ok so hear me out. I want to by a set of generic torsos with nothing else on the sprew. when I buy a full sprew I get more heads and arms than are needed. this is for customization and I understand, but now I have a lot of arms and heads sitting in a box. please sell us just a line of straight torsos and legs for slightly less than a full set would cost.
Torsos
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Hudson Adams ModeratorAlternatively - more torsos/legs than in a normal set for the same price! 😜
But then the question becomes...what? Polo shirt torsos? Blue jeans? Single-piece jump suits? Furry vests? Tunic bodies? Chainmail?
I fear this would be the kind of thing that would annoy almost everyone because it wouldn't be perfect for anyone.
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@david phillips I find that the extra heads are a constant source of kit-bashing other sets. For instance I've just done a wee unit of Viking Halflings with the aid of left-overs from the Dark Age Irish!!!
If you're familiar with my special form of madness exhibited in Flintloque and SPQoRk Pax Bochemannica you will know I can't leave Halflings in peace!
Some of these Viking Halflings sport the false red beards and moustaches first devised by Ragnar Lothbaggins in the Third Age...
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@Hudson Adams
If it’s purely for using up parts I recommend an army builder set of just a body in a generic plate cuirass armor with pants and of course generic pull on boots in different poses.
It is basically what most city/town gate guardsmen, soldiers, thugs, bandits and front liner adventures wear in fantasy fiction and would work really well as base for games like Turnip28mm and Sludge, plus it also works great for everything in Sci-Fi from Postapoc gaming to classic pulp space opera, even cyber punk if one has the right bits.
You can put pretty much any type of arms, weapon and head combo on it and it will look nice: plate mail arm, chainmail sleeved arm, cloth armor arm, all shoulder/full arm armor types, long sleeved arms, short sleeved arms, bare arms, reptile, gobliniod, robot/cyborg, werewolf, etc. Helmets look great with it, bare heads look great, monster heads look great, shakos look great, the other funny hats will look as good as they ever could look, etc. Anything from stone clubs to laser weaponry will work with this body style wise in any flavor.
You have some extra partisan arms and a ton of goblin heads in your bit box staring at you, use this torso and boom diesel punk orcs. Have extra WW1 German helmet heads and tons of Conquistador arms, boom generic fantasy troops. Have a bunch of Prussian heads with a mix of WW2 french and Aztec arms plus this body, boom sludge army. Have a bunch of WW1 to modern parts, boom apoc gangers. Have a bunch of lizardmen parts... Well you get the idea.
The only place it is sort of “eh” is pure history gaming, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it works for something in history.
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What sorts of torsos/bodies is a great question, and not as easy to answer as it seems at first!
Seems like maybe something generic and multi-purpose is a great place to start, though:
- Generic Corporate Suit-and-Ties - mix with 20th Century weapons and gear for corporate goon squads, men-in-black, secret agents, pulp detectives and dilletants for pulp and horror gaming, Yakuza/mobsters/mafios, zombie-hunting militias, FBI untouchables to combat gangsters.... Or, mix with sci-fi weapons and gear and cybernetics for cyberpunk corporate goons, shadowrunners, rogue cyborgs...
- Trenchcoat Torsos - ditto!
- Coveralls - mix with tool bits for mechanics, janitors, factory or other workers, dystopian citizens... arm them with improvised weapons for thugs and goons... give them 20th-century weapons for a dystopian dictatorship's army or maybe the clone army of an alien invasion... heads with suitably creepy masks and arms with improvised weapons like meat cleavers or machetes would give you a whole tabletop army of slasher movie killers, for reasons.... Add light sci-fi weapons and gear for planetary colonists....
- Space Cadet Uniforms - mix with spare sci-fi and modern weapons and gear for Space Fleet red-shirts and the like.
- Dark Ages Peasant Bodies - mix with simple melee weapons like spears, or with improvised weapons like pitchforks and torches, for conscript armies, townsfolk, camp followers, angry mobs, militias, peasant revolts, thugs and bandits... Good choices of spare heads could come from lots of great sources, but some of the more obvious might be the Afghans, and pretty much any Dark Ages set.
- Gambeson ("Padded Armor") torsos with simple jackboots: combine with spare pole-arms and other weapons for basic medieval footmen; combine with sci-fi bits for retro sci-fi guys.
