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Author Topic: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry  (Read 9750 times)

Offline tyrionhalfman

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Offline AWu

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #31 on: November 12, 2017, 08:59:03 PM »

Good old History Channel...  ;D

At last there were no aliens or Aliens Guy present..
We should cherish small things..

Offline Codsticker

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #32 on: November 12, 2017, 09:08:46 PM »
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.
Maybe we will see that in the rumoured Gothic cavalry box set.

Quote
BTW, can anyone tell me how Westwind heads fit on GB plastics?
They match up well. Some of the heads are a little large and the sculpting a little coarse but they worked just fine.

Offline AdamPHayes

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #33 on: November 12, 2017, 11:24:00 PM »
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!

Aha ha! Well done, nice comedy turn. I almost fell for it. 😀

I just hope that the heads shown on the box art are included on the sprue. The there will be at least a few helmets that aren’t bizarre...

Offline Munindk

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #34 on: November 13, 2017, 08:19:31 AM »
These look like decent dark ages cavalry to me.

I've no plans to assemble with bits just from their own box mind you. I've sort of come to assume that plastic kits are ment to be kitbashed. A few heads, torsos and weapons from the other GB kits and they'll be fine :)

Online Battle Brush Sigur

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #35 on: November 13, 2017, 03:00:54 PM »
God discussion here, I appreciate it. :)

The minis look perfectly fine. Along the lines of earlier GB Dark Age plastics. The problem with plastics of  course will always be that they have to sell a TON of them to make it worthwhile, hence the generic look. Anything specific will probably look out of place. Granted, sometimes it's rather surprising which kind of stuff the sculptors go with if they add a little specific thing. But it's just a handful of heads out of the whole box. So it's cool I'm sure.

I love how they do unarmoured cavalry first. 80% of times minis on the table top are too heavily armoured anyway. However, my main gripe with GB miins stands - very, very few to no cloaks at all. That I think is something they should either sell as a spearate plastic sprue (because that'd work I'm rather sure) or just have them in the boxes to begin with.

Online aircav

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #36 on: November 15, 2017, 01:51:22 AM »
There should be some sprue pictures out today  :D

Offline delbruck

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #37 on: November 15, 2017, 01:10:30 PM »
The sprue pictures are up, although kind of dark. It looks like three horses, three riders, eight heads, four spears, two swords, two axes, one draco, one separate plume; and three oval and three round shields per sprue
« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 01:14:30 PM by delbruck »

Offline Captain Blood

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #38 on: November 15, 2017, 01:30:55 PM »
Hmmm. Pretty minimal again then. Oh well... This seems to be the strategy Gripping Beast have settled on for their plastic sets: Include the bare minimum of components to let gamers build basic units quickly but with little variety. Fair enough. I'm sure there's a market for it. Not what I'm looking for I must admit, and as with the archers set, it seems something of a betrayal of the potential of historical plastics to create parts for (relatively) inexpensive and endlessly flexible model figures. But there you go. That's the route they've decided on, and they clearly know their market. The models themselves don't look bad in this case, so I'm sure I'll venture a set...  :)

Offline Nord

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #39 on: November 15, 2017, 02:42:20 PM »
Lightened the picture a little, its still too small to see details.....


Offline delbruck

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #40 on: November 15, 2017, 03:39:15 PM »
Gripping Beast's original Thegn and Hirdmen boxes had a lot of extras. All their releases since then have had minimal extras. With 8 heads and 6 shields (for 3 figures) I have to say this appears to be their best release in quite some time. The only obvious thing that appears to be missing is swords in scabbards. Clearly, anyone doing dark age late Romans or barbarians using GB plastics needs to get a box of thegns.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2017, 09:24:11 PM by delbruck »

Offline Coenus Scaldingus

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #41 on: November 15, 2017, 04:48:43 PM »
The first pics made me think the set would be like the seemingly unappreciated (or perhaps simply less well known) Arab Cavalry sets, which it sadly isn't quite. Glad to see 8 head options, enough oval and round shields for all, nor is the weapon variety terrible, but it's still a bit underwhelming. The arms don't match previous sets making it a bit more effort to combine them, although thankfully the left arms aren't fixed to the bodies either making any switches and repositioning a lot easier. Having every three figures in roughly the same pose is a pity though, but overall it is nothing like 'those archers' and allows for more variation than the Late Romans too.
~Ad finem temporum~

Offline Diablo Jon

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #42 on: November 15, 2017, 06:58:15 PM »
Hmmm. Pretty minimal again then. Oh well... This seems to be the strategy Gripping Beast have settled on for their plastic sets: Include the bare minimum of components to let gamers build basic units quickly but with little variety. Fair enough. I'm sure there's a market for it. Not what I'm looking for I must admit, and as with the archers set, it seems something of a betrayal of the potential of historical plastics to create parts for (relatively) inexpensive and endlessly flexible model figures. But there you go. That's the route they've decided on, and they clearly know their market. The models themselves don't look bad in this case, so I'm sure I'll venture a set...  :)

 I think there are two types of gamers who like plastics the "Big armies cheap" and the "Kitbashers". If you are the former minimal poses and components are a bonus because when you trying to put several hundred figures together who wants loads of separate pieces? Of course if you are a "KitBasher", and you clearly are, then the more bits and poses the better. It must be quite hard as a manufacturer to know which way to jump but my gut feeling is the "Big armies cheap" guys are going to buy a lot more box sets in the long run, than a guy looking for conversion fodder, which is why GB goes the way they do.

Offline Munindk

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #43 on: November 15, 2017, 07:16:44 PM »
I honestly hadnt thought about it that way Diablo Jon, but your arguments make a lot of sense :)

Online aircav

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Re: New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry
« Reply #44 on: November 15, 2017, 07:19:08 PM »
I still like the look of these  :D :D

 

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