Varangian Guard

Very pleased with the GB Varangoi. They, at least, are compatible with the regular infantry. GB also had the grace to apologise for the length of time it took the order to arrive (still only 12 days so mustn't be too churlish!).

Gripping Beast Delivers

My wife has just rung me to say my GB parcel has arrived (its taken 12 days. Not bad I suppose but its just Crudsader were so fast!). Irritatingly I have to go out to dinner with a bunch of government people tonight so I won't be able to open it until the early hours. At least it's a Michelin starred restaurant!

Painting started

I actually started painting some of the GB infantry last night. They are going to be reasonably easy I think. Not too much guesswork as to what particular lumps are as is some times the case with GB but I suspect they will be more fiddly than the Crusader figures. Hopefully, I will finish one this weekend and put it up here. No shield transfers yet as my GB order still hasn't arrived.

Cavalry conundrum

Well, I went home last night and looked at all the horses and riders again. I have decided that the Crusader horses for normal cavalry are too big compared with their Kataphraktoi horses. The Gripping Beast horses look fine with the Crusader Kataphractoi horses. I think what I need to do is get some GB heavy cavalry and see how it looks. The fear is that it will be the large figures like in the command pack. Oh well. I am sure I can work out some combination that will work. The problem is that GB are not very fast in send ing stuff. I ordered from Perry Miniatures, Crusader and GB last Thursday and both the Perry and Crusader stuff arrived on Saturday. I am still waiting for the GB stuff.

Cavalry 2: The horses

Here is a comparison of four horses:

Left to right: Gripping Beast old, Gripping Beast new, Crusader normal, Crusader armoured.

The new GB horse is a little larger than the old one but still looks very small with its huge new rider. The Crusader horses are much larger, although the fully barded horse is smaller than the normal one. The saddle on the Crusader barded horse looks too high for where its back should be.

This picture shows a Crusader rider and mount (left) next to a Gripping Beast one (right).

The riders are, in fact, similar in size (see below) but the difference in horse size makes the Crusader figure as a whole seem much larger.

All in all, not very satisfactory but on balance I think I will go with the Crusader cavalry and the gripping beast infantry.

Cavalry 1: Rider Comparisons

I ordered some Crusader Byzantine cavalry to compare with the GB cavalry I bought at Warfare. The service was excellent: I ordered them on the afternoon of the 1st and they arrived on the morning of the 3rd. This first photo shows four riders from the front, the second from the rear.

From left to right:

GB BZC16 Generals and Standard Bearers, GB Kavallariori BZC02, Crusader DAB 101 Thematic/Tagmatic Kataphraktoi and DAB 103 Crusader Klibanophoroi.

I had heard that the newer GB figures were bigger than the old ones and, sadly, this is true. The GB Command are recent figures and are huge compared to the earlier kavallariori. I wouldn’t mix them in the same army let alone in the same unit. I will be selling them on.

The GB Kavallarioros and Crusader Kataphraktos are certainly compatible, although the Crusader figures are all bearded and the GB ones are clean shaven. Oddly, the Crusader Klibanophoros is slightly smaller than the regular cavalryman but it’s not too noticeable. The Crusader figure come with saddle cloths modelled on the riders. The GB ones do not. It would certainly be possible to put GB figure on Crusader horses with the addition of a saddle cloth.

The GB riders don't seem to be the same size as the infantry at all. The earlier figures look smaller than the GB infantry (as are the Crusader ones) the later figures are much larger. Very annoying.