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Knights, Men at Arms, and Rangers oh, my.

  • BVD

    So awhile back on FB group WA posted yet another “what fantasy subject should we cover next” poll and the top two where knights/men at arms in first and rangers second which means 2 or likely more humanish infantry set ideas. In practice though these can actually range from one compact all male infantry set to four sets of infantry ideally (and yes I know we have all been avoiding this topic for several reasons😆).

    Given how often these have been done (and are being done in KS land as I post this), how easy they are to proxy for (like every slash stab history kit with spears, swords, shields and bows🤣), and the rise of more gun heavy fantasy setting games like Sludge, I think it would be awesome if WA did them both in a way that works well with stuff not just in classic fantasy but could also fit in alongside historical shooty era troops like their WW1 Germans, Napoleonic Black Riflemen, or Imperial Conquests sets with little or no kitbashing for those newer pulpish fantasy games.

    So I am thinking knights/men at arms would be a good set for the “plane plate cuirass armor with long pants and pull on boots” bit dolly torso that we have discussed elsewhere, maybe a setup similar to these guys for the base torso body:

    Though even fanatsy uped WW1 armor style curissess might work for this:

     

    The plate cuirass armor design Itself doesn’t matter too much as long as it is a plate armor and pants combo is simple enough it can cover both knights and men at arms bodies believably and can fit into several settings. It really shouldn't be dark ages or middle ages/ but it also shouldn't be anything else either, it need to be fantasy and one of those you things you can't quite place with. 

     I think having the arms be a mix of unarmored long sleeves and armored arms so you can make half armored troops plus some glue on kneepads and shin guards to make them super heavy infantry is would probably be the way to go about making this "knights/men at arms"  as opposed to just "Men at Arms", though one could have separate extra weapon sprue with an officer/elite body  in full armor along with exotic bit options like two handed long swords or hunting falcons (think the WW2 Italians extra machine gun sprue except fantasy weapons).  

    Now as to head swaps, for men at arms/knights at least one set of enclosed helmets for the knights/men at arms or at least glue on full face visor is a must, possibly a second for evil/chaotic knights/men at arms, one set of open face helmets. Maybe a group of bare headed options which I think should include some “not quite human”  head options since there are plenty of straight human options and these heads would be for characters like captains so I am thinking maybe 1 or 2 human heads with cat or dog ears, a half orc alongside some old one-eyed tough as nails veteran, maybe throw in a guy with horns sticking out of his head,  nothing too extreme (ie no kajits, think mostly human fantasy hybrids).

  • BVD

    As to the rangers, I have several thoughts on how they could be done:

    A. WA just does the elves and adds some human or hooded heads(simple).

    B. WA just makes a ranger themed customization sprue for the knight/men at arms.

    C. have it be separate set with the same bodies as the men at arms set but different weapons and heads and maybe have different officer/leader/elite bodies for both.

    D. WA makes a fully armored knight set and a men at arms/ranger set (easily doable but predictable and yeah its from a knights/men at arms set).

    E. add ranger parts in the knight/men at arms box (very easy to do as most "men at arms" type sets including historical infantry sets actually have all weapon options you need, you just need capes and hoods and some even have that).

    F. WA makes them a whole set unto themselves that can act as light scouts/ranged weapon support to the knight/men at arms.

    I am going to focus on the tragically labeled option F.  for the rangers since that is going to be the most interesting to talk about.

    So, as it stands the Decline and Fall Goth set well have everything needed to make decent long sleeved/pant legged rangers except the hoods, so I think guys in shorts and short sleeve shirts with boots (think fantasy 8th army except replace the helmets with hooded capes and more knives) might be a good way to do rangers since that also covers for rogues pretty well and more importantly there are not many good excuses to do guys shorts and short sleeves for wargaming minis outside modern and WW2.

