Discuss this listing from Vox Populi: https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/vox-populi/products/les-grognard-raptor-cavalry-1-vote
Who should ride them? Bulldogs? Keep them plain or tech them up? Make a mixed-use set like we did with the Lizardmen?
I would say a mixed set, that could cater both to sci-fi and fantasy.
WA goblins or halflings riding WA raptora?
Mixed use, perhaps a future option to add Lizardmen bodies that can ride them to Digital?
If possible, make them so they don't have to have saddles, and allow us to buy boxes of just a bunch of them ;)
Add me to the faction that would like lizardmen riders!
I'm also liking the 'basic raptor' look. Yes, I know real world raptors were feathered, even the larger ones probably. But I think a lot of what people are probably looking for is an old school reptilian raptor.
(That said, i would love a kit of giant riding Moa. Those would be great!)
I'm personally not looking for any. Already have a unit of 8 for my lizards and 10+5 in the dark elves. If that wasn't the case though: leave me alone with your sci-fi bits. It bothered me on the spiders, it would have bothered me on the lizardmen and ogres, and it would bother me on these.
On the choice of riders: both? Not sure how well this works out economically (Fireforge prices are suspiciously higher than the other Renedra-made stuff), but I could imagine two boxes with different rider sprues combined with the same mount sprues. Or, well, your sculpting is all digital anyway.
Oh, and I'll second the call for including the saddle in the rider, not the mount. I'd want to use these as wild animals for D&D, too.
These look better than I expected (why are you doing them for Death Fields again? I mean they are not packing uzis).
Do them for Lizardmen at first for sure (they need more love) but keep the raptors on a seperate riderless sprue and maybe do some Bulldog riders later but you should really do classic fantasy human/elf riders for them along with some proper historical scale VSF riders (could be the same set just with a headswaps).
I would make the armored feathered ones more for fantasy in mind (they would be great for sludge and a ton of other games😁) and/or do the more SciFi themeatic baggage as a detached option, maybe on the rider sprues. Given the armor plating and harnessess (they are never going to be free range wild beast guys) I am okay with the saddles remaining on the bodies though them being optional would let one use them as attack animals instead.
Big thing is make sure they are not so fat that your grog horse rider don't fit on, in fact it might be cool to make them thin enough for your historical horse riders to fit on with saddle.
These look better than I expected (why are you doing them for Death Fields again? I mean they are not packing uzis).
Do them for Lizardmen at first for sure (they need more love) but keep the raptors on a seperate riderless sprue and maybe do some Bulldog riders later but you should really do classic fantasy human/elf riders for them along with some proper historical scale VSF riders (could be the same set just with a headswaps).
I would make the armored feathered ones more for fantasy in mind (they would be great for sludge and a ton of other games😁) and/or do the more SciFi themeatic baggage as a detached option, maybe on the rider sprues. Given the armor plating and harnessess (they are never going to be free range wild beasts guys) I am okay with the saddles remaining on the bodies though them being optional would let one use them as attack animals instead.
Big thing is make sure they are not so fat that your grog horse rider don't fit on, in fact it might be cool to make them thin enough for your historical horse riders to fit on with saddle.
@Hudson Adams
I'd rather see something different from the generic, dull velociraptor designed to appease the Jurassic Park/World fanatics (GW have already gone down that route with first their Dark Elf Cold Ones and now those new 'Aggrodons' for the Lizardmen). If these are intended for fantasy and sci-fi, might as well make them as fantastical as possible!
The designs with feathers might be interesting, to give them more of an avian look - perhaps even change the heads to have beaks and be more like Phorusrhacids, i.e. 'Terror-Birds' - after all, 'raptor' is a term that applies to birds-of-prey just as much as dinosaurs, and Phorusrhacids were certainly birds-of-prey!
