Victrix made a Shetland pony for the Republican Romans! A Comparison of 28mm horses from my collection!

Hello everyone.

Recently, one of my gaming friends that I regular do battle against (let us call him by his forum name - bazookajoe) posted a thread up on the LEAD Adventure forum, along with this photo of the recently released Victrix Republican Roman Cavalry. Here it is.

Here we see the Numidian on the left on his faithful pony... and here on the right we see the Republican Roman.  He's riding a.. what.. is he on a Shetland Pony??

Wow?? What is wrong. The Victrix Numidian looks like fits pretty decently on his horse, and isn't too huge - but the Roman looks like Shrek!  It's as if Shrek turned Donkey into a Shetland stallion but forgot to turn himself into the handsome human prince!

In any case, bazookajoe,myself, others and no doubt quite a few others expressed outrage at such strange proportions.  

Bazookajoe asked me if I could compare the Republican Roman Infantry with Numidian infantry, as I have both.  Here's the picture I took.

These Numidians were painted by Grant D, the Romans painted by myself.

You can tell that, yes, they are different poses, and proportions are slightly different, but height wise, size wize, girth wise.. they're pretty close to one another. The Roman may be a little wider, but nobody's going to notice that 3 feet away from the tabletop! They work fine together I think! 

So the next step was to take a look at the Roman cavalry versus the Roman Infantry. I do not own the Victrix Republican Cavalrymen (nor will I buy them after seeing and comparing the above images!) but I did manage to find someone who has some size comparisons of the Infantrymen and cavalrymen.  Here's Victrix miniatures - The Infantryman and the man who rides the tiny horsie.  

Photo / Miniature beautifully painted by Jason Proctor

So here we see the obvious - Victrix have fairly bulky infantry, but the Roman cavalryman seems to be wider AND taller  than the dismounted, standing Roman infantryman here.  It seems the proportions to try and match along their footmen were completely ignored.

Or perhaps that is not the case - perhaps Victrix made the cavalrymen bigger to get the details in? The bigger the model is, the easier it is to get all that detail in, or so I have been told.

But then Jason sent me this photo.

Looks like Bazookajoe and Jason see the same thing I am seeing...But wait. For some odd reason it kind of looks like the horses are at least of a similar size!

But why is that Roman officer making the Numidian rider look so small?

The next step for me was to look back at my own collection.  I do not have the Republican Roman Cavalry from Victrix - but I do own The Iberians and Heavy Greek Companions. 

Here's a couple of horses from Victrix Iberian and Greek Cavalry.  They look like they're from the same design, just some details changed. The cavalry all looked the same size to me. 

And above is the Heavy Greek armored fellow on the left, and the Iberian rider on the right.  I immediately noticed that the Greek rider's got some spots that are slightly wider - namely the shoes, and the shoulders / torso.  I did not put together the arms and heads. 

Next I measured up the Greek Cavalryman body next to older Victrix Greek Hoplites (these are Athenians)... Yes.  The cavalryman is a) taller and b) wider.  Much larger than their older plastics.

Finally, I looked at their unarmored hoplites.  Victrix seems to have made their unarmored hoplites a bit bulkier than their older armored versions.  Though it seems the fellows without armor are a bit closer in girth to the Greek cavalryman, notice how wide the cavarlyman's feet and legs are, as well as the height.  Even while he is sitting, legs bent on a horse, he'd tower over any Victrix Infantry!



SO WHAT GIVES VICTRIX? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

Now before I go on, please understand that this is not me bashing or putting Victrix down. I absolutely love the majority of Victrix models I own, especially the infantry.  Most heads can be mixed and matched and there is tons of conversion potential here among the foot soldiers that Victrix makes, and I try to make use of it where I can in my miniature building...  but the Cavalry here that I own in the following blog post are part of the main focus of this blog. 

I shared and posted this all over the place, checking to see if anyone else was having similar issues. And yes - the new Republican Roman cavalry have been noted by those who have purchased them to not only be awkward looking on their wee little horses, but also hard to put together, and "large" compared to the rest of the men in the army.  It seems that the horsemen Victrix has made since their Numidians have been quite large! 

After some forum and facebook discussion and comparisons with other miniature collectors, I started to calm down.  I wasn't angry about this, persay, but more so a bit disappointed.  I had not realized at first that my Victrix cavalrymen towered over the rest of my troops, and after putting the horsemen beside a number of infantry as you have seen above, I was sort of upset that a popular company like Victrix seems to be unable to keep their scale consistent among their own ancients range.