     Maybe add a bandolier, leg knife and perhaps even a fantasy Muneate breastplate though that might be more of a female set thing (Muneate I am referring to are Japanese style chest protector used by archers which probably have a more specific name in Japanese and thus far it looks like only female archers really use them).  Of course whatever happens they have to have cape options.

    Head swaps for rangers though, beyond hoods and maybe some sort of hat with feathers, I am not really sure what other head swaps would be must haves for them. Could do the bare head thing I mentioned earlier for men at arms, perhaps some sort of military caps maybe with goggles,maybe sun helmets so they could double VSF/Plup big game hunters/explorers, maybe some scarves covered faces all around so they can double as bandits. 

     

  • Caratacus

    @Brian Van De Walker I'd personally rather WA focused more on other fantasy races than humans right now, we're not exactly short of fantasy human kits from other manufacturers.

    However, some of the ideas you've brought up would be excellent as conversion sprues to mix with whatever Wargames Atlantic kits buyers decide to use. Some plate-armoured bodies would be very useful for either Konflikt '47 or a similar WWI sci-fi game if mixed with WWI or WWII heads and weapons. As you've already said some hooded human heads, some with face coverings and some without, and cloaks would be excellent to combine with the Goths or Irish to make rangers or scouts for any sort of human faction anybody could think of.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    I guess a lot depends on what the people who were polled had in mind with their answers - seems like a lot of times, the popular poll results are for an inexpensive and very specific alternative to a GW product, which is always sort of a letdown for me:  I have more fun with things nobody has seen or done before.

    Otherwise, any of the above sounds fine to me.

    For the most generic and popular fantasy subgenre, I'd be happy using historical proxies for these sorts of figures, really:  the late Romans, Irish, Goths, or Franks all seem like fine fantasy human men-at-arms and rangers, as-is.   A kit in that style with some hooded heads or simple metal caps, along with elf options, with lightly-armored bodies and cloaks/capes would be fine with me - for weapons, some simple swords, bows, and halberds seem to be multi-purpose for generic "henchmen"/"bandits"/"warriors"/"town guards" type characters, which would surely cover both man-at-arms and ranger territory.


    WGA's Late Romans:  More than good enough for "Generic Fantasy" Man-At-Arms for me.

     

    For something new, I think I'd really prefer something a little different from the generic dark ages/medieval European thing, though.

    The guns-and-pikes thing suggested in the original post above would work great for that. 

    Maybe include some options for "pilgrim" style hats, cloaks/capes, and wheel-locks and blunderbuses, for something of a Solomon Kane kind of feel, which I don't think would feel very different from the sort of thing in the original post....


    Solomon Kane:  the original Grimdark fantasy setting!

     

    I don't think some "men-at-arms"/"rangers" in this style would look far out of place among the halflings, the lizard people, the landknecht ogres, the conquistadors, or even the goblins and trolls, really! 

    Seems to me these sorts of characters might look great among some of the muskets-and-magic sort of figures that GW seems to be doing these days, really, and might not be far out of place in some 17th Century northern European historical armiess, I believe (English, Scottish, Danish, Swedish....) - from some of the things I've seen, with a little handwaving they don't seem far out of place in the English Civil War, the 30 Years' War, colonial American conflicts, some pirate conflicts, and the like...

    But, even without a historical use, a Grimdark fantasy world of pilgrims and conquistadors vs lost civilization of the lizard-kings, and dark, witch-haunted frontier forests filled with demon horrors sounds fresh and interesting to me, compared to the more typical retread of the usual Tolkien pastiche!

     

  • BVD

    @Caratacus Well, that is why I did suggest making both of the sets more usable for black powder/industrial fantasy at the start of my comments as well as making most of the bare head options human hybrid heads (half/quarter beastmen, half orc, half-horned person, etc.), since that would actually be something you don't see often in multipart plastic even though its heavily implied in a lot of settings that interbreeding occurs, some people would likely buy them just for that.

