"Height of GW (older) Bretonian archers" Topic

Hi,

I've been asked to put together a plastic warband for SAGA and need archers; Games Workshop's old Bretonian archers (two different designs to a sprue) are plentiful on e-bay and look ripe for conversion to add variety to the limited choice, but as Gripping Beast's and Wargames Factory's Saxon and Viking figures tend to be pretty close to a true 28mm and GW are notorious for excessive scale creep I wondered how much taller the GW figures would be?

I've not found a single picture on the web of these archers taken against a ruler to judge height compatibility, so can anybody help out as to whether they are in the range 28-30mm to the top of the head or are they a little, or perhaps a lot taller?

Cheers

tunics are all wrong for dark ages……

I'm aware of the differences but it's not a problem, I work full time as a professional miniature sculptor and I am happy to make pretty drastic changes if needed, and changing the tunics, hoods and heads should be quick and straight forward…

In many respects I'd be just as happy to sculpt entirely new designs and cast them in pewter, but the stipulation is for lightweight plastic… so I'm looking for things I can cut up, chop and quickly change. My fear is that the size difference will be so great that it will be more work shortening the figures than sculpting each one from scratch.

OK sorry, what about the GB plastic saxons?

Gripping Beast Plastic makes Saxons and Vikings both mailed and unarmoured (all of which I've bought) but have no plastic bowmen. Wargames factory includes a few bows in all their plastic Saxon and Viking boxed sets so I've bought these as well as they allow some possibilities for conversion (I certainly wouldn't accept them built straight from the box) but I was looking for other options to extend the variety.

The thing I liked about the GW figures were that being archers they were in the right pose, meaning all I'd have to do is make quick changes to some of the costume. Most of the plastic figures that are of the right period aren't really in poses that easily lend themselves to being archers, at least not without more drastic chopping and changing.

You can easily convert the Wargames Factory unarmoured Saxons and Vikings using arms from Perry WOTR. You may have to cut some off at the elbow as they have late medieval sleeves. (I have done this).

Some of the new plastic Gripping Beast unarmoured may also work but I think the left arms are moulded onto the bodies on most of them.
Mick

My understanding is that the plastic bowmen for 6th edition, I.e., the ones produced circa 2000-2006, are much bigger than the ones produced prior. The problem with loose plastics is knowing whether you have a 1990's sculpt or a 2000-era sculpt.

@OP,
The two sculpts you have interest in as about the same height as the GB metal figures. They do look bulkier than GB metal Dark Ages figures. I have a lot of them and would not convert or proxy them for games covered in the SAGA rules.

I took a shot of the archers for you.

One thing to note, the measurement lines on the ruler are not flush with the edge. So on the inch side, it adds about an 1/8th of inch. On the metric side it adds about 5mm.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Xin

Xin,

Much appreciated this was exactly the sort of image I was looking for.

Thanks

I posted an article here on EXACTLY this… can't find it, but here is the album I linked to it… link

He seemed very happy with them, it was fun for me, and it's a painted army on a table… So I'm happy

Hi Aiden
Don't know if it's any use to you but I have two units of these up for sale on my web-site at the moment.

£8.00 GBP eack inc UK postage…..

link

Cheers Roger