by Fireforge?

This all seems quite Byzantine to me....

[Condottiere]

Hold on, I'm confused.  Is this range from Fireforge or from Khursan?  Or made by Khursan and marketed by Fireforge?

This all seems quite Byzantine to me....

The 28mm+ sized range is from Fireforge, while Khursan is peddling his 15mm wares...

[ErikB]

Those Khursan ones look pretty good to me, too.

[Koyote]

Hope you will like them

I think that these models look great and I'm excited to see a new line of Byzantines.  I just hope Fireforge sticks to plastics and metals and stops making models out of that resin-like stuff that's similar to Games Workshop's infamous 'Finecast' material.

I bought 3 packs of Fireforge's Chernyeklobuki cavalry, which are made from Fireforge's Finecast-like material.  The plastic horses are great, like so many of their products, but the "Finecast" riders were complete garbage.  The models were malformed, the mold lines were massive, and they were pocked all over with air bubbles.  It took me quite some time with my hobby knife and green stuff to make the models presentable.  By the time I was done with them, I was so disgusted with them that I abandoned my Rus Princes project and put my mutant Russ riders on a shelf to gather dust.  It's hard to believe that anyone would let casts of such poor quality out the door.

Later, I purchased a pack of Fireforge Russian City Militia to use as Kislevs for a Mordheim warband.  They are also made from the Finecast-like material.  These models were better than the Chernyeklobuki, but not by much.

[Ninefingers]

I bought 3 packs of Fireforge's Chernyeklobuki cavalry, which are made from Fireforge's Finecast-like material.  The plastic horses are great, like so many of their products, but the "Finecast" riders were complete garbage.  The models were malformed, the mold lines were massive, and they were pocked all over with air bubbles.  It took me quite some time with my hobby knife and green stuff to make the models presentable.  By the time I was done with them, I was so disgusted with them that I abandoned my Rus Princes project and put my mutant Russ riders on a shelf to gather dust.  It's hard to believe that anyone would let casts of such poor quality out the door.

Why didn't you send them back for a refund/replacement?

[armchairgeneral]

It might be the photo but the shoulder joint on the chap on the left looks a bit dodgy.

I have the Dawson Ospreys which are very good. They suggest turbans were common place in the Byzantine army. Given the vastness of the Empire I wonder how much uniformity there would be between the various Thema. Add the to that the large number of mercenaries employed with their own styles of dress and weapons. Maybe lots of head and different armoured torso options would be good to incorporate in the set at per the Perry plastics?

I appreciate it is tricky though for figure designers whi are required to come up with something Byzantine looking to align with people's perceptions of this.

[Maxromek]

For those who don't have access to the Osprey books, Timothy Dawson has an excellent website as well.
http://www.levantia.com.au/

The models actually look pretty good, especially compared to FF Russians, Swedish and archers. I may even get a box at some point.