    @Yronimos Whateley

    I am actually thinking more along the lines of JRPG/Anime high industrial fantasy for these guys  with the greatest historical costume influence being maybe Victorian/German State era military/adventurers with more armor and a mix of fantasy weapon options, maybe even some combination weapons and  some exotic blackpowder era guns like the revolver rifle thrown in alongside swords, axes, and bows.

    You know, the sort of knights, men at arms and rangers you could see fighting on airships, in exotic locals (deserts, jungles, etc.), in trenches, and even train yards as well as the standard castles and woods in Japanese pop culture.

     Basicly sorta of "generic" but not in a dark agey way unless you have done them to fit in with dark agey minis, likewise you could just as easly do them up to fit in with the conquistadors Age of Discover/Sail type, etc. but they can stand on their own as a set for DnD and maybe even work as an imagination force for VSF/Pulp adventure gaming out of the box.  

    After all, as you both mentioned humans for fantasy have been done a lot and Fantasy conquistadors can be done with WA historical sets just as the dark age types can be. Also the pilgrims don't really strike me as fighting force and I am pretty sure they didn’t really dress like Solomon Kane including the Capotain hat which would have been buckleless on the actual pilgrims and less interesting (what we see at thanksgiving is actually a heavy Victorian rewrite of the costume, though he buckle hat might be a good ranger head option.).  What I don't see in history really (because they don't really exist in big way outside Japan before WW1 and the interwar) is late 18th-early 20th century style armored infantry troops like ones I seem to keep seeing in  manga and anime that would be awesome sauce for games like sludge.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    If you can get both options from the same set - and I think it can probably be done:  the costumes aren't very different, aside from different headgear optons, and the distinctive cloaks over the cuirass or bringandine coat - I'm all for it.  The different headgear options are easy to account for, the coat leaves a bit of a decision to be made:  proxy with a cape similar to the ones included with the Dark Age Irish, supply a mix of bodies in the same kit with and without the cloak, or split between a kit with cloaks and a kit without (rangers vs. men-at-arms).  I'm fine with any of the above, though a mix of bodies with and without the cloaks are fine by me.

    As for the historical accuracy of Solomon Kane's costume, it's of secondary interest to me in a fantasy set.  There were, it seems, roughly contemporary historical costumes that are close enough for me:

    Those hats and costumes are perfect for the rule-of-cool Solomon Kane grimdark aesthetic!  Suitably dark and brooding colours might not be historical, but are entirely up to whoever paints the models....

    I'd be more than happy to use actual historical kits of this sort for the purpose of fantasy men-at-arms, and can adapt this sort of thing for a broad-strokes version of what I have in mind - broad strokes are, after all, fine for fantasy purposes, which generally give us more breathing room than historical ones. 

    For a full-on fantasy kit of this sort, we can take even further liberties with details of the costumes, to allow a broader use in a wider variety of fantasy or historic settings, including a more industrial/clockwork or even steampunk sort of setting - more generic boots and collars, shorter coat tails, subtler sashes and belts, whatever.  Again, I'm fine with a broad-strokes interpretation here.

     


    A Renaissance-style grimdark fantasy ranger in his natural habitat?

     

    Give me the basic costume in broad strokes - either the Arditi-style outfits in the original post or the English Civil War style historical costumes above are fine by me - with options for the period guns, swords, and hats in the historical English Civil war style, and maybe a couple optional capes, and I'm fine.  If at least some similar bodies included wear the long cloak/coat that Solomon Kane is sometimes also portrayed with, and I'm even happier...


    Grimdark skulls, naturally, add to the atmsophere, but don't need to be included.  Ahistorical hat buckle also need not be included, or, if included, need not be present on all or even most hats in the kit: one figure per sprue is more than I'd ask for, as for me it's not a mandatory or important detail to "sell" the character, setting, or mood.

    I think it's the moody colours and the general outline of the costome that sells it, at least for me - the original illustrations and imitations ever since portray the character in chiaroscuro nearly to the point of silhouette anyway!

