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Primarily a metal manufacturer, GB has done 1 and is doing another plastic set (first is vikings, and now saxons). Not the most detailed of kits but if you need bodies.

GBP02 Saxon Thegns PREORDER + FREE FIGURE
Released on 24th January 2011. Preorders will ship before this date and include a FREE Limited Edition metal Thegn sculpted by Bill Musketeer Thornhill.
The box contains parts for 44 spear armed Thegns although there are some extra sword and hand-axe arms too. The set also includes extra parts to convert up to two of your warriors into Saxon Lords and up to two into horn blowers. The set also includes two dracos and the instructions include 2 full-colour paper banners to attach to spear-armed warriors.
Included in the box is a sprue of plastic bases to mount all 44 of your figures. £ 20.00

No sprue pics yet

Looks cool as a massed shield wall, so I'd say the apparent lack of detail is entirely moot!

If only I played Historicals!

Mr Mystery wrote:Looks cool as a massed shield wall, so I'd say the apparent lack of detail is entirely moot!

If only I played Historicals!

LACK OF DETAIL!!!! That is how we know you don't play historicals because these are actually spot on to what they wore back then. Too manyh people think historicals should be like GW but then that would defeat the point of them being idk "historically acurate"! Statements like that just annoy me is all because people think every model needs to have 150 skulls and purity seals on it for it to be good.

Empchild wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Looks cool as a massed shield wall, so I'd say the apparent lack of detail is entirely moot!

If only I played Historicals!

LACK OF DETAIL!!!! That is how we know you don't play historicals because these are actually spot on to what they wore back then. Too manyh people think historicals should be like GW but then that would defeat the point of them being idk "historically acurate"! Statements like that just annoy me is all because people think every model needs to have 150 skulls and purity seals on it for it to be good.

Umm what? I was referring that the details arent as sharp as say Perry. Historical Plastics are usually not as well defined as their fantasy/sci fi counterparts aside from those manufactures that have been in the plastic making business for a while

I dont mind them, its just that I warn people ahead of time becuase usually these sort of news reports catch people unaware that not everyone can do GW quality

Calm down. And I think when Mystery said about the lack of detail, it is not because the miniatures don't have as you say "150 skulls and purity seals" but because the miniatures don't stand up to the high quality sculpts that people have become accustomed too. Manufacturers such as GW, Privateer press, and Mantic Games release such a high standard, people who are used to their miniatures will find that these alternative companies (Of which I have nothing against) seem to have substandard miniatures.

All a point of perspective.

44 figures for £20 is a great buy even if the casting isn't as crisp, for want of a different word to "detail".

These companies use the same sculptors, and Gripping Beast is far from... mm alternative. Very good company overall, but when it comes to plastics, I don't think people realize how expensive a plastic mould really is. The perrys use the same casting services believe me, but the best one overall (in many opinons) in Europe is Griffin Studios. Many companies can't affoard these guys because with historicals you are having to push out a lot of models. Fantasy can be more expensive because they know people aren't going to need as many for a game. Hence they can charge more, and recieve higher propfits to put into top of the line casting equip. If I sell a figure lets just say a metal one, for $1.70 out of that I need to cover the initial costs of the sculpt, the master mouldning, the production moulding, the advertising, the packaging, and shipping and all of that really eats away at the profit. For one figure to make back the initial investment , just one sculpt mind you if Ihave two different faces that is two sculpts, I would need to sell between 400-500 figures of just that sculpt. Fantasy I have bigger wiggle room and can cut that into a third. Just something for some of you to think about when you look at historical miniatures. Believe me the same sculptors are used for all of the major companies.

Side note for you all Mantic is tied in with Warlord Games who is own and operated by former GW employess.

Oooh, the inside scoop from some guy that owns a store. Wooo.

Given the size of the photos I think these stand up pretty well detail-wise.

Let's remember that the detail on these is highly exaggerated as the pictures are at least three times life size, except for the shield wall which is about right size. The life size height of a 28mm model isn't much greater than the dangly bit on the Saxon Lord's belt.

If you play historicals you'll need around 200 figures like this to make a Saxon army. The amount of individual detail is irrelevant when you put such masses of figures on the table.

These models are less than half the price of GW plastic models. Even the cheapo snap-fit Termagants are £1 each.

GW figures have distorted proportions. Their sculptors effectively cheat on detail by being more or less 1/35 scale in all but the length of their torso and legs.

These will be excellent opponents for the 28mm plastic Vikings.

These are great looking figures and make an excellent addition to the growing range of historical plastic models. 20 years ago I don't think I could have dreamt this day would ever come. Instead, I think we could see the most popular historical periods pretty well covered in 28mm plastic in five years.

Empchild wrote:Side note for you all Mantic is tied in with Warlord Games who is own and operated by former GW employess.

And along with the like of Immortal Miniatures and Perry Miniatures all are based in Nottingham. Do some of these share equipment by any chance?

It would make a lot of sense to do so.

If GW have invested a lot of money in mould making and injection casting equipment, they would be sensible to share the costs with other companies.

I would be a bit surprised for GW to share equipment and expertise with a direct competitor such as Mantic, though.

However, there is a recognised business principle of centres of excellence, where nominally competing firms all become stronger because the presence of all of them within an area helps build up the level of infrastructure and knowledge that supports them all.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Empchild wrote:Side note for you all Mantic is tied in with Warlord Games who is own and operated by former GW employess.

And along with the like of Immortal Miniatures and Perry Miniatures all are based in Nottingham. Do some of these share equipment by any chance?

