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Poll: Standing Horses!

First question is if they would be useful to you. Second question is should they have anything on them?
  • Hudson Adams

    We've been thinking about doing some plain standing horses - some upright, some bending to eat/drink. There are a lot of questions though! 

    Time to Make the Plastic!

  • OrlandotheTechnicoloured

    Probably not something i'd use, but i can see a market for them. i'd think bare of tack makes most sense (and makes them most versetile), 

  • Grumpy Gnome

    As usual I agree with Orlando.

    Blankets are easy enough to sculpt with greenstuff if folks need. It is much more difficult to remove an unnecessary blanket for say, wild horses.

    Home of the Grumpy Gnome

    https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

  • OrlandotheTechnicoloured

    @Grumpy Gnome white glue soaked tissue paper also works really well for simple fabric like blankets

  • AL

    @OrlandotheTechnicoloured Dried "wet wipes" work well too. They evenly stretch to the sides and do not have a pronounced texture, which is good for scale.

  • BS Kitbasher

    It depends on the price.  They might be easier to justify buying per sprue for a specific project rather than per box with too many to use right away.

  • JG

    Bare horses minus any tack would be more versatile and could fit a lot more genres.

    Even if you did a basic, or generic tack set, they'd only be suitable for the timeframe of when that (or similar) tack was used.

    Leave them bare and let people make their own tack to suit what they game.

  • BS Kitbasher

    Great.  Now I can't shake the need to cover one with 1/48 tank stowage bits.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    I'm not sure I can see buying a box of nothing but standing, grazing, bare-back horses, but if you make them part of a larger set of some sort, that might get the most bang for the production buck.  Perhaps....

    • such horses included in a set like the Farm Animal set, along with other working animals (dogs, mules, oxen, camels, carrier pigeon cages?)
    • horses with options that would allow saddles, furniture, etc. to be added
    • a mixed set of bare-back, saddled, and harnessed horses, along with e.g. a water cart or a chuckwagon, and/or perhaps some scenic items....
  • SC

    I would be interested in a box. If the Sprue includes a running horse & a dead one; more.

  • Sebastian

    I would suggest bare horses with furniture, blankets and saddles as separate parts on the sprue. If possible.

  • DM

    I would be interested, but only a sprues worth.

    Don't think this would be something that would sell well in a full box. As others have said most people are just going to want a few. 

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  • CL

    I think stationary horses would work well for things like the SS cavalry for bolt action, but this also means we need to know what type of riders or if any you plan for these horses.

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  • Don Williams

    Generic horses, with separate releases for various historical era cavalry (ancient, dark ages, etc). You could then include the saddles with the riders. 

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  • RM

    Bare horse standing or walking but also some form of option to add basis saddle, or furniture for pulling wagons so large neck collar and small straps that could be used as harness lines.  Maybe this will help put more on sprue by taking up areas in between horses. Alternative different horses heads some with head collars some without.

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  • SG

    @Hudson Adams Bare, but with tack sets produced as upgrade sprues

  • Kinjack

    Echo all the above - bare horses because it leaves the most room for kitbashing.

    Most cavalry units in wargames are units of 12, sometimes less. 

    An ideal box might be 12 standing/grazing horses and 12 charging/running horses? Or maybe two boxes, one with 12 standing and one with 12 charging. 

    As Scott said above maybe even a little extra sprue in each with a couple of dead or dying horses on it? Would be great for modelling Wild West and Indian Wars stuff, or the Falaise Pocket. 

    “I will not withdraw so long as those banners still wave in the wind." - Jean Parisot De La Valette

  • TD

    I voted for bare! I would love them for a wild west stable. Also bare can be a horse from any era, ancient to WW2 and everything inbetween.

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  • MP

    With furniture please! While blankets are easy to sculpt, bridles and reins are not! And they are time consuming and fiddly. 

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  • CS

    I would like to see them made with bridles potentially already on but leave saddles, armour and tack on a separate sprue. As mentioned, it would meanyoy have a generic horse with the fiddly bits of reins already sculpted and then can buy accessory sprues to then customise the model to whatever period you were looking at

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  • Paul McMurray

    Currently working on Wild West stuff and these would fit right in. Not sure how much of a market there is for period specific gear but bare horses would go well with most periods and locations

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  • BV

    @Yronimos Whateley

    Kind of have to agree, in fact when I read and foolishly voted "with furniture" I was assuming (very incorrectly😆) that they would come with scenery bits like chairs, shelves, etc. though if its going to be a sprue of them just standing, maybe a mix of the bare and furnished, or a mix furnished for the main eras/armies WA is planning on doing (ie instead of doing one era, do a couple at once, after all this is sort of a scenery bit sprue, and it seems unlikely to me that wild horses would be standing still in a combat zone, particularly if firearms are involved). Warring states China always has my vote, a standing Bavarian officer or cavalry horse might be fun, and WW1/2 furnished standing horses might have fans in unlikely places particularly if they have gas masks.

