I’m primarily a fantasy RPG gamer, primarily in dungeon crawls, I don’t think I’ve ever actually used cavalry or horse miniatures, so I don’t really have a… well, a horse in this race.
That said, this is a beautiful sculpt, and to my eyes it looks like it could easily be a multi-purpose piece for historical, fantasy, and even sci-fi (there’s something almost futuristic about that armor, to my eyes….)
I don’t normally use that sort of thing, but it seems like a running theme for the backers of Reaper’s Bones plastic mini Kickstarters: “We need cavalry!” I can’t tell if it’s just a vocal minority, or if there really is a big market out there in other role-playing groups for fantasy cavalry, or if it’s something peculiar to Reaper’s customer base (there are a lot of painters there, and maybe mounted fantasy warriors is a niche miniature-painting subject, rather than something that actually gets used in gaming?)
And I don’t know, but I suspect a multi-purpose kit could be the safest option: a little something for everyone in the same kit. Then again, if historical mounted knights really are in danger of over-saturating the market, maybe it would be better to do something as far from historical as possible.
I’m going to go out on a limb, and speculate that the only major market for fantasy cavalry is going to be for fantasy wargamers, and they’re going to be really picky on what they want: fantasy wargaming seems to be a fairly conservative market, as near as I can tell, which doesn’t stray too far from the medieval Gothic knights, and faux-Tolkienian elves, dwarves, orcs, and undead formula.
But, if we do stray from that formula, I like what Kevin said:
Kevin Allen – June 18, 2021: “More excited to see the unarmoured horses are comming soon than the possibility of armoured ones. There are plenty of similarly barded sculpts available from other suppliers, why not provide riding beasts that are unique or rare: Bison, Rhino, Llama, Ostritch, Yak etc.”
Yes, and Camels: I think Camels could be a lot of fun – I seem to recall that cavalry mounted on camels found some limited use in some strange places for some strange conflicts ranging from the American Civil War, to use in places as exotic as Australia, and even in Africa and the Middle East as recently as WWII. The Wikipedia entry on “Camel cavalry” leads off with a photo of Turkish camel cavalry from WWI, and I have a feeling nobody out there is doing much with WWI Turkish ANYTHING, let alone cavalry, or camelry! The article also mentions Napoleon using Camels in Egypt and Syria, which sounds like a fantastic subject, and camels apparently found use in the Spanish Civil War, and apparently India, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan still maintain some camels to this day, and later in the article there’s a very recent-looking photo of armed UN peacekeepers mounted on camels. I don’t know how historical it is, but to my mind, the idea conjures exotic images of camel cavalry used by the French Foreign Legion and by Bedouin and Arab fighters (I think it used to be a cliche in old movies?) And, there’s just something weird, pulpy, and fantastical about camel cavalry: it seems like the sort of thing that would fit in just as well with anything fantastical from Conan-style sword-and-sorcery, up to Indiana Jones-style two-fisted pulp!
And I think that even I could get excited about WWI and WWII horse cavalry – it’s a weird subject, I’m not a historical gamer, but it appeals to my taste in ’20s and ’30s pulp adventure, weird westerns, and weird horror to try to find a use for horses in that sort of thing.
But, I wouldn’t stop at real-world animals: I could really get behind some alien mounts and pack-animals for alien cavalry – see Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Thoats of Barsoom, for example. That sort of thing would go really nicely with some of those Old Solar System sci-fi Martians I keep suggesting, I can totally see something like that looking right at home alongside the Wargames Atlantic lizard-men, and alien riding-creatures would even be right at home as cavalry for a generic fantasy setting.
And now I can’t help thinking about how cool the image was that was usually used for the cover of the 1977 animated fantasy movie ‘Wizards’: some sort of bizarre fantasy animal, with a bright-red robot warrior holding a rifle riding on it… weird, psychedelic, and way more imaginative and fantastic that a lot of what is passing for generic fantasy today!
I think my taste in miniatures is probably a bit too weird for most gamers, though :D
Whatever the case, the gothic fantasy horse in the renders does look great, even if it’s not something I’d use, and I can easily see it being used for anything from historical wargaming, to fantasy wargaming, to Death Fields, if WA decides to aim for a multipurpose kit.
Comments
Leave a comment