Alternatively if you wish to keep them as some sort of dinosaur-like reptile, I'd suggest more tweaking to take them away from just being velociraptor copies - I notice you've already done away with the Dromaeosaur flick-claws on the feet, a good start. Perhaps increase the length of their hand claws to be more like those of a Baryonyx or Spinosaurus, and/or make their jaws either longer and thinner, to suggest a piscine diet, or give them shorter jaws and longer hand claws to showcase a preferred hunting strategy of raking prey with their claws rather than biting. Perhaps even make them a quadrupedal predator, like the very first plastic Cold Ones were?
With regards to how they're packed, I would certainly agree on the idea of making them as just a set of these mounts, with saddles matching the WA Horses box, so they can be ridden by a variety of riders. Perhaps a sprue of rider legs for the Lizardmen as they didn't come with any can be included.
@Caratacus I really think the lizardmen should have a full rider body half sprue since the regular lizardmen set torsos have the legs attached and sawing mini bodies can be intimidating for newbies (not to mention the tails). Plus that way we can get new stuff like more melee weapons and better gun aim poses.
@Brian Van De Walker I'm alright with armor, or even harnesses. I just didn't want saddles so I can use them to pull things as well as be ridden.
@Hudson Adams I'd leave the saddles off as an optional bit like with the horses (Althrough sadly horses don't have a real option to go without the saddle with those harnesses). While I'm more fond of the reptillian raptors due to nostalgia, I'm wondering if there is a way to make a dual kit that can make them both feathered and scaled, that way you can have both raptors and what looks like murder chocobos (also known as Terror Birds). I like the top left design as a base template for the models, with the additional stuff being optional bits like how the digital kobolds have both dragon and dog heads (even though they're a very sloppy example of the concept that needs refining when they make the eventual leap to plastic.) But yeah, for riders I would have separate kits for both lizardmen and whichever death fields faction would make the most sense to have dino calvary (I'm thinking Ooh Rah because cloning dinos to ride them into battle is a very 'Merica thing.)
I'd only add that please, make them neutral like the horsies, don't add any trinklets/hanging trophies etc, so they can be used with multiple various miniatures. They can be terror birds, they can be archaeopteryx, they can be a vanilla generic dinosaur idea, whatever, just don't make them as useless as GW's ones which can be basically only used for fantasy lizardmen without resculpting half of each one :-(
@Miyuso Hmm, acually I am okay with saddled animals pulling things, but if they can manage it okay.
@Charles Tottington I am thinking 2 of each and a bit more to the "rule of cool" Historical proportions, which would likely work great with Ooh-Rah (though I think motorbikes would be better for them theme wise).
@Blazej Baginski If the hanging trophies and baggies are attachable/ignorable extras bits on the sprue, would that bother you?
@Brian Van De Walker Yeah I think rule of cool would work. Especially for Ooh Rah raptor calvary since the Utah Raptor exists and is around that size.
I also think the basic raptor should be without saddle and harness so they can be wild beasts.
The inside toe claw needs to be much bigger.
Optional feathers would be awesome.
I like the idea of separate riders that I can pick and choose, Ooh Rah riders when the time is right plus whatever fantasy option works.
i feel like i'm going to be unpopular for expressing this viewpoint, but i think i'd prefer feathered Raptors. more, i'd want ones based on semi-accurate reconstructions. nobody does those but i think that they could look awesome if done. if i want jurassic park raptors i can find all sorts of toys or resen/metal minis already being made. even plastic, since wizkids sells a two pack of them for D&D big enough to work as mounts. but trying to find accurate ones is pretty much impossible.
and it isn't like they'd look bad.. or not scary.
though if you do this you'd need to tweak the Tyrannosaurus rex STL in the digital files a touch (to un-pronate the hands and pull the arms in close to the body) but since the T-rex doesn't seem to have been feathered as an adult it can largely stay as is. (though it seems likely to have had down when younger, going by finds from its close relatives)
@Mithril2098 For fantasy, yeah feathered mounts would be cool particulary if they keep them armored (They remind me of the chocobos from the FF games I played when I was younger, which is good thing).
