Review of Gripping Beast's heavy cavalry set (plastic)

[braxenk]

Hi there,

just received my box and was happy to put online a review of what I would have liked to see before my purchase.



Gripping beast on the left - Fireforge on the right. height difference is mainly due to the bases







I put a bit more detail on my blog but the hang of it is that I like the set
http://sixtwentyeight.blogspot.com/2015/05/28mm-gripping-beast-plastic-arab-heavy.html


If anyone has received the plastic Arab light cavalry set, I'd be happy to hear about.

thanks a lot
Brax

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Thank-you for the review.
The set looks to be very useful.

Do you think that you could mix in parts from the Fireforge mongol light cavalry to get more variety of horse poses?

[monkeylite]

Thanks. That actually looks remarkably similar to the light cavalry set. istm, the only real difference (apart from a couple of arms) are the torsos and the heads.

[Paint Pig]

Yeah good review mate left a msg on your blog, I noticed your eyeing off Saxon minis too     they look stunning, I have this feeling the sculptor has had a connection with GB by the looks of the figures. I ordered the warlord deal and cant wait for the bondi and huscarls to come out

[braxenk]

thanks for the comments. I have tried to write up a review that I would have liked to read actually.

I'm supposed to received the Fireforge Mongols in a week (or two) and will be able to check the horses. I am planning  to convert them to light arab cavalry with some GB heads. I saw the results and it looks suprisingly good.

[WillieB]

Yeah good review mate left a msg on your blog, I noticed your eyeing off Saxon minis too     they look stunning, I have this feeling the sculptor has had a connection with GB by the looks of the figures. I ordered the warlord deal and cant wait for the bondi and huscarls to come out

Quite right, you've got a keen eye. Saxon Miniatures are sculpted by Colin Patten, the original owner of GB. And they are simply beautiful!

[Bone]

@braxenk -I like your review- thank you

Fireforge Mongols and GB Arab Cav pieces are interchangeable - GB heads are a bit bigger - lower bodys/legs are a bit smaller/finer/filigree in  comparison.
When I opened my GB boxes, my first impression was: they are from the same mold -when I checked with a FF sprue i saw the tiny differences.

[Engel]

Thanks for a great review.

[midismirnoff]

Hi all, I've done myself that headswap some time ago, and it works fine.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1945;sa=showPosts

As for the heavy cav, I was too surprised by the heads, the really don't look quite arab to me. They have a nice oriental vibe, but I would say something northern than arab. Maybe something Slav or Rus, Magyar Bulgar... Oh well you got the idea

[braxenk]

Hi all, I've done myself that headswap some time ago, and it works fine.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1945;sa=showPosts

As for the heavy cav, I was too surprised by the heads, the really don't look quite arab to me. They have a nice oriental vibe, but I would say something northern than arab. Maybe something Slav or Rus, Magyar Bulgar... Oh well you got the idea

Thanks Midismirnoff.

I think your comment on the heads is spot on Slav/Rus/Magyar Bulgar. Something north of Turkey.

I will wait for the plastic infantry to add more Arab looking heads

[le bon roi rene]

As luke warm as I tend to be about the Fireforge equestrian models, I think I like their horses better than the GB ones. The Gripping Beast horses look too much like giraffes.

[Paint Pig]

Quite right, you've got a keen eye. Saxon Miniatures are sculpted by Colin Patten, the original owner of GB. And they are simply beautiful!

Ahh that would be it then, surprisingly it was the sculpting of the accoutrement that gave the game away. I'm in the middle of painting 60 odd GB figures and you tend to notice these things 

[Captain Blood]

As luke warm as I tend to be about the Fireforge equestrian models, I think I like their horses better than the GB ones. The Gripping Beast horses look too much like giraffes.

+1

The Fireforge horses aren't great - the bodies are okay, but the heads are not.

The GB horses look dreadful.
Still, they seem to be proving popular... 

[Longstrider]

Thanks Midismirnoff.

I think your comment on the heads is spot on Slav/Rus/Magyar Bulgar. Something north of Turkey.

I will wait for the plastic infantry to add more Arab looking heads

They also reminded me of something along those lines, but for hundreds of years southeastern Europe and Eurasia had contact and trade (and plenty of war) between Arabs, Slavs, Turks, Iranians, and lots of people influenced by all of those, so I quite liked the the sort of nebulously-placed looks of a lot of the heads on the sprue.

I think it's quite nice, in that if you're doing a larger project in plastics you'll have lots of heads to push them more in this or that direction. I was half tempted to see if I could justify them as Byzantine horse for the Saga era. Of course part of all is that basically my zone for "good enough" is much bigger when it comes to anything before the 1700s and outside of western Europe, so hey.