With the release of the Werewolves, a setting appropriate medieval monster Hunter and city guard sprue would be amazing. The classic fantasy could use a human faction with a mix of plate and mail armor.
Attached an example of how a hunters could look.
Alternatively they could go with this sort of design:
@Indy Techwisp Bloodborn?
It's a bit too Warhammer in my opinion. I would prefer something less Inquisitor with fancy hat and tight leather.
@Vitor Correia
Actually I think they should just do vaguely Victorian fantasy monster hunters that double as classic vampires and I have TWO REAL GOOD REASONS WHY.
One: You can just use the knights along with the other 4 upcoming Age of Chivalry sets and more than likely the 2 Guards of Traitor's Toll sets to make medieval monster hunters and city guards (in fact one of the TT sets should be a city guard set and honestly the Barons' War Foot Serjeants should actually cover both topics pretty handily). And this is just talking about what WA has planned, there are already several sets on the market that cover great for sword and sorcery fantasy city guards (like anything human with swords, spears and optional shields practically), and normally they can make decent monster hunters of the same era out of them, often with little or no part rearrangement from the same kit or a little kitbashing if you want to be flashy (medieval European human weapon options and dress just don't vary that much).
Two: Werewolves and while we are at it vampires are just as at home in the Victorian Age as they are the middle ages perhaps even more so and there isn't anything for plastic monster hunters from that era. Likewise Victorian style costumes are used in a lot fantasy RPGs (D&D, Iron Kingdoms, etc.) so much so I have come across people that think Victorian outfits and even some tech are Medieval😆. Also most famous Vampires and a number of famous monster hunters do tend to dress in a Victorian manner as well (even Solomon Kane is anachronistically like this to an extant 😆). This is likely because Horror became real big in the 19th century to present.
Plus 19th century monster hunters have a more unique and fun arsenal to play around with (whips, hand crossbows, hand guns, double barreled rifles, sword canes, etc.) that you won’t likely get in a regular infantry box and ironically outside firearms a lot of the same weapons are used by vampires so I figure a few fanged heads swaps and a set of claw hands and you have "Monster Hunters and Vampire I" done and then do a female set later on in the same vain. Also if you go with early Victorian outfits, you can use them for Silver Bayonet, which is likely going to be the main market for such a set and werewolves.
Not ot mention that AoS witch hunters are extremely popular, thanks to their Victorian aesthetic.
Honestly Victorian setting is one I dislike the most (followed by victorian steampunk) Hence why my suggestion is for medieval looking kit.
Age of Chiv unfortunately covers high medieval with lots of chainmail, while I had in mind a late medieval kit, with some plate armor included.
The fact that most kits already cover the victorian look, makes it a better choice on my opinion to do something different.
there is actually a game currently that is Napoleonic era monster hunting. that might be a good choice of focus. The Silver Bayonet. Northstar makes metal figures for it, but plastics would probably go over well.
so i'd say that if a monster hunter set is done, it should be set in that era. which has the benefit of being useable for victorian era as well (since the normal civilian fashion between the two eras doesn't change *that* much and one would expect monster hunters to not keep up with fashion trend anyway)
and i would focus on the civilian side of things. the existing napoloen's war line should cover the military type figures well enough, though they'll be less characterful than the northstar metals. but you could easily do a more civilian focused look as a generic monster hunting style. maybe toss in a body with napoleonic style military uniform and some various military hats as a way to imply salvage off a battlefield, defectors, or military troops undercover.
also IIRC we're going to get medieval/fantasy city guards soon as part fo the Guards of Traitor's Toll stuff. which should cover the medieval and fantasy side of monster hunting well enough.
It is a fact that the Victorian/Bloodborn/Van Helsing style witch/vampire haunters are a resounding success (they are very expensive). Probably because peaople love leather trench coats.
@Mithril2098 No it would actually be better to just do them as vaguely 19th century Fantasy monster hunters instead of doing razor focused Napoleonic era ones.
They would still work for Silver Bayonet just as well for most folk’s purposes and would be more multi-useable that way. I mean we have things like Frostgrave and KoW to stuff like Sludge to think about with fantasy, and Victorian era inspired outfits tend to run the whole gauntlet and are easier to play with on the design end for fantasy than most historical cloths. There is also just a ton of other advantages to doing them that way.