     

  • Caratacus

    @Yronimos Whateley Solomon-Kane style 17th Century fantasy is an excellent idea, that's something that still hasn't been covered much in wargaming but has a lot of potential, and would definitely be a niche that WA could fill. If the costumes are kept within reasonable historical accuracy they can also be used for standard ECW/30 Years' War skirmish gaming - currently the only plastic figures for this era are from Warlord and while they are very nice figures, they are more suited toward mass battle gaming as Pike and Shotte is. A set with more animated and characterful poses and equipment such as lanterns, torches, cloaks, broad-brimmed Witchfinder and Cavalier hats, hell even tankards of ale for those that have stumbled out of the alehouse, would be a welcome addition for fantasy fans and ECW gamers alike.

    And you're right, such a set would fit in well with existing WA sets like the Conquistadors and the upcoming Landsknecht Ogres, which I thought were a very weird and niche choice at the time they were discovered to be the top-voted set (did a glut of Warhammer Empire players take control of that poll last year? 😉), but alongside these and the Conquistadors they could be used to establish a largely 16th/17th Century setting for WA's Fantasy universe. That would be an excellent premise for a unique and different fantasy setting.

    Perhaps WA could also dig through 17th Century folklore for inspiration for other fantasy factions?

  • HM

    I'm just going to offer the word of warning that it seems like GW is gearing up to go hard the Solomon Kane style aesthetic soon both with whatever they have planed for age of sigmar, and the eventual retun of the "the old world" as a setting.

    I'm not sure it would be the best investment....

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  • Grumpy Gnome

    ... I could be wrong but based on what I read in various forums WGA seems to do alright supplying budget proxy minis for GW games already.....

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  • William Redford

    And everyone loves Solomon Kane... or if not, I do.. and that is all that really matters!

  • Caratacus

    @H M GW haven't done very much for their Empire range at all since AoS came round, and given Cities of Sigmar is just a 'catch-all' army list for all the legacy Fantasy stuff that they're not interested in developing new factions for (and a terrible idea at that, I was hoping for Dispossessed to be revitalised as Grungni's Dwarf faction and I hate seeing the last Fantasy dwarfs being lumped in with the hideous Empire State Trooper models), I can't see them making much for them in AoS. True, there is The Old World, but the very earliest it's going to arrive is 2025 (given that GW are set on rebooting Horus Heresy this year, and it's inevitable we'll see 40K 10th Edition next year and AoS 4th Edition the year after), and WA could easily get their own Solomon Kane range going at some point this year if they speed up their creation of new sets as they pledge to do.

    Besides, the Empire is 15th/16th Century Germans including Landsknechts, while Solomon Kane is 17th Century, i.e. ECW/30 Years' War, a period GW have avoided touching. So long as WA focus on 17th Century they can avoid clashing with GeeDubs, and as the @Grumpy Gnome has already said, WA have already made some very nice proxy minis for GW games, with Les Grognards and more recently the Bulldogs making good proxy Imperial Guardsmen and the Einherjar being the catalyst that drove GW to bringing Squats back, so even if GW do lean more into Solomon Kane territory, it's unlikely that will stop WA.

  • HM

    That's true - I think I just trend towards the conservative in thought about smaller games companies, and what they can invest in. But WA now having thier own means of production should help that alot. (particularly if they can also one day get thier own tooling equipment to make moulds, if they havent already)

  • MD

    With North Star, Fireforge and others, there's a serious glut of inexpensive plastic humans, dwarves and elves out there. And as others have said, most historical pre-modern kits are good for humans anyway. I think WA are far better served concentrating on the non-humans... though there's a clear gap in female figures. 

  • HM

    I strongly agree with the gap in female figures - I'd love to see some more out there, as even just one or two multi parts kits would vastly increase the range of possibilities out there. Right now it's really just the frost grave soldiers 2 kit, and it's not even that great quality wise. (No one will ever convince be that the heads in that kit were either rushed, made without care/ skill, or both.)