Sculptors yes, and many companies use the same casters. Most companies don't actually own their own casting equipment, because well... it's kinda pointless. I can't remember the name off hand of who the perrys use, I think it's on their website, but a lot of companies in the UK use griffon, and many througout Europe use grey matter. Both fine companies, and griffin actually is hailed by many to be the best in the UK. I have a number of products he produced for companies and those actually were the best metal models I have ever seen. Pretty much no mould lines or flash.

In most cases a dipping machine or an injection moulding machine is just that; a machine on its own - its the mould that is the key constituent part.

Most machine operators don't give a toss what they are moulding; they just have a spec and a set of tolerances that they are working to.

In that context, I would be surprised if the 'smaller' companies didn't outsource their moulding to external dipping firms.

Yes indeed.

There is another skill set associated with designing/sculpting figures to be injection moulded, and optimising the fit on the sprue frame, and so on.

Kilkrazy wrote:Yes indeed.

There is another skill set associated with designing/sculpting figures to be injection moulded, and optimising the fit on the sprue frame, and so on.

Precisely. And hence, where the cost comes from. Making a mould is outrageously expensive to the extent where potential sales and demand need to be balanced against the cost of producing the damn thing in the first place.

I am usually the first to explode in a tight ball of rage when I come across the latest GW metal mini that refuses to glue (Ork tankbustas drew my ire recently) but even I can't expect everything to go to plastic, more's the pity.

Tooling and production of Gripping Beast, Perry, Warlord Games, Mantic, Immortal Miniatures, the coming Avatars of War slayer and Conquest Games plastic miniatures are all made by Renedra, they used to do some work for GW afaik. and are now the driving force behind the boom with hard plastic miniatures.

GW might manage it with most of their models if they were prepared to mount two different models in one frame, and split the frame afterwards.

For example, several Tyranid mid-sized creatures -- Zoanthrope, Venomthrope, Hive Guard, and Pyrovore would benefit from this approach.

The kind of models where each army needs only one may never be done in plastic.

Jomini wrote:Tooling and production of Gripping Beast, Perry, Warlord Games, Mantic, Immortal Miniatures, the coming Avatars of War slayer and Conquest Games plastic miniatures are all made by Renedra, they used to do some work for GW afaik. and are now the driving force behind the boom with hard plastic miniatures.

it's closer saying they were GW plastics. the guys at renedra have made the moulds and production for ALL GW plastics up to 2007 afaik

Empchild wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Looks cool as a massed shield wall, so I'd say the apparent lack of detail is entirely moot!

If only I played Historicals!

people think every model needs to have 150 skulls and purity seals on it for it to be good.

I for one wish GW would do less of that. I like my models as clean as possible.

I agree that I wish GW would slim down halfof the stuff of their models. I recently popped a box of dark eldar wyches and have to say that the less is more is perfect on them.

Very nice. I love the standard.

Hi there,

I have been in contact with all some of the players on the field for plastic historicals ( Wargames factory, the perry's , victrix to mention a few) and mantc.

De detail on the miniatures is only looking to be a bit bland, but in fact some details are more accurate than we seem to accept from GW.
The saxons you see as well as the LR romans vikings and normans have been dealing with the most difficault thing to do in plastic ... Chainmail.
The problem is the mold for the plastics which is metal, inflexible and incapable for details in the "mould" line something the mold for metal minatures ( vulcanised rubber) don't have.
But on the other side, axes and blades are also on the correct thinkness and not the 2" thick bars that so called super models from GW have.

Even the perry's have sofar wisely steared away form plastcis with chainmail, and due to their knowledge in plastics ( they did the lord of the rings plastics as well) , and to be honest even their plastics cannot be judged againt their own metals.
Gripping beast, conquest games and Wargames factory have tackled the dark-ages ( and late roman) and the detail on those miniatures is very good, some are on par with metal miniatures from other manufactures.

Pricewise plastic is about 1/3 off a metal miniature ( unless you are buying bernard le gros from GW in which case you can have 40 models for 1 metal...)

And the detail,

GW has " proffesional photografers ( and photoshop) top make the plastics look " perfect" while the guys just put their models as "they are"
ever looked closely at a GW model on the mould line, correct, no detail whatsoever and no chainmail miniatures.

About the britisch firms.
Perry's, mantic, Victrix, Conquest Games, Warlord games, Boltaction models, Immortal and Gripping beast use the same "Die" maker, Renedra.
Renedra is owned by the man who teached GW how to do plastic and subsequently was bought out,
So apart from conquest games and gripping beast/ victrix all are Ex-gw people ( sofar I know).

Oversees ( well as dutch the english are overseas as well but I was meaning the USA )
Wargames factory (who more or less invented the from computer direct in tooilng method) as opposed from the 3 up's and then tooling method
are also led by and ex, at least employ one

All of these firms have taken great risk to venture into a relative new area (plastic historical mostly with some fantasy seasoning) and have proven to produce a very good, low cost product,
and I wish them all succes.

Why are so many people desperate to point out that ex-GW people are involved in other companies? The product generally speaks for itself.

It doesn't take professional photographers and "photoshop" to know that it's not a good idea to get your models painted in a high contrast tabletop style and then show pictures of them at x40.

plastictrees wrote:It doesn't take professional photographers and "photoshop" to know that it's not a good idea to get your models painted in a high contrast tabletop style and then show pictures of them at x40.

Why not? I think the models are bril, and I love seeing the details that close up.

WoW those are super bad ass. I still considering starting a historical army for this period.

JOHIRA wrote:

plastictrees wrote:It doesn't take professional photographers and "photoshop" to know that it's not a good idea to get your models painted in a high contrast tabletop style and then show pictures of them at x40.

Why not? I think the models are bril, and I love seeing the details that close up.

Because they would look significantly better with paint jobs intended to be shown at that magnification. I'm not saying they shouldn't show pictures of that size.