Victrix Limited, purveyors of plastic miniatures spanning numerous historical ranges have announced an entirely new range, spanning the 12th and 13th Centuries. Let’s dive a bit deeper into what possibilities this new range may hold.
Anyone who has booted up Medieval Total War or spent at least one hour awake in a history class knows that Medieval Europe was an extremely violent place. So violent, in fact, that in the final years of the 11th Century the Pope’s best idea for stopping everyone fighting each other was to get them all to go fight someone else. That is my TL;DR for the beginning of the Crusades. What better setting, then, for a brand new range of miniatures!
But what kind of miniatures can we expect? When many people hear “Medieval” they likely think “knights in shining armor.” While the High Middle Ages, as this period is called, definitely saw the rise of the armored knight as shock cavalry, don’t expect perfect Brettonian proxies (those are based on knights from the 13th Century). Be prepared for a lot of chainmail, barding and hauberks, though, perfect for fun heraldry! Victrix promises loads of helmet options for their first set of Western Knights, including Norman style, conical helmets and the later, closed faced helms.
In response to massed cavalry, infantry of the period started using more spears. Spears twice the length of a man. Some men are taller than others. Your moENOUGH OF THAT! We’re talking about pikes, of course, those long sticks from Braveheart. Though Victrix has not shown off what might be coming in that vein yet, it seems quite likely that pikes and crossbows will be forthcoming when the range expands into Feudal Europe, as they stated it will.
In the meantime, they have shown off several renders of unarmored Moslem Infantry, with separate sets of foot archers and armored infantry coming in the future. Victrix is promising a “huge amount of head variation with characterful faces” along with “dynamic attacking and advancing poses,” something they have perfected in their Dark Ages range of late. These Moslem Infantry would work equally well as soldiers of one of the Caliphates defending the Holy Land against Crusade Armies or as Andalusians fighting for control of Medieval Spain.
This range promises to have loads of character and potential for historical games, but also conversion for many other settings. I can’t wait to see what else comes down the pipe from Victrix!
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