    Supposedly there will be a knights 2 kit that will have some female adventurers, but it seems like stargrave is taking up the bulk of thier attention now.

     

    However, per this thread and it's actual focus - I do rather like the idea of "WW1 armored knights" design. It would work great as a kind of take on the Vostroyans, but giving a more western/southern european feel to them.

  • William Redford

    @H M I agree with you on the heads in the female soldiers box. The heads in the female wizards box are a bit better. I am excited for Wargames Atlantic's cannon fodder 2 set... I plan on using the heads (the non helmeted ones, with some Frostgrave plastics... the bald heads with cultist bodies... and the pig tailed will go with a conquistador body.) 

  • Benjamin Hayward

    To be fair, I love the Frostgrave kits, but most of their heads - male and female - are kinda fugly.  That's true of pretty much all the North Star stuff: awesome kits chock-full of sweet, sweet variety and faces that'd curdle milk! 😆

    I agree that there is a glut of traditional fantasy stuff out there; if you want Tolkien/D&D-esque stuff, you're spoiled for options.  Something new and different would be welcome (not so much to my pocket book, though...).

    The problem is that tried-and-true stuff sells, and kinda makes it the smart bet.  If WGA did something like their lizardmen and spiders - multi-purpose kits that cover multiple genres - that could appeal to a broad swathe.  The Solomon Kane setting is appealing, and I'm getting real interested in horror set in the pre-repeating firearm days, particularly pre-Revolution America; I'd buy fantasy kits that include firearms options, for sure!

  • HM

    @William Redford I would get them for that purpose, but sadly I have no use for the bodies and guns. I'm hopeful that  a "tribal woman" set that I pitched in one thread or another a while back gets some traction, as that would assuredly come with a ton of useful unhelmeted heads for all ethnicities.

  • William Redford

    @H M yeah, i dont do many scifi games, or at least not that often... hopefully the female cannon fodder are succesful so WA makes some more female sets.

  • Grumpy Gnome

    I like many of the faces on the North Star Frostgrave/Stargrave/Oathmark sets. 

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  • William Redford

    @Grumpy Gnome I dont mind the male faces. Though the Oathmark Human soldiers kind of look goofy. 

  • HM

    for what it's worth, I think the heads/faces on Wizards 1 and 2 (so male and female) as well as the male knights are fantastic. - The knight's set even has one of my favorite head bits currently out there (Or does with at least alittle modification to the the helmet more to what I like).

    I just don't think the quality on some of the earlier sets is particularly high, at least in regards to faces. But i think it's particularly bad with the female soldiers kit.

  • BVD

    Actually guys, after mulling it over, I think WA should go in a more 19th century plus swords and sorcery direction with a light gothic and steampunk touches thrown in with these 2 ideas and actually do them as separate sets since:

    A: it makes more sense given the 19th century percussion cap armed tribal lizardmen (even if we are not counting the European gun which looks like a breach loading Egyptian Snider rifle) while there might ogres wielding matchlock/flintlocks hand cannons that can be answered with “ogre kingdom spend money on food, not arsenal upgrade!” same deal with the halflings (who probably should get a gun upgrade sprue, thank you Mantic😆).

    B: The sets actual contents will be more fantasy overall if done in a more vaguely 19th century way as opposed to a strictly accurate 17th century way, and I will explain why.

