"Victrix - New Napoleonic French Artillery Preview " Topic

Victrix published new pictures of their soon to be releasedd Napoleonic French Artillery 1812-1815

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victrixlimited.com

Amicalement
Armand

Whilst these figures are not in my scale they look very nice indeed.

Ooh marvellous! British RHA next please!

Very nice.

Not really comparable with their earlier stuff ( the coat fronts are 1812-15 the infantry from Victrex are wearing the earlier coat, wonder why they went this way now. Continuity would be nice. Still nice addition to the plastic arsenal.
Cheers

Hey Zargon,

I take it you missed the release of the 1804 to 1812 plastic artillery set a few months ago?

Steve.

This is a very nice AnXI 6-pdr. Nice to see my plans were useful.
Stephen

Love the string round the bottom of that one guy's trousers

I look forward to this set. It'll add the last component to my Napoleonic skirmish sets. Now, start working on the Russian arty set, please!

Happy you enjoyed them my friends!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Great!

Awesome sets…. but I do wish that they had limbers too.
That was one of the bonuses with the British Artillery sets.

Just a suggestion, but the good folks at Victrix might want to consider putting together some sprues, as opposed to box sets, that provide limbers, and parts for caissons.

Remember the investment needed to create plastic moulds. Once created you can run off figures for years, but you'll need those sales to recoup your set-up costs.

There is already many a metal French Limber, caisson etc. Commercially the crews and guns must be far better prospect than the attendant vehicles. Wonder if any manufacturers might comment?

It is not economic to produce vehicles such as caissons. Remember how few wargamers use them or if they do there is only a few of them.
Stephen

Guys – the reason gamers don't use them is because the metal ones are too expensive.
I understand that the initial capital investment to produce them in plastic would be huge – but I would imagine you'd see far more limbers and caissons on the tabletops if they were available.

Glad you like them too my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Now, start working on the Russian arty set, please!

I think it is a bit unrealistic to see Victrix starting working on plastic Russian artillery, considering that they have not even released any plastic Russian infantry so far.

What happened to zargon…

Great to see these. A brave but wortwhile investment

And yes, make them cheap and people will buy them. I am lucky in 1/72 land as we have limber sets available. But I reckon they would work in 28mm as well

This is a very important discussion and I wish we could hear from the makers.

A metal figure is expensive for the purchaser, but reasonably cheap for the maker, who will sell only a few dozen. The latter, he/she will make a living and recoup costs.

A plastic figure is dirt cheap for the purchaser and wonderful for conversion. Not quite as sharply moulded as metal, but not far off(at least not until the moulds age).

But, for the maker, they spent a fortune, allowing them to create vast numbers of these figures, to recoup costs.

Plastic figures cost a fortune to get started and then can be mass produced.

Metal figures are "easy" to produce…OK let's admit Perrys, Westfalia, Front Rank, Gringos etc and quality of casting…I mean less expensive, not "easy"…..and make more sense in smaller numbers. But the purchaser has to pay more for that quality of figure.

I like both…….one for sheer beauty, one for flexibility and spare parts. I know which I like, but I go for small numbers, on a series of display shelves

Another option would be resin and possibly for the smaller bits metal.
Stephen

The third way! Never even thought of it, but the ideal compromise. Odd that resin is rarely used, other than for buildings of course. Same applies to photo etched brass. At least we are starting to see transfers/decals, but we could do with more numbers, eagles, grenades, monograms for shabraques etc…

So many media available to the AFV builders, which would sell in far greater numbers to wargamers

The Victrix British Artillery set comes with 3 limbers.

The Perry's introduced a decent policy of selling horse teams separately from the limbers/wagons. However, they don't do this across all Nationalities or ranges. For example, the Napoleonic Prussians are sold in this manner, but not the French.
This could be an oversight, or it could be deliberate.

I personally like to represent limbers on the tabletop, and even have reason to use caissons, but I rarely represent the limber and team at full complement. What I mean by this is that I'm happy representing the limber and two horses, not necessarily four or six. This is due mainly to scale – in 6 mm or 10 mm full teams are reasonable, but at 28 mm they are not, as they take up a disproportionate amount of table space. Obviously, I'm talking about wargame use, not diorama use, where full teams would be more realistic.

So when I purchase a limber and horse team, I typically get four or six horses, where I only need two. If I could purchase, separately, one or two additional limbers, then I'd be happy to use the spare horses to represent the teams. I'm not too worried about the harness perhaps being inaccurate, and I suppose I could add a little greenstuff to represent the missing parts.

So, I don't really mind what material these additional, and separate, limbers/wagons are made from. Metal, resin or [cheapest for the consumer/wargamer] plastic will all do. But the manufacturers need to accommodate that need in some fashion. It seems to me that the opportunity exists. In the example of the Perry's, they just need to add a few additional codes, using existing product, to their lines and I, for one, would be satisfied.

Check out Wesfalia Miniatures for the very best limbers etc, with horses coming separately just as requested.

Check out Wesfalia Miniatures

link
Beautiful castings, I completely agree – but they appear only to have Saxon limbers, nothing for the French – unless I'm missing something – which is very possible.
The price [$7.50 approx. before shipping] for a single limber is high too…… remember, there's a difference in what a wargamer is typically prepared to pay.
There are the 25 mm limbers available from Hinchcliffe [Hind Miniatures], but these aren't inexpensive either [$9.00 approx. before VAT and shipping]

Westfalia have gone quiet just recently, but Niels R has produced most of the wheeled stuff Perrys sell….and even more detailed stuff in this range. As you say, much for Saxons and there are six artillery train horses to complement them. These are big beasts and do, for once, look like they could pull a gun rather than win the Derby.

For the French, the 8pdr does come with very nice limber, although not immediately obvious on the website. There are separate French artillery train horses (4) with two drivers FR012. The ammo caisson comes without horses FR 002.

The "British" get a limber and an ammo carrier without horses BR007 and 008. Even the Prussians get two train horses PR 005.

I would agree that having six (the absolute minimum for realism) horses, pulling a limber, does take up an awful lot of space and is quite a challenge to base. A bit like the real thing behind the gun line!

A plastic figure is dirt cheap for the purchaser and wonderful for conversion. Not quite as sharply moulded as metal, but not far off(at least not until the moulds age).

I wouldn't say 80-90% of Metal price is dirt cheap for plastics.

Some of the victrix and perry boxes are very good value at less then 50p pr. figure. But Warlord and other plastics are not that much cheaper then metal.

I agree Gunfreak. I have not bought into the plastic revolution at all. I had hoped that hard plastics would be very inexpensive, robust and fast assembly. Often they are not inexpensive, they are usually designed with vulnerable weapons/bayonets/tools, and inconsistent in terms of their ease of assembly. Perry and Warlord are simple, but others can be a handful to assemble. Earlier Victrix I wouldn't touch (due to time and likelihood of damage; I make tons of tank models so skills is not the issue) and the newer War-games Factory look like a nightmare.

All that said, I can certainly see that if you are a model and diorama maker, plastics are superb and these guns look great. Just not sure that the manufacturers have got the balance between cost and wargaming design correct in the way that metal figures have generally managed. Twenty or thirty years ago metal miniatures were soft metal and the designs had skinny bendable bits. Now the metal is better quality and generally (not all, of course) the figures are designed to handle war-games use better with oversized weapons/details or designs that link weak points to other features (e.g., muskets to plumes etc.)

Just some thoughts.
Cheers