New Gripping Beast plastics: Dark Age Cavalry

[Codsticker]

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.

I would agree with that.

[Tonhel]

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.

That's true, but on the other hand the plastic War of the Roses range from the Perry brothers appealed to both type of gamers. Thus it is certainly possibly to make a plastic set that appeals to both type of gamers.

[moiterei_1984]

The only obvious thing that appears to be missing is swords in scabbards

It‘s not only missing swords in scabbards but scabbards in general. The two (possible) guys per sprue wielding a sword would want to put it away at some point too I guess.

[AdamPHayes]

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.

Interesting idea but doesn’t really hang together.  There is a difference between a set with lots of choices and one that is unnecessarily complex due to each figure being made up of lots of parts. Lots of choices but simple assembly shouldn’t be that difficult to design. Well thought out instruction sheet should cover most of it. The simpler explanation is that the manufacturer is just being cheapskate.

[janner]

Interesting idea but doesn’t really hang together.  There is a difference between a set with lots of choices and one that is unnecessarily complex due to each figure being made up of lots of parts. Lots of choices but simple assembly shouldn’t be that difficult to design. Well thought out instruction sheet should cover most of it. The simpler explanation is that the manufacturer is just being cheapskate.

That does not follow, costs in plastic production are predominantly in the set-up phase. From what I understand, there is not a significant difference in cost to adding spare items to a sprue. It is however, much quicker to develop less complex sprues, which meant these will have reached market in time for Black Friday...

[Nord]

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.

It's a bit simplistic to define gamers like this. I play Saga, it's a skirmish game, one box would probably suffice for all my needs. I am not collecting a big army, nor am I kitbashing. I suspect I am not the only gamer that fits this "category", Saga is a popular system.

[Munindk]

This is of course in relation to plastic kits. There are lots of gamers who prefer metal or resin and wont even consider plastic kits. There's also gamers that use both, but care more about the models details than the cost, so they pick and choose their models from different metal and plastic supplier.

Maybe the Saga gamers who like (or prefer?) plastic kits could be split up into 2 types that corresponds with Diablos?

Saga gamers that just wants a quick unit of cavalry and doesnt care too much about the details = "Big armies cheap".
Saga gamers who wants their models to be very historically accurate and is willing to convert the models to get them that way = "Kitbasher".

[Captain Blood]

I think most of what people are saying is probably right - it's a mixture of both factors.

1. GB are focused on the mass market for wargamers who just want to get units onto the tabletop fast and at a relatively low cost. They're not bothered about the modellers, converters and kitbashers, because it's a niche market.
2. They are also trying to do it on the cheap though, to get the maximum return. The smaller the number of components they include, the lower the sculpting costs and the simpler the frame. Presumably that means simpler tooling, which must also mean less time and so lower costs again.
So instead of having a frame full of rider bodies and components plus a separate horse frame (which is what the other plastics companies have done with their cavalry sets), here everything is put onto just the one frame.

But it still costs 22 quid though.

So I suppose, at the end of the day, my objection probably comes down to the simple fact that (for both the above reasons) Gripping Beast are providing a lot less variety of product - and yet charging more or less the same amount of money charged by other plastics manufacturers.  Which doesn't sit right with me. But then most people won't worry too much about the principle of it. They'll just buy them if they like them. As I probably will - so who am I to complain? 

[delbruck]

Except for the missing scabbards the dark age cavalry box looks fairly decent to me, although I am not sure if I will like the change in right arm configuration. An example of a badly designed box is the the late Romans. Two archers (out of five figures) in the same pose is absurd. Designing one of the archer figures to be posable as a loading archer, or a standing spearman/swordsmen would have been the logical choice.  In addition, the box needs (at least) a couple extra heads without helmet (cap or bareheaded). I have no idea how much my changes would have cost, but I can't believe it would have been that much money. And I don't think having one figure without arms would have added that much extra work for those doing massed armies.

Making a plastic box designed for mass armies doesn't mean you gave to eliminate options altogether.

[aircav]

This discussion makes me laugh, we finally get some plastic dark age cavalry & people arent happy, when we didnt have any people wernt happy  

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Looking through some sprues, it's actually surprisingly similar to the Conquest Games Norman cavalry. Horses on the sprue, choice of two types of shields, choice of hand weapons or pointy sticks. Gripping Beast doesn't have a seperate command sprue (although most things on it mirror the normal one I think), but has a few more head options.

With the more limited options than hoped for, I'm now just looking at getting one rather than two sets. Perhaps a second one will follow if it proves interesting enough.

EDIT: Armoured Roman cav apparently next year. That does change the plans for what to make of these a bit...

EDIT EDIT: Another picture of painted ones. They certainly don't look half bad.

[Captain Blood]

I agree - they don’t look half bad 
I’ll be kitbashing them with all sorts of bits anyway.

[Duncan McDane]

They look quite dynamic, but not too exaggerated, which is a good thing in my book. 

[Nord]

I agree too, they are not bad, which is about as much as you can expect from GB.

It makes me laugh when gamers are prepared to accept sub-standard products and come up with all kinds of reasons why we should do so - we are spoilt, they were not available once and now they are so be grateful, they can be enhanced with extra bits, etc. All this does is send a message back to the company - keep producing mediocre stuff, we will buy it, don't bother trying to improve.

[Captain Blood]

I agree too, they are not bad, which is about as much as you can expect from GB.

It makes me laugh when gamers are prepared to accept sub-standard products and come up with all kinds of reasons why we should do so - we are spoilt, they were not available once and now they are so be grateful, they can be enhanced with extra bits, etc. All this does is send a message back to the company - keep producing mediocre stuff, we will buy it, don't bother trying to improve.

Yep. I am so with you on that.
I find the ‘we must be grateful and uncritical’ mindset peculiar. But.a lot of wargamers seem to share it. This quality of figures in this set looks quite good to me compared with one or two of GB’s other recent offerings. But it is still near minimal in terms of components and adaptability, and yet they’re still charging the full going rate for a box of plastic figures. Well, if people just accept it, they’ll just keep on doing it.
It would be nice to think that some of the flak they took over the archers set may have made them raise their game a little bit with this set...