Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Got my men at arms this morning, stunning figures, great value. I'm really impressed with the quality of the sprues.

Dare I say these are what the mantic men at arms should have been

 Azazelx wrote:
I wonder if they will update their WotR army deals to include them (as opposed to an add-on). Actually, did their Hosts used to be Post-free, because they aren't now (any more?) That's the only thing stopping me from ordering them direct - the antiquated "add 12/17/25% of the order cost" for postage that they still use. - If I order £200 worth of stuff, I'm not paying another £50 for shipping. Use some of that £40 pounds of VAT that you're charging and not paying to the government to pay for it.

When I log in with my account (that is in the USA), the VAT is removed. Their hosts were never free shipping, their army deals are.
Checking... yeah, the ACW Union Army Deal, msrp 528.50, deal price 423, without VAT is 352.50 and free shipping.

If you're ordering from outside EU you shouldn't be paying VAT..

 edlowe wrote:
Got my men at arms this morning, stunning figures, great value. I'm really impressed with the quality of the sprues.

Dare I say these are what the mantic men at arms should have been

Mine haven't come yet

Damned vaguely rural location and slow horse-bound mail carriages!

 Pacific wrote:
If you're ordering from outside EU you shouldn't be paying VAT..

 edlowe wrote:
Got my men at arms this morning, stunning figures, great value. I'm really impressed with the quality of the sprues.

Dare I say these are what the mantic men at arms should have been

Mine haven't come yet

Damned vaguely rural location and slow horse-bound mail carriages!

I was surprised to get mine so soon, considering I'm out in the middle of nowhere, definitely going to get some of the other kits, really good quality, looks like they'll be a start of a kingdoms of men force for kow.

Reiksgard on foot? Yes please!

Mine arrived today, what lovely little miniatures and rather good value for money.

I will post pics and comments over the weekend if no-one else has already done so.

 Pacific wrote:
Mine arrived today, what lovely little miniatures and rather good value for money.

I will post pics and comments over the weekend if no-one else has already done so.

Please do so, and even if others have already done so!

 Pacific wrote:
If you're ordering from outside EU you shouldn't be paying VAT..

I know I shouldn't be paying VAT unfortunately most UK retailers don't remove it - which is fine when it's paired with "free" shipping (swings and roundabouts there) but less so when it isn't. I don't have a Perry account, so I was unaware that creating one and logging in removes it - thanks for that, Doug. If I can afford it, I might order a box or two next week.

And also very keen to see pics and reviews in the interim!

Here we go then guys, some pics and general comments of the box set.

Firstly, get this out of the way; I've got a fair amount of Perry stuff, and think this has to be one of the best plastic sets they have done. Actually, scratch that, this is probably one of the best plastic sets I have seen at this scale from any company. Absolutely stupendous amount of fine detail, and you can see a lot of thought has gone into the different types of armour plate, tabards, weapons etc. If you're an enthusiast of this period of history I think you will appreciate it.

First up, the box. A nice piece of art, what looks to be Richard III on his way to meet his Waterloo at the Battle of Bosworth. 1450-1500 covers a wide area, through the end of the Hundred Years War, Burgundy and War of the Roses.



38 miniatures in the box on 8 sprues, have trouble fitting into the box! Works out at just over 50p per miniature at RRP, which is very reasonable.



On to the miniatures, you get 6 of the Men-at-Arms sprues (each holding 6 varieties of leg/torso, and a greater variety of weapons and accessories, including 12 different head sculpts per sprue). Also a sprue of Renendra bases which come in various sizes.



You also get a command sprue for 2 miniatures. There is a painted example of what you can make with this in one of the pics further below. The armour and helmet (complete with crown) looks to be representative of Richard III as well as a standard bearer.



I've assembled a few of the minis. Very few mould-lines and generally excellent quality of cast, the detail on them is very sharp and the material is the hard plastic which looks to be the same as that used in Perry's other ranges. Certain combinations of arms and torsos suit each other in terms of style (such as tabarded arms), and there is a good range of different armour styles which would have been used across Europe. The instructions state that you can mix and match bits with other sets, such as the WoTR box, European Mercenaries and mounted Men-at-Arms. The visor on the one mini actually comes as a separate piece, which as you can see I've managed to get not quite straight..


You get some extra swords/scabbards etc. that you can add



One thing I love about Perry is that you always get little extras in the form of livery designs/colour schemes and suggested building instructions.





Finally, I know some people are going to want to use these for WFB or KoW, so here are some size/scale comparison shots which will hopefully be useful

Obviously scales perfectly with Perry's own WoTR archers (left) and metal Men-at-Arms (right)


Mantic Orc and GW Goblin



And while (hopefully) no-one will be using these miniatures alongside a Space Marine, everyone knows the size of those so hopefully this can be used to draw comparison to other ranges



+EDIT++ A close-up of one of the sprues. There is a higher res version of this in my picture gallery which you will be able to zoom in for a closer look at particular components

Thanks for the pics, the figures look marvellous, I'll certainly be picking up a box or two if the Warhammer Brettonian release has models/rules to my liking so thanks for the preview, much appreciated and what makes Dakka a cool place to visit!

(Also your spacemarine has a really nice paintjob )

Thanks for the comments Scrub!

