New Empire plastics and Mordheim

[mweaver]

I picked up some of the new Empire plastics tonight, and wanted to say something about them in a Mordheim context (our needs for more individualistic-looking figures being different than the needs of a WH player).

The best buy is the Empire archer set, no surprise there if you are familiar with the price tags on these boxes. The archer box comes with two different sprues. For eight of the archers the legs and torsos are cast together, but this problem is mitigated a lot by the bodies all being different. There are two archers with separate torsos and legs (one is kneeling and the other is running). You have something like 11 matched pairs of archer arms, plus extra arms holding bows and swords. There is even a left arm holding a sword (not very common for GW). Here's what I like best: you have twenty distinct heads! Ten are "traditional" empire heads - sort of Renaissance period with feathers - and ten scream "Kislev"! In addition to having twice the arms and heads you need for the bodies included, the sprues have a lot of pouches, sheathed swords, quivers, arrow bundles, and a gut-shot orc. For $25, it is a great deal.

The greatswords are also a nice set - but not such a good buy. You again receive ten figures, although you do have half again as many sprues as the archers. But half again as many sprues compared to more than double the price = not such a deal. Still, a very nice set. There are three different "half spures" (that is, half the size of the archer sprues) and you receive two of each in the box. For all ten figures, torsos and legs are separate, which really increases the variety of poses you can obtain. You only receive ten greatsword arm sets: each set has two right arms, one with a straight blade and one with a wavy blade, but only one left arm holding the rest of the hilt. You could probably use spare right arms to pose guys holding their swords one-handed while pointing, or whatever. You'd just need to fix up something for the rest of the hilt of the right hand. There are also arm options for the unit leader, musician, and standard bearer. Well, actually, two of each of course. So, not as many arm spares as with the archers. There are 13 different heads x 2, so after making your guys you'll have 16 spare heads, and there are some really nice ones. With both of these sets I like the heads MUCH better than the ones with the last wave of Empire plastics.

Both sets are going to be great for conversions. However, for the costs the archers are a far better set.

[Askil the Undecided]

Then I'd say mix the archers with the militia set and you have the variety of the original human mercenaries sprues (minus the middenheim sprues) with twenty new heads and sack of pouches and gubbins and some alternate arms.

[mweaver]

I do need to correct one thing: there are nine torso/legs combined bodies, two sets of separate legs (kneeling and running), and one separate torso. So from just this set you can either make a running guy or a kneeling guy. I'll probably take a militia torso and make both.

[neXus6]

The archer set does sound very nice for mixing with the milita set but I'm not sure if my love of Mordheim can break my lack of will to pay the new prices.

The goldswords are still beyond a joke though, I'd quite happily pay 1/3 of the price to only get the parts to make EXACTLY 10 models with no left over.