@Vitor Correia Besides the fact that the Guard set for Traitors Toll probably will have plate armor if the pictures are anything to go by, while not as overdone as the chainmail high middle ages there are plenty of options for plate armor type guards that work for fantasy monster hunters already. First we have Perry’s options for the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses, and for the later Renaissance types both WA and Warlord have options already (once WA’s pistol armed Cavalry is out the ability to make a good mordheim empire warband will be possible).
On the other hand there actually isn’t a whole lot of Victorian monster hunter or civilians in plastic currently, certainly none in multipart unless we talking about malifaux which are not 28mm. Also I am talking with fantasy aesthetic, not steampunk, and that might include a plate armor option which actually would look fantasy with a 19th century outfit, unlike with a medieval themed set which honestly would just be history set with funky helmets and shoulder pads at best.
Honestly at this point, if we are going to do humans, in armor or otherwise, for fantasy they should be really fantasy and not more medieval Europeans which should just be done as history sets if they are to be done since you can use those historics for classic fantasy just as well as fantasy set versions (often better in my opinion since they normally come with same stuff plus historical detail parts that add life to your army often at better price). This is one of the reasons I keep suggesting 19th century for “human fantasy infantry” since armored foot knights and men at arms didn’t exist at that time so making some that would fit in with that era would lead to very fantasy looking knights. Another option though that would work is to take inspiration from anime like Nausicaä valley of wind.
Go have a look at Grey for Now Games "Guards of Traitor's Toll" and the two frames of figures we're doing for that game.
@Hudson Adams The 2 figures are indeed the look and setting I was aiming for. But need to wait for release to check for options, but it looks promising.
@Brian Van De Walker Perry Miniatures scale is the issue.
Anything past 18th century is of no interest to me unfortunately.
@Vitor Correia The Perry scale is not a problem if you are willing to accept that not all men are the same size. I am making landsnecht/tercios with conquistadors, warlord games landsnecht, GW empire and mercenaries from the war of roses, and if you mix it well, it is more realistic. But if you are not willin, use only Agincourt miniatures of the Perry, wich are slightly larger.
@Eduard Garfella I'm very particular about that unfortunately. But the new guard set for Traitors toll might cover what I want.
@Vitor Correia If your one of the chunky heroic scale lovers, you should go bug Fireforge about thier Forgotten World line as they did have plate armor humans planned. WA is kinda of focused on historic scale for thier own sets outside of Deathfields, which in my opinion is the better scale for a good number of reasons but not everyone agrees.
On the fireforge page, in the late medieval section there are only tings by Perry... Hahaha
It si very difficult for a company to start designing more iron men... The quality-price ratio is absurd... Do you want to see them assembled and converted?
I'm with Brian: if someone were to make a full boxed set of monster hunters, I'd certainly prefer something a bit closer to the Victorian, than Dark Ages or Medieval.
I'd be fine with something loosely Napoleonic too, though I'm open to possibly later Renaissance aesthetic (in line with, say, the Conquistadores: perhaps a historical Inquisition set with fantasy bits?)
I don't think there's a whole lot new that can be said for "generic medieval Euroepean fantasy" that hasn't already been given the dead-horse treatment, especially if Wargames Atlantic has a Classic Fantasy Rangers set still up its sleeve somewhere, as Fantasy Rangers more or less hits the Medieval Fantasy Monster Hunter trope, to my mind.
I'd really rather see monster hunters that fit in alongside the likes of Wargames Atlantic's Lizard Men - which include both black powder and modern/futuristic guns - than more Dark Ages and Medieval fighting men of the sort available by the bucket-full already from historical wargaming, fantasy role-playing game, and Warhammer-style gaming mini manufacturers!
Ideally, models that can pass for villains as easily as anti-heroes and heroes - something a bit spooky looking, something timeless and versatile.
Please, give more more Grigori Rasputin or Professor Van Helsing than guys in chainmail, if at all possible, or at least compromise with something spanning the thousand years or so of pseudo-historical fantasy terriroty between the Dark Ages and the end of the 180ss!