I've now added a better close-up of the standard sprue. I'll upload one into my gallery as well which I think should be zoom-able if anyone wants a closer look at the components.

Maaaaan. My birthday is next week. I need to convince my friends/family/SO that I need this in my life and they should buy me multiple boxes of this for my birthday.

Thank you so much for the pictures Pacific!

Much appreciated, Pacific!

An excellent review.

I already own a 28 mm WoTR army using Essex Models or I would be all over these.

Gee, thanks for the pics, Pacific. Here I was trying to slim my minis collection down, and you had to go ahead and make me want to order them. THANKS

Thanks for the pics, Pacific!

These will do very nicely indeed to give my KoW Basilean army some proper men-at-arms.

Pacific - do you have any GW Empire figs to place next to the new Perry kit?

I'll add to that - any Brettonians, LotR figures, or even Warlord Games infantry would also be great.

Well at least with these ones it's easier to speedpaint them because they're mostly armor. Kinda like Necrons.

And Alph and Azazelx, this might help. Not the new Men-at-Arms per se but same scale (and line!) and 100% compatible with the new WotR box set:





And an LotR figure just for kicks:




My verdict: same size as GW minis, but the proportions are really different. Won't matter much if you're not too anal about that kind of thing, and it won't look weird if fielded en masse, but it definitely looks a bit off when it's just two models side by side. Cross compatibility is also iffy, could be pulled off but not 100%.

LotR are definitely a bit smaller but you can pass it off as shorter humans. Especially if you're just going to use a figure or two from LotR (or vice versa!).


Then again, if you really do care about that sort of thing and you still haven't started an Empire or Brettonian army, all the more reason to buy Perry Miniatures exclusively. Save tons of money without letting quality suffer!

Thanks, Heartserenade - are the pics in the lower photo with the LotR figure the Perry Mercenaries?

No they're not. They're from the Bows and Bills box. But that box has the same sculpt of the bodies and same heads on the non-command sprues. The arms would be different.

Ah, interesting. Looks like i need to add some Bows and Bills to my Perry-Purchase shopping list in that case...

You definitely should! It depends on what you want, though. Want billhooks and longbows: buy the bows and bills box (duh). I you want pikes, halberds, crossbows and handguns, go with the mercenaries.

With the bows and bills, you can make up to 30 archers max, 18 billhooks max (not including commander options). You get 40 bodies.
With the mercenaries, you get 12 handguns max, 12 crossbows max, 16 pikes max (12 can be turned into halberds), again not including commander options. You also get 40 bodies.
Both boxes have different commander options. Of course they are cross-compatible with each other. You get two commander sprues in each box.

And I just bought a box of Empire Greatswords (albeit at a discount)...

I am quite happy with my purchase, but damn, those knights look fine.

 Pacific wrote:
Here we go then guys, some pics and general comments of the box set….

Absolutely brilliant review. Great pics, comparisons and descriptions. I've already purchased metal figs (Essex and Old Glory) for my second KoW army, but if I hadn't I'd definitely be going Perry. Every kit they release seems great, and as you show, this one is clearly the best.

 heartserenade wrote:
You definitely should! It depends on what you want, though. Want billhooks and longbows: buy the bows and bills box (duh). I you want pikes, halberds, crossbows and handguns, go with the mercenaries.

With the bows and bills, you can make up to 30 archers max, 18 billhooks max (not including commander options). You get 40 bodies.
With the mercenaries, you get 12 handguns max, 12 crossbows max, 16 pikes max (12 can be turned into halberds), again not including commander options. You also get 40 bodies.
Both boxes have different commander options. Of course they are cross-compatible with each other. You get two commander sprues in each box.

I've got one set of the Mercenaries unbuilt (somewhere), so I'm thinking eventually get two of each set in total and take it from there.

Thanks for the pics - that helps a lot!

Thanks for the comments guys. Hopefully get some of these painted up and based fairly soon, once I have done so I will post a link. Have to say the more I look at them the better they get. The detail is just really well defined on them. I'm not really keen on comparing to them to other ranges in other eras or fantasy stuff etc. as they are satisfying a different itch (doens't matter how good these are if you wanted dark-age vikings for instance!), but I must say this is probably one of the best plastics box-sets I have seen.

 Azazelx wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
You definitely should! It depends on what you want, though. Want billhooks and longbows: buy the bows and bills box (duh). I you want pikes, halberds, crossbows and handguns, go with the mercenaries.

With the bows and bills, you can make up to 30 archers max, 18 billhooks max (not including commander options). You get 40 bodies.
With the mercenaries, you get 12 handguns max, 12 crossbows max, 16 pikes max (12 can be turned into halberds), again not including commander options. You also get 40 bodies.
Both boxes have different commander options. Of course they are cross-compatible with each other. You get two commander sprues in each box.

I've got one set of the Mercenaries unbuilt (somewhere), so I'm thinking eventually get two of each set in total and take it from there.

That's my plan as well - really cool that there is some potential there for crossover of bits between kits.

I really hope Perry makes Dark Age Vikings/Normans/Saxons. The Gripping Beast and Warlord Games ones just isn't cutting it for me, I think I've been spoiled by Perry in terms of quality.