Photo Review Gripping Beast Late Roman Heavy Cavalry

 

cover art, nicely done, good painting ideas 

except that the silver-faced helmet was used only for games and exercises, not battle

     I now these have been around a while now, but I finally got a chance to open up the box and start on building them. While I was doing that I thought I would do a quick photo review of the models for anyone that hasn't seen them in the flesh (er....plastic?). 

 

the back box art

 

the contents  

my new LED lamp turned the standard gray plastic an odd olive color

 

sprue, Side A 

plenty of weapon options and a nice vexillium

 

sprue Side B

 

 

a nice selection of heads and shields

 

detail is up to the usual high standard

 

the horses are well detailed and, once assembled, 

are sturdy enough to survive wargaming without problems

 

I do love that they went to the trouble to add little details to the back of the shields, 

to most gamers this is a meaningless little thing but I love that sort of attention to detail

     After I snapped these pictures I began assembling the models. As I did so I was overcome with a sense of deja-vu, that I had seen all of these guys before. I dug out my Gripping Beast Dark Ages Cavalry and saw that this set is almost an exact match. They simply replaced the heads and riders with slightly different sculpts, to the point that the riders poses were identical. The horses and weapons were left entirely unchanged. I understand why they did this; why re-invent the wheel, save costs etc. etc...... but I did feel more than slightly let down. They had a chance to make this a truly useful set by providing different horses and riders and giving the gamer a chance to create some really unique figures. That being said these are still excellent figures, well detailed and realistically posed and proportioned and are a very cost-effective alternative to metal models.

     Very Highly Recommended.