- Leather Jackets and Jeans, Dusters and Combat Boots, Leather Harnesses and Spikes: combine with 20th Century weapons and gear, improvised weapons, and the occasional anachronistic weapons and gear for post-apocalyptic bikers or wasteland gangers, punk thugs, street gangs, and the like.... Mad-Max villain style harnesses-and-spikes torsos might also serve as gladiators, fantasy cultists, barbarians, etc.
- Assorted bodies in modern, medieval peasent, or "near-future" outfits, with twised/deformed/shambling postures, torn clothing, etc. - for zombies, plague-victims, post-apocalyptic mutants, deadites, cannibals..... an "accessory sprue" of suitale zombie/mutant/alien heads is optional, but recommended for best results. Or, mix with gas-mask heads and gear for post-apocalyptic gas-mask-mooks....
- Vague, non-descript military unforms of assorted eras - mix with accessory sprues of any sort, or with leftover historical bits, to make random mercenary, pirate, or guerilla armies from. Add sci-fi bits for vague mercenary/guerilla Death Fields teams, or space pirates....
- Many historical armies - especially in empires - used the same weapons, and differred only in headwear and/or uniforms from each other; for example, the Mauser rifle or AK-47 have equipped most of the world's armies at different points in history. This might be a great opportunity to put some sprues of torsoes in uniforms for some of the more unusual armies on the market, alongside sprues of some of the most popular weapon of various periods. (I suspect that the popular request for ANZACS might be a good subject for this approach - sprues of ANZAC torsoes might, I believe, be ripe for kit-bashing with boxes of British soldiers, or with boxes of Space Brits for Space ANZACS....)
...and that's just a couple of the things I thought of, I bet someone could think of a lot more!
EDIT: And I like the way @Brian Van De Walker thinks - dieselpunk orcs are brilliant, and the generic cuirass-and-pants torso is exactly the sort of thing that would work well for soaking up random bits without being too specific to any particular army, giving modelers a lot of freedom to improvise!
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“I fear this would be the kind of thing that would annoy almost everyone because it wouldn't be perfect for anyone.”
I think the trick is to make something like the army builder concept, something that is designed to use up a lot of what many folks have going spare in their bits box, covering as wide a range as possible.
The coverall bodies of Cannon Fodder boxes are going to go to a lot more uses than what the box intends and will result in a lot of spare Cannon Fodder bits going unused. How many people will want generic coverall wearing torsos? Hard to guess but WA has the best idea based on customer feedback. Not that I am saying sell sprues of just Cannon Fodder torsos. That ship has sailed. But another similarly generic, multipurpose torso design could sell well by itself for all the different projects folks have.
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@Brian Van De Walker That is a brilliant idea. They could even sell them with the Death Gields arm and head sprue as a viable force right out the gate.
And if the clothing is loose enough, the torso not overly V-shaped, the bodies could even work as gender neutral for those gamers who want to use feminine heads.
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@Hudson Adams "I fear this would be the kind of thing that would annoy almost everyone because it wouldn't be perfect for anyone."
You might be right about that, in any case. On the other hand, a lot might depend on what WA does release: if it's too niche, or too broad, or too strange, or too well-covered by other products, it can certainly hit that apathetic area where nobody would buy it, because it's perfect for no one.
And, as someone mentioned somewhere, this might be something the "army builder" kits handle better: a whole lot of relatively simple and generic torsoes with relatively few head and weapon options, which can benefit from a little creative use of stuff left in the bits-bins!
Might be a good topic for the next poll that Wargames Atlantic runs, to see if it's something that their customers might be enthusiastic about, and what sorts of Torso subjects get the most enthusiastic responses.
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@BS Kitbasher
I would rather have them in historical scale as a "make your own custom fantasy army" AB set in the classic fantasy line (kind of want bodies just like that, no one really sells them in historcal scale, and I have piles of historical bits waiting for the chance to shine), though I could see a Sci-Fi heroic scale variant being popular since it is similar to the basic design of a lot of SF troopers (though a box of just Cannon Fodder bodies might work just as well for most).
Anyway the only parts that might be good add-ons for them as a set would be optional glue on shin guards or knee pads so it could look a bit heavier when coupled with stuff like plate mail arms.
