Conquest Games Norman Infantry

[zirrian]

Checked the comments on the forum, and there was another tidbit of information: there will be enough arms to equip 16 of the models with those long-shafted Dane axes.

...16 breton halberdiers for me per box. Neat.

[Crazy Harborc]

Checked the comments on the forum, and there was another tidbit of information: there will be enough arms to equip 16 of the models with those long-shafted Dane axes.

NOW....THAT is good news. I "need" some of those, 16 is a goodly number for a front AND second line/rank with some nasty spears mixed in. Well, that and the command. I never remember to gather together my axes to form up. With the box, I shall finally have my Dane axe unit.

[Lord Dan]

More info on the main site:

Command Sprue has 2 kite shields (bossed) with attached arms and 1 kite shield (bossed) with no arm attached = 6 kite shields
Infantry Sprue has 5 kite shields (bossed) with attached arms, 2 round shields with arms = 40 kite shields and 16 round shields
Weapon Sprue has 3 kite shields (unbossed - 2 with arms) and 3 round shields (2 with arms) = 3 kite shields and 3 round shields

Giving a total of 49 kite shields and 19 round shields if my maths is correct.

And here's a shot of some more models from the kit:

[JoV]

Excellent!

The banner pole looks similar or exactly the same to the one in the Knights kit, but no mind, easily converted. Two dead guys is a plus

[Vos]

Does anyone else do dead norman infantry (Hastings period) that would be suitable for casualty markers? I need about 30 casualties with a bit of variety)
I have a load of Foundry and Gripping Beast Normans ('old school' heavy metal miniatures are much better than this new fangled plastic shennanigans imho) but they don't do proper normal casualties?

Any suggestions welcomed!

Vos

[Lars Porsenna]

Old Glory includes a few in their range. But you have to buy a whole bag of 30 of them, and they are much more crude compared to either Foundry or GB.

Damon.

[Griefbringer]

Crusader makes a few packs containing Norman casualties:

http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/pr...&sub=12&page=1
http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/pr...&sub=12&page=2

And Perry Miniatures has also one pack in their First Crusade range that should work:

http://www.perry-miniatures.com/prod...oducts_id=1787


As for the Conquest minis, the new picture of painted models looks promising, though I am personally still waiting to see the actual sprue shots.

[Vos]

Thanks guys - this is very helpful!

Vos

[Griefbringer]

Current estimate for the release date seems to be 8th of August, so about two more weeks to go.

Still no sprue pics out, though.

[Codsticker]

They are now available for pre-order in the store. I'll have to pass for now and wait until they are available through Wayland as Conquest's shiping rates to NA are astronomical.

[Axel]

http://www.caliverbooks.com/figures/...&range=normans

Take a look at their shipping rates :-)

Just in case you do not find it: http://www.caliverbooks.com/figures/

[Codsticker]

Thanks for the link. Free shipping is very reasonable.

[Griefbringer]

Apparently the infantry sets are now starting to hit the retailers. Stuart at Great Escape Games has already written a small review, complete with sprue pictures:

http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/cl...nquest-normans

I will have to say that I am slightly disappointed by the low number of spear arms, and the total lack of any spare heads.

[StygianBeach]

I was quite excited about these... less so now that I have seen the review.

I like the look of these, and the small number of pieces means less hassel sticking them together (the Wargames Factory Samurai/Ashigaru take forever). I would have liked seperate shields though, at least 1 extra head and spear arm. I would have liked a little 'Heroic scaling' of the weapons. I think the Gripping Beast plastics have the 'semi-heroic' scale of their weapons spot on. It just make them nicer to look at from table top height IMHO.

I think I will get a box of the Cavalry and see if I like them enough to get a box of these.

[Lord Dan]

These look, as I'm sure Conquest intended, exactly like dismounted versions of their knights. They're well done, though some more head and weapon variety would have been great, and I agree with StygianBeach's comment about the weapon scale.

[Griefbringer]

I would have liked a little 'Heroic scaling' of the weapons. I think the Gripping Beast plastics have the 'semi-heroic' scale of their weapons spot on.

Tastes may vary - I tended to find some of the weapons on the GB Vikings (especially the spear shafts) a bit larger than I would prefer. Then again, some of the weapons on the WF Vikings were a bit too thin (especially the spear shafts). I ended up assembling the GB Vikings with the spears they came with, but the WF Vikings ended up getting a bunch of spears nicked from the Perry medieval sets (including cut down pikes).

As for these Normans, I will save my judgement on weapon size until I see them live.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

I'm alright with the more realistically scaled weapons, but bummed about the overall lack of options and variety. More head variants in particular really would have been nice. In most plastic sets if there's one or two head variants that you don't like you can get by without using it just fine, but here you have to use each head and in exactly the same quantities unless you're sourcing heads from another kit, and for the mailed body in particular all of them are going to end up with the same head since it would look kind of silly to have a mailed head on an unarmored body or vice versa.

I also would have liked a little more variety in body poses, although I get that logistically that would have meant larger sprues or two different types of sprues, and I don't know what the associated costs would be. It would have been nice, I think, to have twice as many poses with half as many of each (given the number of figures in the set, their going to look awfully same-y, especially if the mailed bodies get relegated to their own unit of foot knights as Stewart suggests in his review).

Nit-picking aside, I like the look of the minis and will hopefully be getting some soonish! I think I have accumulated enough bits and bobs from other sets to get enough variety with just a little minor converting. If I go the same route and use the mailed bodies as dismounted knights, I'll just fill their ranks in with some metal miniatures for variety.

[Griefbringer]

As for obtaining spare heads, the Norman knights box should provide some - checking the sprue pics on their website, there are 6 heads per knight sprue, so cross-swapping with those should provide for some extra variety.

[Crazy Harborc]

Thanks for the link/review. The box sounds like a good one to me. I do like a mix of minies in a box. IMHO, it's a good way to get customers to buy more boxes to get more of their favorite minies (in the box).

[Stuart-GreatEscapeGames]

I did a quickie paintjob on a few earlier today: