Perry Miniatures Plastic Late Medieval Mounted Men at Arms

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**kenshin620**

With Salute drawing near, Perry is gearing up to show off their latest addition to their WotR line. Fresh off TMP they are showing their mounted men at arms

This weekend, we received from Renedra the first test shots of the late 15th Century Mounted Men-at-Arms - and obviously had to put a few together!

There are a few minor tweaks, which may well be finished by now, but we thought you might like to see the sprues anyway. As you can see, there is a large amount of choice with the rider's frame, which will leave you with many heads, right arms and weapons that can be mixed with the two other late 15th Century plastic infantry sets. There are three unarmored horse heads, one with a chamfron, one with chamfron and crinlet, and two fully armored. There are four horse sprues, three rider sprues, one base frame plus 18 flags.

Keep an eye on our website - perry-miniatures.com - towards the end of the week, as we will have these plus the Russian Napoleonic Infantry and the Medieval Cottage up for pre-order. All three hard-plastic products are (or are for) 28mm.

**Turalon**

Looks pretty good to me and will probably look amazing alongside their other stuff like the mercenaries.

May need to order a box or two after the new Empire book comes out.

**fellblade**

**Eldar Craft**

Very knights of the empire looking I like them. Good posing on the horses and the helmets are a little more understated than some empire knights. Say you don't want a giant hammer holding lion on top, these are a good option, not to mention likely cheaper. Admittedly I did not read the post carefully enough to notice if the price was listed.

**kenshin620**

Eldar Craft wrote:Very knights of the empire looking I like them. Good posing on the horses and the helmets are a little more understated than some empire knights. Say you don't want a giant hammer holding lion on top, these are a good option, not to mention likely cheaper. Admittedly I did not read the post carefully enough to notice if the price was listed.

Well some of the major internet retailers already have them as pre orders. Warstore for example has them for $30.99. Brookhurst them for $28 and a 4 pack for $102 (though I never have bought from Brookhurst so I have no idea how they are)

**Agamemnon2**

Yep, these are lovely. The only downside is the lack of shields if you intend to use them for Empire, but I believe cavalry shields weren't used in the late medieval period anyway. It's one of those purposely historical inaccuracies that makes GW's design so annoying sometimes.

**scarletsquig**

*drools*

I am getting soooo many of these. At least 5 boxes, and that's just for starters, to add to the 15 boxes of their infantry that I already have...

Price on these is £18 for 12, so about £1.50 or $2.40 per model,which is brilliant.

Hordes of Perry infantry and cavalry for me (at least 1000 models), with the special/rare choices and characters coming from GW. Mounting them all on mantic bases which are a great fit for the tabs on their bases. Much easier than having to cut off the tab.

If you use all-Perry for an Empire army, you really don't have to care that the warhammer models are holding telegraph pole weapons since the true-scale Perry models become the norm rather than the exception.

There are zero troop types other than the flagellants that can't be represented by Perry minis, and even those can be converted. You do have to get over the lack of puffy sleeves unfortunately, but then the GW range has stopped putting puffy sleeves on its state troops, so that's no real loss.

Really excited for the Medieval Cottage too!

It's about time someone made some good generic plastic fantasy buildings instead of the idiotic "skullz on skullz" schtick that GW is trolling us with. I'll get a few of those as well.

**Fenriswulf**

Have to admit they are very very nice. Would have liked to get enough metal barding so each horse could have one, but that's not such a bad problem to be honest.

Loving the alternate miniature manufacturers giving us viable alternatives to GW's stuff. Even better when it's properly scaled and looks more realistic. I'll be buying a few boxes of the WDF Samurai Cavalry as soon as they are done, which means pretty much the same as the above - Apart from Flagellants, I am pretty much set for miniatures for an Empire army. Won't need GW stuff at all.

If someone makes Ikko-ikki or Sohei Monks, I'd be all set pretty much. Only need to worry about is scratch building some war wagons and finding an alternative to Demigryphs.