(Other than Rasputin, these images were generated with DeepAI using the Haunted Portrait Generator and prompts like "A sleepless eldely doctor wearing a long coat and musket, standing in a graveyard over a dead ghoul")
Otherwise, I'm fine with an accessory frame of stuff like hands holding holy symbols and holy books, flasks of holy water and lanterns, hammers and stakes, shovels and picks, axes and pry-bars, valises of monster-hunting tools, and that sort of thing, with assorted heads in wide-brimmed hats and hooded or masked heads: the sort of thing that can be bashed onto pretty much any Wargames Atlantic historical set, from chainmailed knights or Roman Lgionaries, to French Resistance or anything else we want. (A monster-hunter accessory sprue of this sort would go nicely with a box of hypothetical Wargams Atlantic medieval monks or peasants to make cultists and witches and wizards, could be added to medieval knights to make fantasy clerics and paladins, could be matched with Classic fantasy Rangers to make fantasy undead-hunters, or mixed onto some World Ablaze or Great War minis for some Weird World War and pulp stuff! Or, bash it with any Death Fields set for a 40K style chaos and death cult....) I doubt there's a market for just an accessory frame of this sort, but who knows?
Regarding the Medieval vs. Victorian setting, I would err on the side of the Victorian end any day:
Most of the classic Gothic Horror cliches from e.g. the Universal Horror Movie territory that largely inspired Dungeons & Dragons and Ravenloft is far closer to Victorian in flavor than it is Medieval: Brahm Stoker's Dracula, for example, was set practically in the 20th Century, with references to electric torches, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is barely over a century old, and was more or less set in her present-day! The Mummy fad was just a bit younger than that, being a product of Victorian interest in Egyptology, with most of the mummy gothic movie monster tropes coming from Sirt Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lot 249", Robert Louis Stevenson's Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde was a product of the late Victorian Era, and H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man was too. Most of these prototypical Gothic horror monsters are contemporaries of Jack the Ripper, and a product of the age that spawned Sherlock Holmes and the other earliest templates of detectives... Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" dates to the mid-1800s, and the Springheel Jack urban legend as we know it today dates to about the same era. The Sawney Bean legend - one of the original great, Gothic monster-hunting tales - dates back to the mid 1600s or so, placing it in the Renaissance era, but enjoyed a lot of its more widespread interest and its current form by the 1800s; the werewolf legend is ancient, but the cannibal Sawney Bean clan follow that tradition fairly closely, with the lurid descriptions of bands of hunters tracking the clan to their cavern hideout full of gruesome horrors is the stuff of modern gothic dungeon-crawling adventure at its finest - as is, you have an early slasher tale in the Southern Gothic tradition (the "true story" that actually inspired Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes), add silver bullets and howling wolves and you have all the trappings of a good werewolf story! Nikoli Gogol's classic vampire story Viy - perhaps an inspiration for Stoker's Dracula - is a product of the 1830s, Samuel Taylor Colreridge's "Christabel" a product of the very early 1800s, or very late 1790s at earliest.
A lot of gothic horror as we know it today was heavily influenced by Grand Guignol, another product of the late Victorian period lasting well into the 20th century, and also by the pulp era of the early 20th century, though even the likes of HP Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson (mother of the modern haunted house story as we know it) owe a great debt to Victorian sensibilities and "tropes". Even the earliest pre-Victorian waves of Gothic literature do not date back very much further than the mid-1500s, with most of the seminal (though genrally moster-less) works in the genre dating to the 18th century. The Lambton Worm legend - another prototypical monster-hunting tale - refers to an origin story that only dates back to the 1810s.
The great Transylvanian vampire flap in which stories spread of people digging up graves to stake and behead suspected vampires dates back to the 18th cenury. Even Dracula template Vlad Tepes lived lived as recently as the 15th century, and the supposedly blood-thirsty countess Elspeth Bathory to the very late 15th and very early 16th century.
To finally start getting into a medieval setting for monster-hunting tropes, you have to start looking at St. George and the Dragon (dating back to the 11th or 12th century) , Beowulf (10th or 11th century), and Icelandic and other sagas like Grettis telling tales of hunting Draugrs (similar to ghouls, vampires, werewolves, or ogres) and Trolls probably dating to the 9th or 10th century.
Basically, the mobs of pitchfork-and-torch-carrying "Transylvanian" peasanets from those classic Universal monster movies from the '30s and '40s, and Professor Van Helsing himself, were meant to be post-Victorian Europeans - very nearly (or in some cases exactly) contemporaries of the Industrial Revolution, steamships, the automobile, airplane, repeating firearms, typewriters, telephones, telegraphs, phonographs, cameras, radio, household electricity, Darwin's Theory of Evolution, even Einstein's Theory of Relativity...! And when you start getting into the pulp literature of the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, you're definitely in this territory! (Seriously, Lovecraft's influence over dungeon-crawling, monster-hunting tropes is, if anything, understated! Lovecraft and Burroughs' John Carter and Tarzan were, I would suggest, more instrumental in shaping Dungeons & Dragons as we know it - the original dungeon-crawling game - than Tolkien, who typically gets nearly all the credit!)
