Perry HYW Plastic Sets Update

[Digitarii]

B. The one guy in the mini-mumu/pregnancy dress. Seriously.....I shall call him Sir Cas Ualty.

Actually, the example with the visor in place and holding the polearm across the body looks pretty good and less of the mini-mumu effect you describe.

[NurgleHH]

Still drooling...

It is a shame when the perrys missed to send you a pre-sprue for experiments. In your hands this plastic would become wargames gold...

[RedRowan]

Given how versatile these new sets are, especially when combined with the earlier box, I am very much looking forward to see what Alan does for the mounted men at arms.

One of the things I always like about the Perry medieval box sets are all the options you have when putting together the figures. For this period though, where the head is already attached to the body due to the design of the bascinet, it limits the options somewhat. Then there is the fact that the French mainly fought in covered armour while the English tended to use the uncovered ‘white’ armour. The usual four figures on the frame could therefore end up lacking a little variety so I am very interested to see how Alan tackles that.

Personally, I would love to see maybe six figures on the frame with two of them in ‘white’ armour. Then, further down the line, if these sets sell as well as their other medieval sets, it would be nice to maybe see a box for mounted sergeants with options to build them as mounted archers and crossbowmen etc. like they did for the Light Cavalry set. In any case, for those enjoy the medieval period, and especially those who like converting miniatures, it’s a great time to be a wargamer.  

Steve

[Captain Blood]

It is a shame when the perrys missed to send you a pre-sprue for experiments. In your hands this plastic would become wargames gold...

Haha. You're too kind
Think I was just lucky to get that advance light cavalry frame at Tactica last year

You can cut the moulded-on heads off - I've done it on a couple of the English HYW knights. But I agree compared to the WOTR sets, it does make them a little bit less flexble. But it's a small price to pay for such all-consuming loveliness 

[affun]

Excellent miniatures.

And I have started looking at the numbers.
Looking att Lions Rampant you got a sprue perfect for a unit of Men att arms. The you get 3 sprues of 12 men. Coinsidence?
Of this you can get a unit of crossbowmen and even uppgradera them with pavise. You then get miniatures left for maybe serjants and could uppgrade one to offensive.
Im just toying with the miniatures and the layout but it seems to fall a few points from an full 24 Lions Rampant army in one box.

Nah
1 Unit of Foot Knights @ 6 pts
2 Units of Expert Foot Serjeants @ 2*6 pts
1 Unit of Pavised Crossbow @ 6 pts.
24 pts total

Granted, its an elite army, but you could always downgrade the Expert Foot to regular foot and then add a unit of Mounted Serjeants later.
It goes well with the british army box, which can be build similarly (2 x foot knights and 2 x elite bow). Should give a great game.

[Charlie_]

I haven't cut any heads off my English men at arms.... But what I have done is cut the torso off at the waist, and replaced it with 'headless torsos' cut from the WOTR foot knight set. I plan to try the same with some of these French men at arms. Effectively it allows you to put WOTR era heads on them, or treat them as just a new pair of interesting legs for your WOTR builds.

 Like this...

[Arlequín]

It goes well with the british army box...

You mean 'English' surely. A small detail but important to some of us. 

Nevertheless you are correct. I'm sure it's a coincidence but barring the 'specialist' boxes, there is seemingly always a whole Lion Rampant force within each box, WotR or earlier. No real flexibility of course but at the price I'd stretch to an extra box or two to get that.

Not my period, but an excellent array of figures nonetheless... happy faces all round I would think. 

[fantail]

These look great and I will be sure to pick some up at some point but my only complaint(minor) is that all the two handed axe men are holding the axe the way a left hander would. I am certainly no expert on medieval weapon handling but I have chopped wood. The WOTR foot Knights didn't have this issue.
Like I said, only minor but still odd.

[affun]

You mean 'English' surely. A small detail but important to some of us. 

Nevertheless you are correct. I'm sure it's a coincidence but barring the 'specialist' boxes, there is seemingly always a whole Lion Rampant force within each box, WotR or earlier. No real flexibility of course but at the price I'd stretch to an extra box or two to get that.

Not my period, but an excellent array of figures nonetheless... happy faces all round I would think. 

Woops, you are entirely correct  And I've even been reading up on this exact thing just yesterday.

Indeed - I am considering this box for my Rampant army, but am actually daunted by how much stuff is in it. Not sure I'd ever get it painted.
That is a sign of good value, though.

[Captain Blood]

You mean 'English' surely. A small detail but important to some of us. 

Ex-pats are the most picky about these things 

I think it may have been an English and Welsh army in fact?
Or are you going to tell me, Jim, that the notion of Welsh devotees of the longbow being an important part of HYW armies is pure myth, propagated by Shakespeare and his Captain Fluellen. (Bearing in mind Shakespeare had a strong incentive to play up the contribution of Welsh arms to England's glorious martial history, given the origins of a certain dynasty... )

[Arlequín]

Something like that. I did consider I sounded like a rabid nationalist after I posted it too, which of course I'm not.  

Actually Wales was more famed for its spearmen, there were surprisingly few Welsh archers in comparison. Those they had originally used the longbow as a weapon from ambush at very close range... which is guaranteed to put a crimp in anyone's step, noble or commoner. I could be wrong but it was the English who took it and employed it as a weapon of mass over-estimation.    

When the French and Spanish are having a moan though, they always say 'les Anglais' or 'los ingles', never 'les Gallois' or 'el galés', so I'm just following general fashion by ignoring their contribution.

 

[Captain Blood]

Phnarrr. Someone will be along to berate you shortly for that, I feel sure... 

[jauntyharrison]

These look great and I will be sure to pick some up at some point but my only complaint(minor) is that all the two handed axe men are holding the axe the way a left hander would. I am certainly no expert on medieval weapon handling but I have chopped wood. The WOTR foot Knights didn't have this issue.
Like I said, only minor but still odd.

The axes don't bother me quite so much, because I've seen fechtbücher that depict shifting from a right over left grip to a left over right grip when using a pollaxe,

The top left figure here
http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/1/1e/MS_Ludwig_XV_13_35v.jpg/1024px-MS_Ludwig_XV_13_35v.jpg

One of the bottom right pair here
http://wiktenauer.com/images/thumb/3/39/MS_Ludwig_XV_13_36v.jpg/1024px-MS_Ludwig_XV_13_36v.jpg

Of course I would prefer to have both orientations depicted, but it's not as frustrating as the fact that the only longsword wielder on the sprue is undeniably a left handed man.

[Arlequín]

Apparently left-handed fencers are quantifiably quicker than right-handed ones... random fact. Bow down before our superiority.     

[Modhail]

That's because one has to be more dextrous when you're sinister...
You need to be more agile when everything in the world is mounted the wrong way round.

As far as I'm concerned these can't be released soon enough. Lovely kit, I hope the cavalry follows soon...