**scarletsquig**

Fenriswulf wrote:Have to admit they are very very nice. Would have liked to get enough metal barding so each horse could have one, but that's not such a bad problem to be honest.

Good news, there is enough! The sprue shot shows 4 knights and 4 sets of barding. 2 Italian-style pieces on the left, and 2 German-style pieces on the right.

Can't have an entire unit with the same barding style, but I'm not too bothered about that since I'll be assembling some without barding anyway, for use as pistoliers and outriders, and will probably reserve the Italian armour for inner circle knights, to make them look different.

Quite happy that there's a cavalry hammer option on the sprues too, that'll do nicely for white wolves.

14 different heads, arms with seperate hands to make weapon swaps really easy. 6 different interchangeable horse halves, 7 different horse heads. Really, really nicely designed sprue.

Need to find some nice shields for them that aren't too big though.

**kenshin620**

Agamemnon2 wrote:Yep, these are lovely. The only downside is the lack of shields if you intend to use them for Empire, but I believe cavalry shields weren't used in the late medieval period anyway. It's one of those purposely historical inaccuracies that makes GW's design so annoying sometimes.

Yup, as soon as Plate Armor was available, shields became somewhat redundant. Plus two hands allows you to wield bigger stuff like pikes and two hand swords

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

These look good, but I prefer the fireforge knights. All I need to do now is find a historical gaming system to use them in!!

**Balance**

Agamemnon2 wrote:Yep, these are lovely. The only downside is the lack of shields if you intend to use them for Empire, but I believe cavalry shields weren't used in the late medieval period anyway. It's one of those purposely historical inaccuracies that makes GW's design so annoying sometimes.

Other historical inaccuracies would include the Orcs, Trolls, Vampires, Skaven, and Elves...

**kestral**

That is a very, very well put together kit, at a great price. Very tempting, even if I don't really need any new figures.

**Saphos**

Hurrrr, me wants badly.

I am looking forward to them for months now and it is great that they are finally released. The kit looks really useful and they will make a great addition to my Perry empire army. It´ll be at least two boxes for a start, depending how the empire armybook turns out.

**heartserenade**

Oh man, I might buy this and start an Empire army even if I don't play WHFB. Or convert them into Blood Knights for VC, since I already bought zombies from Mantic.

**Eilif**

Very interesting development, these are. I think we'll see alot of aftermarket shields mounted on these guys before they are pressed into service for the Empire.

Perry is one of the few companies that is a repeated temptation for me into medieval/fantasy mass battle.

**RandyMcStab**

*swing*

**Kilkrazy**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:These look good, but I prefer the fireforge knights. All I need to do now is find a historical gaming system to use them in!!

De Bellis Antiquitatis, De Bellis Magister Militorum, Impetus, or Field of Glory would work. The base sizes are compatible for all the systems.

Warhammer Historical, if you don't mind non-standard base sizes.

**heartserenade**

Now I wonder how they would look like besides other cavalry like Fireforge. and if they would mix well with them.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Kilkrazy, I'll look into them, thanks.

**Agamemnon2**

kenshin620 wrote:
Agamemnon2 wrote:Yep, these are lovely. The only downside is the lack of shields if you intend to use them for Empire, but I believe cavalry shields weren't used in the late medieval period anyway. It's one of those purposely historical inaccuracies that makes GW's design so annoying sometimes.

Yup, as soon as Plate Armor was available, shields became somewhat redundant. Plus two hands allows you to wield bigger stuff like pikes and two hand swords

I don't suppose anyone at GW ever bothered to think long (or maybe they simply lacked the expertise) enough to give the Empire a consistent tech level. It's like a samurai warrior going into battle with a Desert Eagle and a flint hand-axe.

Balance wrote:Other historical inaccuracies would include the Orcs, Trolls, Vampires, Skaven, and Elves...