Honestly, I can't really expect anyone today, in a world where popular fantasy has frozen inflexibly into "Generic Medieval European Fantasy" territory, to warm up to explicitly Victorian Gaslight, or especially pulp-era monster hunters - if a fantasy gaming product isn't stuck clearly into D&D or Warhammer territory, it's just not going to sell! (Personally, I'd have a blast converting a box of Wargame Atlantic's WWII French Resistance fighters and maybe some bits from some of WA's World Ablaze products into werewolf and vampire hunters for a Weird World War setting, but I know I'm kinda of alone there!)
But, kitchen-sink fantasy DOES still cover a lot of territory, and that territory covers a lot of historical ground between the Classical and Dark Ages, up into the Renaissance and far beyond right up to the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, not to mention including fantasy settings such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' lost worlds of the Hollow Earth or alien worlds like Barsoom (post-apocalyptic Mars), Robert E. Howards prehistoric Hyborean Age (set after the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria), Clark Ashton Smith's far-future Zothique (a nearly post-civilization Earth beneath a dying sun), and Lovecraft's bizarre Dunsanian Dreamlands (set in a sort of alternate dimension or astral plane), all of which can overlap with modern "generic fantasy"....
There's LOTS of room there for something a little different from generically "medieval European" monster-hunters, without straying TOO far from narrow, modern, Generic "Medieval European" Fantasy Kitchen Sink territory!
@Brian Van De Walker I do not think their line is going anywhere soon. Anyway it's just a Game of Thrones rip off.
@Eduard Garfella I have perry 1415-1429, But I am curious about Conquistadors. A shame the conquistadors are missing greaves and vambraces.
@Vitor Correia That is why I am telling you that you have to mix sprues and do kitbashing.
@Eduard Garfella Better wait for Tolls Guard.
@Eduard Garfella Forgotten World is Fireforge's Fantasy setting line and you would see what's gotten made for it under thier fantasy section banner, a lot of the sculpting for the human factions was knocking off the popular Games of Thrones TV show, starting and for those wanting more heroic scale hopfully not ending with the Northmen who were clearly House Stark (I backed for the Peasents). I was actually kinda of disapointed they chose to do heroic scale fantasy humans given they already had perfect for fantasy historic human sets (though no peasents) and could have just started with the non-human races, and being a historic scale prefer I was even more disapointed when they decided to do everything in heroic scale from then on out, kinda of lost me as a customer.
@Yronimos Whateley I am going to be honest, the closest to a "medieval style" look for fantasy that I would call "kitchen sink fantasy" that I have seen would be from Anime and JRPGs. You generally end up with stuff like Valley of Wind and its concept art:
Another good example would be Lodoss war:
In both cases though if you look carfully you can see that there are several influnces from diffrent eras, cultures, and even some shapes taken from nature (its not really medieval European, it just gives a vague feeling of it in context and that context is often fairytale Bavaria in the more modern Anime). This actually makes it more fantasy like and not a cut and paste photoshop job of historical knights/men at arms. That said neither of the examples above really feel "classic horror monster hunter" like vaguely Victorian style characters would.
Edit after reading through: Oh, and WA shouldn't bother doing medieval monks and witchs for plastic, they should just do cultists 1 and 2 sets since those would actually sell better as Northstar has proven.
I mean witchs are more genric fantasy than a history topic as far as gaming goes and should just be one option in a general female spellcaster box. Likewise I think the way to do Cathloic monks is to add them as one option in something like a general dark age Civilian set with Saga in mind or better yet the Spanish guerrillas more than thier own thing.
But hood and robe cultist, honestly you can never have enough of them for all sorts of games, it might even be wise to plan them out as an army with the first 2 as male and female half sprues set with a melee option and alternative gun option like the Afgahns with both fantasy and pulp in mind, heck you could even do 5 to a half sprue with 40 figures a box, maybe have some gasmask heads given the rise of games like Trench Crusade and Sludge. Then they should do an alter set with command options.
@Yronimos Whateley I would love to see the kind of accessory sprue you are talking about! Any number of bodies would work depending on the era, but having heads and arms equipped appropriately would be a godsend for kitbashing. The Frostgrave Wizards sets are my go to for this kind of stuff but expanding it out with Witch Hunter bits would be so useful.