     

  • RB

    They would be useful - i have a large number made years ago (so more like ponies nowadays!) for some mongols, some with heads turning and other relaxed poses, brilliant - can dig them out and send a photo if useful. if some horse blankets/other furniture can be made separate even better

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  • Axel Schudak

    @Hudson Adams 

    I certainly need many of these to field units lingering around on a battlefield, and not all of them in full charge regardless of where they are. A look at the otherwise splendid Victrix Macedonians and Greek shows the problem of not mixing well.
    For that, I need them with different saddles and harness, depending on the army I want to remount. If you do "furniture" make it as basic as possible, for conversion work. Standing horses without have their use, too, but probably not as widespread. Once you have a herd of 50 you probably are served.

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  • Darren Richardson

    Some standing horses would be nice, but make them bare and do some seperate sadles and blankets and packs, even if they come in two parts for each one in order to get a decent fit onto the horse won't be an issue, that way we can use them for diormias or with older horseless cavalry models or even conversions, and by having the fittings on a sprue seperate to the horses, you can make several variants for different eras or even fantasy races. 

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  • JW

    I'm hoping to get into some fantasy wargames soon so I'd appreciate a decent horse kit that isn't closely tied to a particular era or theme. My first thought is that bare horses with optional saddles etc. would be ideal, although maybe the latter could just be included in rider kits. Depends on how much sprue space you're looking at.

  • MR

    From Jeremy on the article announcing the pole,

    "Horses like this in bareback are fairly easy to find at this scale. My suggestion is the ideal setup would be bareback horses with the option to add saddles and kit to them on a piece by piece basis and add 6 pairs of legs in a riding pose: 2 medieval era, 2 western era, 2 ww1/ era and just try to make them nondescript enough that they can be adapted in to other eras without much fuss. the idea being if you do this and vary the kit enough they would work in pretty much any time period or setting that has horses"

    Just passing this on as I think it would work very well

  • Yronimos Whateley

    @Brian Van De Walker "...a sprue of them just standing, maybe a mix of the bare and furnished, or a mix furnished for the main eras/armies WA is planning on doing... instead of doing one era, do a couple at once, after all this is sort of a scenery bit sprue..."

    Exactly - like soldiers just standing or sitting around, eating or chatting or resting, or just laying around dead, standing/eating/resting/dead horses are more of a scenic/diorama type of item, than anything else. 

    Seems like a niche within the cavalry niche to me, so the more territory covered in one a kit, the better, I think.

    I'm thinking maybe some follow-up polls might be needed to better understand who the market actually are for this sort of thing.  Questions like:

    "How many standing horses do you need?"

    • One Sprue (2-4? horses)
    • A dozen
    • 20-30
    • 30-50
    • 50 or more....

    "How specific to a given era do YOU need standing horses to be?" (Pick one or more.)

    • They must be [insert genre/era here, repeat as needed]
    • Keep them as generic as possible, I'm not picky.
    • I need everything - I need a customizable kit for a variety of projects.

    "What else should be in the kit?"  (Select one or more.)

    • I need standing/grazing bareback horses.
    • I need standing/grazing saddled horses.
    • I need scenic/diorama accessories (troughs, campfires, bed rolls, removed saddles for resting horses, etc.)
    • I dead/wounded horses.
    • I need dead/wounded riders and other casualties.
    • I need carts, wagons, stowage.
    • I need pack horses with burdens.
    • I need other pack animals with burdens (mules, etc.

    "What do you intend to use the kit for?"

    • Dioramas:  just some scenic horses for the background.
    • One or two generals posed stoically on a hilltop, watching the battle.
    • A few skirmishers waiting in ambush.
    • I need an entire army of resting horses!  I'm raising a "standing army", you see....

     

    Knowing that (say) 90% your customers only want four or five ACW-era horses for their General Grant or General Lee to pose majestically from a hilltop on, and that they aren't interested in trying to share space in a large generic/multipurpose horse kit with bits for a non-existent market of fantasy and sci-fi gamers, could go a long way toward focusing the product on the hobbyists who will be most likely to buy it.

     

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  • RA

    I'm not sure how yours horses are parted, but if possible i would like to have 3x2 magnet slots support on horse top and sides:

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  • DM

    I have no idea what I would use horses like that.

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  • Ice Giant

    You have to do either completely bare or with specific tack or it's useless I think. I don't understand how separate straps could be added seems really finnicky don't ya think?

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  • Kinjack

    @Hudson Adams Was thinking today - I've been wanting to model a regiment of High Elf cavalry as if they're marching on campaign but there are no walking horses in plastic at all on the market. They're always charging! 

     

    Would it be a good idea to include walking horses?

    “I will not withdraw so long as those banners still wave in the wind." - Jean Parisot De La Valette

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  • AR

    Not just horses, other livestock too! Cows, pigs, sheep, goats. They would definitely have loads of uses and they are pretty darned generic.

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  • JTam

    Warlord Games already makes a pretty nice if pricey set of 28mm livestock.

    It includes pretty much everything except "standing horses."

    They also have a very useful set of dead livestock.  

  • DM

    @JTam Interesting but I'm not that keen on paying the Warlord tax.

  • JTam

    @Dan Morgan 

    Yes, it's a pricey set.  I grabbed a single sprue at a decent price during one of their sprue sales.

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