    Basically on one  hand, armored knights and men at arms in armor didn’t really exist in the Victorian period (there was cavalry in breastplates, but unless you are counting things like samurai and Ashigruai or the chainmail wearing steppe nomads that’s about it) so mid-19th to maybe even early 20th uniformed knights with a mix of machine made gothic armor bits and weapons would be fantasy and more interesting since that didn’t actually happen in real life or in a significant enough way to warrant full plastic set treatment normally:

     

     This would even work for darker generic fantasy (I assume it will have a great sword, mace,etc. options):

    And if done right could allow for cool customization right out of the box:

    Likewise changing the Rangers into a good set of non-uniform Victorian style costumed fantasy adventurers would actually be pretty dang cool and kill a lot of birds with one stone for WA:

    On the other hand there isn’t a good reason to make a 17th century themed fantasy set that is historically accurate like some suggests when WA can just do a history set of it, particularly western European subjects from the pike and shot age which actually has at least 2 fairly popular historical rules in addition to being usable for D&D and WFB right out of the box. And given their current pace, WA, or even someone else like Victrix or Perry, is very likely to do 17th century  particularly given the success of the conquistador box.

     

    C: Even Tolkien and while we are at C.S. Lewis had Victorian and Edwardian touches to their fantasy worlds, so it isn’t actually off point theme wise. Also given we are talking fantasy settings,  a world with classic D&D style magic would probably have industrial level civilizations much quicker than the real world did particularly if they have patent laws and likely would have things like bolt-action rifles alongside enchanted crossbow bolts and arrows in the armor shop.

    (ie free yourselves from your low tech middle ages perceptions of fantasy, airships and steam tanks have been classic war gaming and TTRPG fantasy since the 80’s for heaven’s sake, why can’t we have gun slingers with pepperbox pistols and foot knights with revolver rifles?)

     

  • HM

    With all your ideas, I honestly feel like you're best served by breaking out some craft knives and start kit bashing and conversions rather than wait for someone to release your dream kit.

    I forget the company, but there is one doing plastic cowboys (and soon cowgirls), and those kit bashed with some range of knights or light infantry might do the trick for at least some of the things you're interested in.

    It's an incredibly rewarding part of the miniatures hobby, and it's the only real way to see the vision in the mind's eye into reality.

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  • Grumpy Gnome

    Much as I love kitbashing my own conversions, we are all unlikely to get kits we really love unless we tell companies what we want. 

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  • HM

    That's totally fair! But I think its best to kit bash now, rather than just sit and wait. I'm certaimly glad i did so with my lizardmen, for example!

    And if there comes a day when an upgrade sprue, or a new lizard kit is released then I have that much more variety! (be it as a lizard horde, or as well organized cohorts from another fiefdom in the grand lizard empire.)

  • BVD

    Well the big thing is people where asking for was knights and rangers for “fantasy” in the “what fantasy sets next poll”, meaning we will probably get them eventually anyways and I just think they should look “fantasy” instead of more landsknechts and Dark Age Saxons or something that will likely get done like 17th century.  19th century knights and rangers would definitely look fantasy and since the lizard men were already packing breech loading Sniders I figured why not push a little in that direction.

    The big thing is making them look fantasy and NOT LIKE A HISTORY SET (NO SPRUE SPACE WASTER PIKES!) while also have them not look so alien that they stand out when mixed in with history sets.

    Another option for knights and rangers that might be fun and isn’t just a history set idea is to combined Western and East Asian clothing elements with modern influences thrown in or vice versa  like in JRPGs, manga, anime, etc. which works fairly well for classic fantasy TTRPGs and honestly no one is doing that in plastic multipart really:

    Something like this for knights could fit in with anything from the Bronze Age fantasy to modernish urban fantasy with the right paint job and right weapon parts:

    And maybe something like these for rangers would work the same way except with a few caps, hoods and hats thrown in:

    In any case firearms for fantasy knights and while we are at rangers should probably at least be percussion caps like these this:

    Though these would be more fun, they don’t seem out of place in fantasy setting wargames and honestly they are not really found in any mini format (including the gunslinger sets, I am not even sure if the revolver rifle and pepperbox pistol have metal mini packing them and the apache is pretty much ignored):

     

     

    Likewise knights and rangers do not really need to be just human sets nor should they be at this point particularly if we are talking historical scale where the bare human head options are endless.