@Paul Mitting Same here - the Frostgrave figure sculpting is just a bit shorter and doughier than I'd like, but there's a wealth of great accessories in those Frostgrave Wizards boxes - between those kits and the Frostgrave Cultists, there's all sorts of great stuff to work with in building fantasy and sci-fi figures. I have no idea how popular it would e on the whole, but if Wargames Atlantic had something similar, that is one or more accessory-heavy sets for cultists, wizards and witches, psychics, inquisitors, charlatains, rogues, detectives, technomancers, monster-hunters, and the like, I'm sure I'd prefer the WA product.
Frostgrave wizards seem like another good business model for plastic miniatures to me. Few miniatures but countless bits.
@Brian Van De Walker
Edit after reading through: Oh, and WA shouldn't bother doing medieval monks and witchs for plastic, they should just do cultists 1 and 2 sets since those would actually sell better as Northstar has proven.
I mean witchs are more genric fantasy than a history topic as far as gaming goes and should just be one option in a general female spellcaster box. Likewise I think the way to do Cathloic monks is to add them as one option in something like a general dark age Civilian set with Saga in mind or better yet the Spanish guerrillas more than thier own thing.
But hood and robe cultist, honestly you can never have enough of them for all sorts of games, it might even be wise to plan them out as an army with the first 2 as male and female half sprues set with a melee option and alternative gun option like the Afgahns with both fantasy and pulp in mind, heck you could even do 5 to a half sprue with 40 figures a box, maybe have some gasmask heads given the rise of games like Trench Crusade and Sludge. Then they should do an alter set with command options.
Exactly so: from my armchair, it seems like a significant amount of Wargames Atlantic's bread-and-butter seems to rest on disgruntled Warhammer and 40K gamers in search of a supply of affordable alternatives to official minis and minis for underserved 40K factions, and with that (and my limited background in GW games) in mind, sets catered toward fairly generic and versatile fantasy/sci-fi cultists, inquisitors, and gasmasked trench-fighters would surely be easy money compared to historical monks and witches/witch-hunters.
Especially considering that the historical mini market seems to be more interested in ranged and melee combatants for a limited selection of wargaming subjects, and I get the impression that historical subjects that stray outside of those areas - say, the ever-popular French Napoleonics and WWII German combatants, for example - are probably going to be niche and risky.
Not that I'm against niche stuff - quite the opposite! But, there's a limit tot he power of "if you build it, they will come", and niche markets are not necessarily the sort of thing that pays employees and keeps the factory running....
Anyway, generically robed figures are surely evergreen, slipping easily almost anywhere in fantasy, sci-fi, pulp horror, post-apocalyptic, and other speculative subgenres, and finding homes even across the pickier historical market, given appropriate bits and enough willingness of historical gamers to get over the "you got chocolate in my peanut-butter" effect and make any minor conversions beyond that where appropriate, to fit into a given era and theatre!
I think it is simpler. GW has (or had) a practical monopoly, and that deteriorates the quality-price of its products. WA is one of the companies that supply a more non-conformist public with the quality and price of its miniatures. Here the free market operates magnificently.@Yronimos Whateley
My suggestion is exactly to move away from the GW look. Witch Hunter/Inquisitor troupe is already well covered.
Rather have a group of mercs/soldiers/guards with a healthy selection of bits.
The victorian aesthetic is not the propiety of GW, but for the pice of their witch hunters they have shown us their popularity. I think that the niche of western warrior/guards/mercenaries is well covered.
Nobody said it was. I just said it already well covered, and I agree it's popular like medieval warriors/guards/mercenaries are. Calling a niche is a stretch, but not nearly as well covered apparently, since you suggested for me to do conversions previously.
@Vitor Correia Bro what you have been asking for this whole time is "medieval warriors/guards/mercenaries" there is no diffrence between that and "Town Guards" or even "medieval monster hunters" and whats more it is more covered than the Victorians already and its going to be even more covered in the near future, your just unwelling to use perry parts.
Heck as it stands you can pretty much get what you want as Reaper Bones or buy it off ebay in the form of second hand WFB minis and bits which are pretty cheap, not counting the diffrent print outs and metal options folks sell, (heck there is even Mage Knight clixs). Meanwhile for Victorian monster hunters it is mostly really old metals of kinda of random quality to the sculpts or it's stuff like malifaux which is overly steampunky.
