Hybrids of the Dark Ages

In recent blogs, I've looked at the variety of miniatures available in plastic for the Middle Ages, with my Horses for Courses and Knight Fantastic blogs. In this blog, I'm looking at Dark Age plastics, particularly for the Scots and Irish. The sets used are the ones made by Gripping Beast, Wargames Atlantic, and Victrix.

While the name of this blog might have connotations to some strange Cthulhu-esque miniatures, we are sticking firmly to the historical!

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, size is an important issue for gamers; people want to know if set 'A's miniatures are compatible with set 'B's. I explored this topic in another blog, on the definition of 28mm, at least what it means to me personally. I've posted samples of the different components and comparison pictures of the different ranges. 

I have a particular love of creating hybrids of plastic miniatures, so finding miniatures of a similar size is important to me. I love mixing the parts of different sets and seeing what I can come up with. At the end of this blog, I'll post some pictures of my creations.

The first photo shows torsos from Gripping Beast, which was the first company to offer Dark Age plastic historicals. They have Saxons, Vikings, Irish, Pict, and Welsh in plastic, plus some generic Dark Age Warrior miniatures.

Shown here are two of their scots/irish/welsh bodies (the frames have variations in heads, weapons, and cloaks) and one of their generic Dark Age Warrior models. 

Next, we have the Wargames Atlantic miniature torsos. From left to right, we have Goth Warriors, Irish Warriors, and Dark Age Army Builder models. The Irish are a 'tad' larger than the rest.

Finally, we have examples of torsos from the Victrix Scots/Pict Warriors, Scots/Pict Archers & Crossbowmen, and the Irish Warriors.

Let's have a good look at the heads. Shown here are Atlantic (left), Gripping Beast (centre)  and Victrix (right).

As you can see, they are all around the same size and all glue to flat necks, so there's little need for conversion. For the most part, they are compatible with each other, which makes my life a lot easier!

Next, we have the arms. Here we have a selection of Gripping Beast (left), Atlantic (centre) and Victrix (right).

The Gripping Beast and Atlantic are thicker, with Atlantic's Army Builder ones being thicker than the earlier Goths. The Victrix ones are thinner - more realistic but more prone to breakage. The Atlantic Dark Age Army Builder has a very useful sprue with numerous axes, swords and spears, which will be great for customisation.

The shields are shown in three columns: you guessed it, Gripping Beast (left), Atlantic (centre), and Victrix (right).

The standard shields are all around the same size, which is good. Atlantic and Victrix have studded or decorative shields. Victrix also has shield transfers for their plain shields.

Next, we have cloaks. As before, shown here are Gripping Beast (left), Atlantic (centre) and Victrix (right).

The Gripping Beast cloaks are the thinnest and vary, depending on which set you buy. The Atlantic ones are the thickest, which I'm not personally fond of, but they are good to pad out a range. The Victrix cloaks come in either one or two pieces (which can be a little fiddly). 

A good alternative would be to buy the cloth cloaks in 28mm from Weave of War. 

Now that we've discussed the components, we can see the finished models. These are all Dark Age Irish, with Gripping Beast (left), Atlantic (centre) and Victrix (right).

As you can see, they are all roughly the same height. These could be easily mixed into a unit without any issues. 

Both Atlantic (left) and Victrix (right) have war hounds for their Irish. Again, they are fully compatible with each other. Gripping Beast does theirs in metal; they are slightly smaller, but not by much.

It would be amiss of me not to show the ranges of archers. The first is from the Gripping Beast Dark Age Archers set. The second is a Goth from Atlantic. The final model is a Pict from Victrix.

Now we come to the fun part, hybrids! Here we have a selection of parts using all three manufacturers. 

Making hybrids is fun. Given that all the sets reviewed are compatible with each other, wargamers have the unique opportunity to create unique models. I'm also sure that gamers could customise these further by throwing in some later helmets. These could potentially serve for Medieval Ireland and Wales, or some of the Scots levy. The possibilities are endless.