Which leads me to the next part of my post here:

A  Comparison of 28mm Horses from My Collection!

So instead of griping and cursing and threatening to immediately sell off all my Victrix Cavalry (which I did consider and told a few people I may just do so!) because they appeared far too big to fall into the 28mm category along the rest of my infantry, I decided to fish out all the ancient Cavalry I could find and match them up alongside one another to see what gives.

The following photos are all the ancient horses I own - save some Persian Cavalry that I could not find that are from Warlord Games - but from recollection they are about the same size as Warlord's metal companion cavalry.

Wargames Factory.  The horses above are the Persian horses (the bigger one) and the horse used in the Celt/Roman/German cavalry packs. Yep. All three use the same horses.  

You can see that the first Cavalry Wargames Factory did was fairly small, squat, and not so big compared to that of their Persian horses. But that did not bug me - from what I read horses back in the day, and especially from what the Gauls were originally using, were not that big, quite bulky, and I feel the body size from the Celt here riding on his pony is a decent size.

The Persian on the other hand has a weird spread on his legs, and a good piece of his tunic is spread right across his lap.  The horse is taller, and longer. Width wise, they are about the same.

Next, enter Warlord's Numidian Cavalry. 

I like the shape and look of the Cavalry - but it is a very small horse.  The rider is also seemingly smaller than the Celtic rider. The horses's head also seems quite narrow and I know a few people who do not like Warlord's Numidian cavalry because of the size the head is. 

Next we have riding in a Foundry Greek.  Wargames foundry has all sorts of models that have been sculpted by various talented sculptors.  I just happen to have this one, and while it does not represent all of the Cavalrymen that Wargames Foundry has, you can see it is smaller, and closer to the Warlord Numidian in height. The head's a bit better size, I think. 

The width of these three vary. The plastic Wargames factory are wider in comparison to the metals.

So you can tell that obviously every company has different sizing.  We've got Wargames Factory creeping up their scale on their old Persians when compared to their even older Celt Cavalry. Next you have two smaller examples from Warlord and Wargames Foundry.

But, from a distance, and from smaller image, as I have made it, you can see that from say 3 feet away, you may not immediately notice the size differences.  They do vary quite a bit between each model, but since horses and men are all sorts of sizes at least these could be passable in the same army.  They're all 28mm scaled men and horses in my eyes!

Next let's look at Warlord's Companion Cavalry next to the Persians from Wargames Factory (which is OOP currently by the way, if you did not know!)

Here I enlarged the photo. You can notice some big differences.  The horses are not the same width - the leg width is greater, and the head sizes vary. 

From a distance, you can notice that the Persian Cavalry does look wider! 

And the persian is a little wider in the horse girth as well. 

But even so, they are , what I want to say "Similar" in size. The rider's sit about the same height, their bodies are about the same width (the riders) and all save the horses sizes being a bit bigger on the plastics, against each other they'd also be passable.   You can see what I mean when I put the smaller horses next to them.  Yes, there are obvious differences. However, you can see that the horses could indeed all be in the same army (maybe not the same unit) and all pass as the same scale range.

Or so that is my opinion! 

So far it seems, if you stick with Warlord these Greeks from Foundry, things are going to match up fairly nicely!

The Wargames Factory plastics are a bit wider on the rider and the horse!  But I think they're not too much bigger that one should cause a big fuss.

So just before we look at Victrix Horses, I want to take a quick peek at the bodies off the horse, next to some of the wider hoplites that Victrix makes. 

Okay, it is very apparent that the three fellows in the sprue there, the Foundry (left) Victrix hoplite (middle) and the Warlord Companion musician (right) vary in sizes.  Head, arms, legs, feet, hands.. all different.  So if the two riders were standing tall, their legs straight, next to the hoplite - I'd say they'd be of similar height. Of course, remember, no human is exactly the same height or width or size so variations is fine.

But on the far right, outside the sprue, you see the Victrix Cavalry man. To my eyes, he seems to be the Mountain from game of thrones, and these other guys to his left (with the exception of maybe the Hoplite)

I should add here too, another picture from Jason before we go looking at the Victrix Cavalry.

The left shows the same rider I have. The middle is a victrix Phalangite.  The far right is a Greek without any armor. Light Greek Cavlaryman.