@Brian Van De Walker I left my sugestion here, the correct place for sugestions, and yet again, I'm not interested in conversions, historicals or victorian monster hunters.
I don't want just medieval guard like you, and others keep insisting. I want fantasy inspired medieval, which in appearance and equipment is only limited by imagination.
Difference is evident even with similar pieces.
So please stop telling me what I want or should want.
@Vitor Correia I don’t see much, if any real difference between your fantasy knight example picture and real historical example of armor knights wore that I have seen at all! (frankly it looks like AI art that cobbled a bunch of real world armor examples together, which surprisingly would probably still work for history as is since IRL troops looted armor).
Here is a closer approximation to the armor your “fantasy knight” has on, it’s at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC:
In fact I would say your underestimating how creative and fantastical looking the real thing was like this cavalry armor worn by Sigismund II Augustus of Poland:
The fact is in order to not be just easily recognizable historical warrior X with maybe an anachronistic helmet (which is kinda of uncreative move for a plastic set making company that also does historic, since they could just do the historic warrior and sell it as a dual use on the box), a fantasy warrior design has to go at least as far as Parn from Lodass Wars with his 19th to 20th century clothing showing under his armor:
Or totally redesign the armor and clothing with Starwars as a guiding influence like this guy:
There is no "medieval Fantasy" look, there is just medieval historical outfits commandeered for fantasy which should just be done as history sets if we are talking for plastic, and super hodpog anachronistic outfits that truely are fantasy looking.
By the way Reaper's "medieval warriors/guards/mercenaries" options are all made for fantasy gaming first and foremost, and yes they have options that cover the "low fantasy medieval " look you seem to be trying to go for with your example in spades.
What we are telling you is the rest of us would prefer the more Victorian monster hunters, there are not as many options for them as knights/men at arms (which how its normally labeled for fantasy, not history, fantasy) and that you can already get what you want elsewhere right now simply by shopping around, so much so we are all wondering why you brought this up particularly when WA’s non-SciFi stuff like Fantasy is all in historical scale similar to the Perry HYW sets that you don’t like due to scaling.
It looks like reaper miniatures sorts your Victorian monster hunter look aswell.
See how easy is it be disingenuous.
I will keep my opinion, by all means keep yours.
Edit: Like I previously mentioned I'm waiting to see Tolls Guard.
I have no interest in victorian stuff, but by all means make your case for it. Me suggesting medieval fantasy, does not invalidate your suggestion for Victorian.
@Vitor Correia Don´t take this wrong way, but the quality of that miniature you passed is not up to par with what is made today, and furthermore, it is monopose. This is the level now.
@Eduard Garfella I know, hence why i I said it's easy to be disingenuous. Thats reaper miniatures btw.
No one can argue the quality of GW but the price is shocking.
I don't dislike the plated look of some of them, but needs more swords ;) ( monopose kits)
In adition, these miniatures are 32mm scales, not 28mm, that is to say that in the scale that interests us, they do not even exist. And on top of that, they are absurdly expensive.
@Vitor Correia You can take the swords of another kit.
@Eduard Garfella the irony of you saying the reaper figure isn't suitable because it's monopose, then posting GW's monopose 3d puzzle figures as the alternative..
seriously, look at these sprues. minimal build options beyond heads and minor gear swaps.
@Mithril2098 Tou´re right, it´s no secret that the quality of GW minis has dropped a lot in terms of customization, probably because they aspire to reach an audience that wants everything easy and doesn´t care about customization. Furthermore, all you have to do is compare this sprue with those of pistoliers or those of flagellants to check the decrease in bits. Even so, even though they are modular puzzles, they still leave you room for conversion, except that you will need a modeling saw, green putty, and bits from elsewhere. Basically it is more difficult, but it is still easier than reaper. In addition, they have changed the scale from 28 to 32, looking for a slimmer anime-type style that has personally made me discard them, since it forces you to only use miniatures of their invented scale for the conversions.
Well this thread exploded.
I'm sorry for apparently derailing this whole thing by suggesting Bloodborne style "Monster Hunters" as the second post, but there aren't really any Multi-part kits for that style of monster hunter avaliable (ignoring the 1-or-2 GW kits which have so few options they may as well be monopose).
As someone else has mentioned though, there's supposedly a "Classic Fantasy Rangers" kit already up WA's sleeve which would essentially be your Classic Fantasy Monster Hunter as that's one of the major Ranger Archetypes already.