Any fantastic setting needs to be built on a foundation of logic in order to be believable and consistent. If you start allowing for errors on the basis of "Oh, there's orcs, who cares about whether or not the humans are even wielding their weapons correctly" then why not remove the game fiction altogether. Chess is the ultimate expression of where this leads. A game that abandoned all semblance to anything real in order to achieve a clear, unambiguous rule system. Whereas GW seems to go for anachronisms either because they don't know any better (I wonder if they have any military history buffs on their payroll. I doubt it) or because they think it gives them an aesthetic trump card. It's to GW's advantage that their knights wear Gothic plate armor and medieval shields, and their spearmen are dressed like Landsknechts and carry medieval short spears.

**biccat**

Agamemnon2 wrote:Chess is the ultimate expression of where this leads. A game that abandoned all semblance to anything real in order to achieve a clear, unambiguous rule system.

Chess doesn't abandon realism. The game was originally based on military units. It's only an abstraction to modern military tactics.

Agamemnon2 wrote:Whereas GW seems to go for anachronisms either because they don't know any better (I wonder if they have any military history buffs on their payroll. I doubt it) or because they think it gives them an aesthetic trump card. It's to GW's advantage that their knights wear Gothic plate armor and medieval shields, and their spearmen are dressed like Landsknechts and carry medieval short spears.

And the Steam Tank. Don't forget about the steam tank.

Why any military with the technology to field steam tanks and pistoliers would continue to employ swordsmen and knights is unclear.

**Alpharius**

biccat wrote:
And the Steam Tank. Don't forget about the steam tank.

Why any military with the technology to field steam tanks and pistoliers would continue to employ swordsmen and knights is unclear.

I think it is explained away (mostly) due to the fact that those technologies are inherently unreliable, even if they are powerful.

And the Steam Tanks were few in number to begin with, they can't figure out how to build anymore, and their numbers are dwindling...

**Kilkrazy**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Kilkrazy, I'll look into them, thanks.

Have a look at our Historical Games forum.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/26.page

The games I mentioned are widely played. They just aren't well known among people brought into wargames via GW.

I have a 28mm WoTR amy myself, but it's entirely metal figures and was built for Wargames Research Group 7th Edition Ancients rules. Luckily the base sizes are the same for most modern rules. (Not to mention there are still people playing WRG 7th and 6th.)

**lasgunpacker**

biccat wrote:

Agamemnon2 wrote:Whereas GW seems to go for anachronisms either because they don't know any better (I wonder if they have any military history buffs on their payroll. I doubt it) or because they think it gives them an aesthetic trump card. It's to GW's advantage that their knights wear Gothic plate armor and medieval shields, and their spearmen are dressed like Landsknechts and carry medieval short spears.

And the Steam Tank. Don't forget about the steam tank.

Why any military with the technology to field steam tanks and pistoliers would continue to employ swordsmen and knights is unclear.

They have the Perrys on their payroll, so yes, they most certainly do have history buffs.

And since pistoliers existed for a long time beside fully armored knights, that part is not too far off reality. Steam tanks on the other hand...

I think they do shields because it allows people with more limited painting skills to add a bit of color to mono-tone models (knights in armor on armored horses), and to make it easier to incorporate heraldry on troops(state troops).

Spearmen instead of pikes because pikes with detachments would wipe the floor with other regiments.

**frozenwastes**

The thing to remember about GW is that they have been doing their best to try to license out their imagery over the last number of years. A property that is no different from a historical period can't be protected by copyright laws. So they chose to depart from both the Hundred Years War look their Bretonnians used to have and the Landschneckt look that Empire used to have.

**Agamemnon2**

lasgunpacker wrote:Spearmen instead of pikes because pikes with detachments would wipe the floor with other regiments.