Now the “generic plate cuirass armor with pants and pull on boots” body would probably the most versatile one size fits all way to use up extra arm bits, particularly armored bits. That all said there are a few other body types that I have noticed over the years that are fairly versatile and useful.
Of these probably the most useful for history gaming was tunic wearing bare legged numidian warrior bodies, (to my knowledge first done by Wargames Factory in plastic) since those can cover for a lot of diffrent stuff in history depending on what head and arm options are used.
After that, is a body wearing a plane slightly worn buttonless shirt with plane slightly worn pants and shoes as it works great with most unarmored arms, particularly sleeved arms. While I would not champion it as "great for history gaming" like the numidian body, it works with shooty era part like blackpowder and WW1/2 bits and looks good with other parts like bows and swords. Surprisingly the best example of this I have seen thus far is a single body on the custom zombie sprue Z-studio miniatures does.
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@Yronimos Whateley
I believe they have done a number of polls on this and Hudson has asked in other groups as well.
In theory a bit box dolly set, which is what this proposal is really, is a good idea. Likewise it has also been brought up several times on the FB group.
The problem is that the bodies everyone keeps thinking of when this is brought up are Dark Age warrior bodies like the ones Gripping Beasts does, which are not really as versatile or useful when it comes to other subjects as some people think. Okay for some stuff, but really guys they do not work for most 13th century onward Europeans or anything else outside of Dark ages and late antiquities Europeans when comes to history gaming and they look it, and no they are not good for most Classical or earlier Ancient factions outside few tribes in Northern Europe either.
They then also want to add weapons and heads to it, which besides defeating the point of the proposal also ends up making it little more than a redo of the GB set which frankly has issues like being kind of boring compared to actual Goth, Frank, etc. sets and not really useful in denting the moutian of armored shoulder sleeves you have from the Vikings you collected (ie one of many reasons why I suggested “plate cuirass armor with pants and pull on boots” body).
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The issue is that not all arms and heads will work with a generic body more appease all buyers. I think we all need to just accept that your bits box will forever grow lol.
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Right, I think the Dark Age Warrior thing is probably not very useful historically very far outside the Dark Ages (though it surely works just fine in fantasy!) These might soak up a lot of spare bits for Dark Age and fantasy gamers, though, especially since I have a feeling that's the sort of bits that are in a lot of bit boxes out there - mostly because the amount of crossover between the Dark Ages historical and fantasy markets must surely encourage the production of lots of these sorts of kits, with lots of leftover bits!
Outside the Dark Ages, things begin getting more specific, and that does get tricky.
I expect some generic fatigues and combat boots with webbing, and some generic greatcoats with combat boots and webbing, would cover a lot of Victorian to 21st Century subjects for historical gamers who are willing to fudge accuracy a little, and work as well for sci-fi gaming as well.
Generic combat torsos with modern combat armor might begin limiting the historical use to the late 20th century and beyond, but Starship Troopers and Aliens pretty much runs on that sort of thing, and might have a market there. (I'd classify that loosely as "cyberpunk", and would probably cross over loosely with whatever market that has,to.)
I think the torsos from WA's Late Roman Legionaries set might be broadly useful: to my eye, it looks fine for many Dark Ages purposes, and as such works in fantasy. For ancients gaming, it has its uses for late Romans, naturally, but surely also works for mercenaries and barbarians as well, and might even be pushed back a little ways in time, for historical gamers who don't mind a little anachronism here and there. These Late Roman torsos also look to me like the foundation for a fine Death Fields faction - jast add Death Fields sci-fi bits or Accessory Sprues to complete the look. The "Space Roman" thing also seemed to be a recurring trope in pulp sci-fi, going back a long way (it was recognizable enough that Loony Toons' Marvin the Martian made sense to contemporary audiences as a parody!)
A body wearing loose trousers and a long, loose tunic with sandals, crude shoes, or even bare feet might cover a lot of odd Victorian-20th Century historical subjects, as that seems to have been the "uniform of choice" for those without a choice in impoverished, colonized places around the "third world", and thus plausible, I expect, for a lot of understandably disgruntled guerilla armies and such. I expect this sort of costume work well enough with just about anything from scimitars and machetes to AK-47s and RPGs, though suitable heads for any paticular subject might be a bit trickier to source (I don't think there are mountains of spare turbans, keffiyehs, boonie hats, kufis, rice hats, fezes and the like sitting around out there, while most of the bare heads in my stash of bits look decidedly northern and western European, and maybe a bit hard to fudge convincingly into use elsewhere!) Unfortunately, I can't think of more than niche uses in fantasy and sci-fi, but they can't all cross over, I guess.