In regards to actual "Fantasy Guards", WA seem to already be making a Medieval Guard kit which accurately depicts your classic town guard, so we don't really need another set filling that role (also full plate is expensive, so outside of officers you probably aren't seeing the oftentimes volunteer city guard wearing anything more than a chain shirt or a breastplate).
A more Victorian "Bloodborne" styled "Monster Hunter" kit would likely sell better in general and WA already do a Victorian Policeman kit over on Atlantic Digital, so this could fit nicely with them towards a classic little" Gothic Horror" styled range.
The truth is that we have digressed in a bad way, but I think that the conclusions we have drawn have been good, and we have touched on interesting topics.
Well anyway one of the reasons that I think a vague 19th look for monster hunters would be best so we can get classic Vampires at the same time by simply adding some fanged headswaps. Anyone else thoughts on that?
Hey everyone. Its been a while since I have been on these forumns. I wanted to say that I am not a huge victorian fan either, but I would bet they would sell well.
As far as reaper minis... that miniature posted above is one of the older bones minis. They are much better now, the bones black and bones USA materials are not wobbly soft plastic that original bones was. Here is thier town guard that just released this month.
Also, I posted this on Facebook, but the Conquistadors and roman citizens kitbash nicely.
@William Redford Any brand worth its salt should guarantee compatibility between its kits.
I'm going to be putting my two cents into this long and exhausting convo via a numbered list.
Long story short, You'd have to take away from the Classic Fantasy Cultists and the Priests in order to make them compatable with Monks. So I'd personally recommend some more thought on how to make that idea work.
And..... yeah I'm going to ditch the numbered list here to bring up another important thing, conversion and cross kits compatability. Not everything has to be in one mega kit in order to be worthwhile. Honestly, one problem I've been having with some of my 40k kits is what to do with all the different heads. I don't have a 3d printer, nor do I have the resources to buy and maintain one (so don't ask), which leaves me very few options when it comes to spare bodies. That is honestly something that would work in WGA's favor, selling sprues of bodies to slap your extra heads and arms on.
Anyhoos, those are my long two cents.
@Eduard Garfella Gosh I wish that was true😆.
@Charles Tottington Thats is kinda why I think they should just do cultists as cultists and not mix it with the Monks,witchs,etc. into it. Heck, the subject is so varied they could even keep the current STL after doing several diffrent looking sets of Plastic cultists for the fantasy line just by naming the cults.
That said the reason I think Victorian/Pulp Monster Hunters could be done with options to build Vampires as well is that Hunters are often dressed the same as the blood suckers and their thralls are, tend to use the same weapons (whips, sword canes, swords, daggers, crossbows, etc.), and are often from the same noble class. Heck one of the traditional vampire/monster hunter stereotypes in eastern European folklore and modern pop culture are half vampires, it just makes sense to do them at the same time in the same box sets particular since you have a good general purpose horror game starter sets that way.
One of the reasons I am not exactly sold on the idea of medieval Monster Hunters as first proposed is I honestly think of full armor wearing knights on horseback slaying dragons, ogres and trolls first followed by Capcom's Monster Hunter Franchise full of dino slayers. Neither seem like iconic werewolf, witch, or vampire opponents per say to me and I am not going to get into how unlike “rank and file” city guards both would be. Likewise in the former case I am okay with the history sets covering it since Medieval/Early Renaissance hunters are just knights that if done by committee, like a lot of WA sets are, will probably end up usable for history gaming out of the box (in which case why bother doing it for fantasy, let the history nuts sort it out) unless there is a real hard push to go with a "Skeleton Knight to another world" Anime/JRPG look for them which again is more anachronism stew with a lot of 19th century to modern touches thrown in. (A lot of the older “fantasy knights” and other “fantasy human” army models done by GW can fill for history gaming)
Honestly I think a good “fantasy upgrade” sprue done with sets from “Decline and Fall” to “Renaissance” in mind would cover Medieval/Early Renaissance monster hunters at this point better than any figure set could since it would focus on extra bits that are actually make such set fantasy (maybe couple it with the release of some Men at Arms/foot knights suitable for HYW battle of Crecy or the early mid Italian wars).
@Brian Van De Walker You are thinking knights, I'm thinking more on the witcher look.
The picture I put as an example is a fantasy interpretation of an Almogavar mercenary.
The talk unfortunately got derailed into other aspects of fantasy looks.