It does seem these riders may be a closer size to the more recently made Phalangite. But hold on.. does it not seem that the legs are wider on the riders? 

Am I being too picky? That thought has gone through my mind, too.


Anyways, here are the Cavalry from Victrix.

You have to say.. they're well done with lots of detail!  People like Victrix because the have some pretty cool looking effects and pieces on them.

But these are big, big horses.  Look at the bases that Victrix supplies for Cavalry. The horses ovals under their hooves do not even sit fully on the bases that are meant for Cavalry!  I personally think there is some size creep that's been going on with Victrix since the Numidian cavalry!  My friend Bazookajoe put his numidian cavalry on smaller bases.

Here's the bodies on the horses.  Greek on the left, Iberian on the right.  Now, I want to notice something.... These guys do look like they belong on their horses.   I mean, the proportions of the bodies at least, look closer to what the horses would be - the horses aren't terribly large compared to the riders. The greek guy looks a bit chunky in the upper body.. but that's his armor and muscle, not his bad eating habits, right?

Huzzah! Headless horseman of ancient Spain!

Now let us put them next to the Bigger cavalry I own and that we compared before and we see.. oh, yes. Victrix horses are BIG!  The riders are also quite large compared to the Warlord metal Companion, and even the Persian cavalryman. If I were to glue on their heads, they'd also sit a lot higher! 

Here's a top view. So yes, the Victrix cavalry are big big big. And the tails are long long lo.. well, their whole horse is much longer than the persian on the left - and I consider that Persian to be a big 28mm miniature for Cavalry!

The horses are also wider!

See what I mean?  I have not even put on the Victrix Cavalrymen heads nor weapons.. They're big everywhere!

There's one of my painted Celt horsemen in the above photo. He's small, too.  Everything is quite big about the Victrix horses.

That's a nice pony there.

The Wargames Factory Persian is closest to the Victrix Cavalry - but if I fully assembled that rider, he'd tower over the Persian. 

Same goes for the Warlord Companion on the left.

Now here's an older Athenian Victrix Hoplite I decided to put alongside the big Victrix Cavalry.  They're both Greek!

They did not do a good job on the shield arms of the old Victrix minis.. but that's okay. Shields can hide that, right!? But I think you can see how huge the Victrix Horse is in comparison to the footman.

I'm also told that the old Victrix Hoplites come from Rendera.  So there is some different in the production of these plastics compared to the newer stuff. Not sure entirely!

Well, I decided that I couldn't just leave this blog post like this - so I dug out more stuff. Here's Warlord's Metal Persian mounted.  Much smaller than the Wargames Factory Plastic, but I do love the rider's set up.  I only have one command pack of them to use as a General in future armies, but I think I'll stick to Wargames Factory Plastics. 

The Persians and Companions as seen above in Warlord's metal are along the same scale and Immortal style of mini.  Would go good together. The Wargames Factory Persian is bigger in all regards.

Okay, it's time to put Infantrymen beside some of these horses. 

Here's Wargames factory dudes. A horseman beside a Sparabara man without his shield.  The horse is really tall.  This in my own personal taste is as tall as I really want the horses to go.  I don't think the horses back then were all that big as some of the huge beasts we have today, especially in the middle east - though I did read some info on some breeds of horses being quite beefy and tall.  

Above we have Immortal hoplites and Immortal Pikemen from Warlord Games on the left. A Foundry Argonaut, persian, and Victrix old Athenian hoplite on the right of the same guy.  The cavalry is quite tall, and the infantry are on different bases.

Switch!  Here's the Celt from Wargames Factory with the same guys.  He's also quite tall but not over doing it.

Here's the Warlord Companion.  His horse may seem small to some of the bulkier guys on the right, but height wise I'd use him.

And then there is the Foundry horse. To me, this is the ideal ancient pony size for height. Maybe if he were a bit bulkier, he'd be ideal from what I imagine.

Now let us look at the Victrix Greek Cavalry next to all of these guys.

Look above again at the photos I just took and see if you can gauge where the head of each infantryman sets roughly next to the cavalryman..

WOW. The head isn't even on!  A lot of these guys that are on a fairly flat base go up to his waist or so max!  The other examples above were varied but Victrix is the tallest of them all!

But these are all different manufacturers, so we should take a gander at strictly just Victrix stuff. 