     I figure if/when WA does them, in addition to fully enclosed knight helmets which would work for several races (and frankly there just aren’t enough out there of for me) and maybe funny hats they should at least have these two headswaps for the male sets at least and probably female sets:

    Half orc: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/ayn-aevri/a/half-orcs-article

    Trifling/half infernal/horned person x:

    Maybe Half-Elf though not sure how that is different from regular elf,

    And given the description of beastmen in “Warriors & Heroes” rule set as “ranging from humans with patches of fur to bipedal beasts with hands” which seems like a true statement across the board and the fact that I love Shield Hero (yes I am a weeb), what I would really like to see is some Beast eared headswaps like these:

    In fact I think Knights and rangers would be the best set ideas to add something like this last item because knights have been done a lot and as we have all made it clear at some point in this thread both subjects can be done with history sets easly as far as humans go, plus it would add something new to the bit box.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    On one hand, the JRPG thing isn't really my style of fantasy, but on the other, it is different, and I like different:  I don't think many people do miniatures in that style, certainly not in hard plastic, and just because it's not my preference, doesn't mean it doesn't have it's share of fans, and I think a cleverly-designed ranger/man-at-arms style kit in the JRPG style with enough flexibility could surprise me - I'd be willing to give it a chance.

     

    @Brian Van De Walker 's  earlier post about 19th-century costumes, on the other hand, worked for me instantly:  I definitely prefer the "fantasy cowboy" look of some of those examples MUCh better than I do traditional "steampunk" - weird west getups with crystals and potions and necronomical tomes instead of gears and monacles?  That works great for me!  The armored guys with guns work for me as well this time.  And these costumes and characters work the best for me:

     

    I think that sort of thing could mix well with Victorian sci-fi, weird western and even gaslight/jazz-age pulp gaming, and would even mix well with the Death Fields Grognards and Bulldogs or many of the WGA WWI kits, really, for a vague sci-fi subject that could span the turn of the century between the late Victorian era and WWI.  They'd mix well with the lizard men, too.

     

    Really, for that matter, I doubt I'd complain at all if WGA's "classic fantasy" subjects were to spend at least as much time in Victorian sci-fi, Weird West, steampunk, and gaslight territory, than it does the Dark Ages and so on.  The Arkansas Kid and Miss Kitty (with or without cat ears) hold off goblin space pirates raiding the Cydonian Express somewhere between the canals and pyramids of Mars, until the New Texas Rangers or the French Foreign Legion arrive to save the day?  Yeah, I'm weird, but I think I'll gladly take that over generic D&D/Pathfinder, Warhammer, or Warcraft style fantasy any day....  Mars needs orcs in cowboy hats!

     

     

  • lauregami

    I'd be really interested in some ahistorical kits along the same spirit as the General Accoutrements Horses. You could make a combination of "historic" things like various guns, and also draw lots of inspiration from anime/video games. I think an ahistorical set along those lines - even a set of "fantasy bits" with things like cloaks, fancy-looking weapons, etc.- would be a great idea to sell under General Accountrements or whatever range the bits would fit. They could be used for hero/commander conversions and such and would also be a great opportunity to have some women option heads usable throughout the ranges.

    As far as specific inspirations:

    On the less grounded side: My partner's really into the ".hack" series, and his favorite character from that is "Balmung", a fantasy knight player-character much like the ones Brian posted above. I think this might be the higher-end of ostentatiousness that the 28mm scale might allow (especially the shoulders), but it'd be cool to see something like big hair, headbands and fancy armor in a fantasy set. Get a little goofy with it, you know. I particularly love Balmung's "angel wing" cloak, and wonder how it'd look in 28mm.

    On the more grounded side: Recently I've been playing Final Fantasy Tactics, and it's become one of my favorite games. I think it would be a great inspiration for some ahistorical bits along these lines. It does this great combination of sort of "historical medieval" appearances with high fantasy swords-and-sorcery, tons of magical beings, etc. Ivalice is an incredibly-realized world and there's quite a bit I would do for a FFT-inspired box. Some samples:

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