For whatever it's worth, it seems to me that some of the more versatile torsos in WA's lineup might include:
- Persian Infantry - with long loose shirts and trousers, with a rope belt, and crude shoes; if I didn't know what army they're meant to be for, I'd have a hard time placing them in any particular century or continent - only the rope belts and hand-made moccasins (and, in a couple cases, some odd cloth armor) really limit their use very far into the modern era. And, of course, they would work fine for fantasy gamers.
- Late Roman Legionaries - pretty much the generic Dark Age chainmail torsos - could likely be mixed with pretty much any Dark Age arms and heads, and of course work fine for fantasy gamers.
- WA's "Great War" and "World Ablaze" line - the French, British, Italians, and Germans seem like they could span a few decades befor and after their time, when mixed with different heads and weapons, to create assorted armies from the Victorian era to at least early WWII. I've seen the French great-coats used in a couple odd projects today, such as pulp sci-fi WWII Germans, and I'm sure they could find more historical, pulp, and sci-fi uses, the British seem like they can cover Victorian historical and Victorian sci-fi/Steampunk subjects in addition to their "proper' use. The German, French, and Italian torsos and other bits seem like they can be mixed-and-matched to create other European armies (I believe Austrians and Polish seemed plausible, for example.)
- Panzer Lehr Division - the classic bad-guy uniform; useful for WWII Germans (and I'm sure there are lots of spare WWII German bits for them), and they certainly wouldn't look out of place in many sci-fi settings (Iron-Core seems to run on this theme, and with a little creativity they can be souped up into "Star Wars Imperial" style villains.
- French Partisans - a niche item, perhaps, but the costumes cover a lot of early 20th Century ground, and I've been using them for pulp investigators, gangster thugs, and cultists, and some of the torsos mix well with western gunslinger bits for pulp adventurer and late wild west and Weird West uses.
- Cannon Fodder - the fairly nondescript jumpsuits and boots could fit into a number of utilitarian contexts ranging from the mid-late 20th century, to all sorts of sci-fi (especially the more dystopian sorts!)
Of these, the Persians seem to me the most surprisingly useful, and the Romans the most obviously useful, with the rest being far more niche than the Persians and Romans. (YMMV)
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@Cole Lassell - the real problem is that some of us are just bits-hoarders - at least, I know I am! Given a bunch of perfect torsos for soaking up my spare bits, I would just buy more bits to replenish my stock! Thus, the cycle begins....
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Anvil Industries, Spellcrow, Mad Robot Miniatures Wargames Exclusive, Puppets War, Kromlech all sell torsos and legs or both.
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@Shawn Hall
Yeah but those are all heroic scale and in resin. It would be nice to have something to suck up the historical bits instead of just the heroic scale IG bodies.
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On that note, I really appreciate that Wargames Atlantic has some of the less exaggerated fantasy and sci-fi figures out there: the exaggeration is there - compare the rifles and boots in the previews of the the Death Fields British "Bulldogs" ("Space Brits") to their historical counterparts for example - but I've been mixing-and-matching WA fantasy/sci-fi and historical stuff with other companies' bits without too much trouble.
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@Yronimos Whateley The Death Fields parts I have work great on Warlord's WW2 range:
That said, WA's historical scale ranges (ie everything that isn't Death Fields) looks okay with a lot of the Death Fields stuff mixed in, so I would rather have historical scale torsos.
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@Mac Coxhead aren't viking halflings kind of, well dwarves? 😊
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By the way, @Mac Coxhead - those Dark Age Irish heads work a lot better on Halfling bodies than I expected - I figured that, since the proportions were a bit different, it might look a bit "off", but that looks pretty natural, actually. Great work!
@Brian Van De Walker - That photo and your experience with the kitbashing for Death Fields bits onto historical kits pretty much confirms my experience: historical bodies are just fine for this sort of work!
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@Yronimos Whateley Your list is brilliant and if it ever did see partial light of day, it would be grand for Shadowrun. Not to mention the Nevers TV.
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