That's not the reason. Empire has had Spearmen a long, long time before the detachment rules were ever invented. A lot of it's inertia, they do things the same way as they've always done. Plus considering all the old GW metal pikemen I've seen have looked like they're holding up pool noodles or pieces of cooked spaghetti, one supposes they eschewed long, thin weapons for practical reasons too. Not that that stopped them from having metal banner poles for years and years.

**Kilkrazy**

Replace your pikes with piano wire.

**scarletsquig**

Or buy brass-rod metal pikes from a historical company, they're dirt cheap.

**kenshin620**

A brief, but still very well in depth, review is out on these guys

I have been very fortunate to assemble and paint half a dozen of the new Perry Miniatures plastic Mounted Men at Arms. I was sent some of the test shot sprues to paint by Michael for the Perrys display stand at today’s Salute.
It’s been a year since the first of these 3-ups were shown at Salute and whilst it’s felt like a very long wait, it’s most defiantly been worth it for those who want both historically accurate and finely sculpted figures. A word to describe this box set is ambitious – both for what it manages to achieve in the detail of late medieval plate armour and weaponry and in the quality of mouldmaking that reproduces the sculpting detail so very sharply and also in the breadth of components in the box that have been well planned and thought through in order to offer the maximum amount of build options. I don’t believe that such detail could be achieved in metal castings.

There are two specifics that take this box set to new levels of what can be achieved in 28mm plastic wargame figures, to my knowledge. The first is the weapon attachments. All the weapon shafts (apart from the two couched lances) have fingers moulded in situ. All the right-arms have a flat in-cut behind the gauntlet to locate the weapon; so creating a flat contact area for a strong bond and also allowing any weapon to be used with any arm. The second is the horse barding, which is moulded as separate pieces- front and back for each side for the German style (based on pieces in the London Royal Armoury) and as two side pieces for the Italian (based on that made circa 1450 and in the Historical Museum in Vienna). This allows all the horses to be used as unarmoured or armoured and effectively recreates the armour as to-scale pieces to be attached. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the rear plates for the Italian barding meet when glued to avoid a gap showing – but given the scale of these figures the accuracy of the fit for these pieces is really impressive.

My words of advice are “get to know your sprue”! There are a lot of variations for the riders in this box and it’s worth taking your time to make sure that you align the right bodies with the correct options for the weapon-bearing arms. There are 3 styles of armour, all typical of the later fifteenth century – Italian, German, Flemish/English and Italian with a coat. All of these have three arm options at various angles. Close inspection with the armour style for the body is required before selecting the arm. Also one of the arms (bent at a right angle) is best for attaching an upright lance. There are a large number of variants that can be assembled from these sprues before any poses are repeated and it’s worth taking the time to do some dry-runs to discover combinations that look the best.

Another ‘lesson learned’ was with the horses. I‘d not constructed any plastic horses before and whilst there are locating pins and holes for the two halves, there is also a small degree of tolerance when you glue them together. I was not sufficiently careful to ensure that the joint across their backs was good enough, which resulted in a small ridge being visible – normally easily remedied with scalpel and file, but because of the trappings on the backs of these horses it’s difficult to smooth away and I had to resort to brushing on GW Green stuff to cover up (not visible on the pics). I will aim to avoid repeating this error next time.
Twelve new heads also extend futher the options that can be used with the previous Wars of the Roses plastic sets (or to convert metal figures). There’s a useful bareheaded figure (perhaps with a passing resemblance to Gerry Embleton?), one wearing a chaperon, with end flowing in the breeze and an closed armet with upright plumes straight from a Paulo Uccello painting.

In summary, the box contents do not disappoint in any way. These are exceptionally well sculpted figures that have been well thought through to maximise the options and have been matched by Renedra’s mouldmaking that I think sets a new standard for 28mm wargame figures – all for £18. I’m now looking forward to using them, mixed with a few metals, to create the backbone of my Burgundian Ordonnance army.
I’ll post pictures of the other painted samples later this week. Happy days...

Pics

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