I really like Victrix infantry. We have a Roman on the left, a Libyan spearmen next, then an Athenian, and finally two unarmored hoplite models on the far right.  All quite different sculpts and styles out of Victrix!  They tend to switch it up quite a bit.

You can see I mounted everything here on victrix bases... So how do these Victrix lads fair next to their own horseman?

I don't know... That Cavalryman is looking very tall, and very bulky right now.

That Persian Cavalry from Wargames Factory also looks tall, but the horse isn't as wide, and the Persian has a skinnier body.. looks a bit more human to me.

Same on this side as well.  Tall, perhaps.

See, I like this height from Warlords.

It is fairly nice.

So I also decided to go even further.. it's like 3-4 am or something here, but it's also Friday night (Saturday now I guess!) and I am just going to finish this long blog with this!

Let's look at some of the heads of the Victrix Cavalry that I own

Hmm, they're pretty close, don't you think?.. The left one is from the Greek Cavalry set, and the right fellow is the unarmored hoplite.. is the Cavalry slightly bigger? 

I think this Phonecian has a small head.

To me it looks like Victrix Greek Cavalry has larger heads than the unarmored guys afterall...?

What do you think?

Okay, let's put it on the horse rider.

I don't know about you guys, but the huge horse, the huge body, and the huge head to me, are quite massive. These are towering impressive Cavalry.

We need to check out the Iberian Cavalry head too. It seems about the same.

Also very impressive, but somehow I feel the Iberian body isn't as bulky as the Greek. It seems a bit more in tune with the rest of the infantry.

Side by side though the horsemen do seem of similar size and build...

So that is it for the comparisons!

What did you guys think?

I honestly think that Victrix is going through what many company's may go through - Scale Creep.  This happens with all sorts of models and companies. Their scale either gets bigger, and sometimes even smaller.  It is quite apparent to me as well that Victrix also has no consistency between their sets. You have the original Greeks, which are quite consistent, but they suddenly changed up their unarmored hoplites to different poses, and different body structures.
The Romans also came out at some point and they seem quite bulky overall.

The above sets all had very thick spear shafts on their dori and pila, but if you look at the Carthaginians the spear shafts suddenly get super skinny and flimsy and I find they break easily.. the Carthage heads also seem a tad smaller than the rest of them...

And then we start seeing these Cavalry.. the Numidians which we saw in some photos above in plastic from Victrix are smaller compared to that of the new Republic Romans -  but somehow the Roman officer on his horse exploded in size.  I am not entirely sure if the horse sizes for Victrix has changed and I will have to compare with Bazookajoes's stuff the next time our armies meet, but it does seem the horses did grow a bit fatter from the Numidian time.  The riders are undoubtedly getting bigger.

I absolutely love Victrix. Their infantrymen are some of my favorite miniatures I've ever had the pleasure to paint.  But after seeing how.. odd the Republican Shetlander looks I really do not think I will collect any of their horsemen.  After all of these comparisons I am also considering selling off the Greek and Iberian Cavalry sprues and pieces I have. To me they are a tad bit too big for Historical 28mm. Wargames Factory was already pushing it with their Persian Cavalry for me, but that's about as big as I personally want to go.

You can agree with me, or disagree!  The beautiful thing about these toys is that every piece is a bit of one's own art - somebody sculpted it - somebody put it together - then somebody paints them. So just because I think Victrix has some scale creep and some weird sizing issues on their horses, doesn't mean anyone else has to agree with me. Tis all how I just see it.  And I will be getting more Victrix infantry of some sort in the future..Unless of course, we discover that the scale creep that I think might be happening is also occurring in the upcoming vikings! That might be a game changer.

Alright - just for fun, let's compare some big and odd stuff with Victrix.

Here's the Celts too, from Jason again. 

They do look of the same size!  Put this Celt next to other makes of celtic cavalry though.. and you will see the size differs! 

Old Bretonnians!!!! Now there's the Mountain from GoT for you!!!

Warhammer is obviously got some bigger stuff. 

And here's the mad wizard Elector count! 28mm heroic scale at its finest! 

He's huge - I love how i put him together. Will enjoy painting him when the Historicals are all caught up!

And elephants!

What do you think about the Victrix Elephant next to their Iberian and Greek Cavalry? It's supposed to be a forest elephant, remember.. but were the horses so big along it?

I am not sure!

Thanks for reading. Hope these size comparisons give you a better idea about the different sculpts and scales within 28mm that exist!