Conquest Games Ltd - Norman Knights
| Name of Product | Norman Knights |
| Product Number | - |
| Manufacturer | Conquest Games Ltd |
| Genre | Historical - 11th Century |
| Scale | 28mm |
| Price | £18.00 (enough parts to make 12 mounted miniatures) |
What do you get?
The box contains 4 sprues of figures as well as a single sprue of the ubiquitous Renedra plastic bases. One of these sprues is a “command” sprue although in truth it is almost identical to the remainder of standard sprues. The standard one contains 4 riders; 2 in knee length mail and 2 unarmoured (or perhaps in leather armour.) There are 6 heads to choose from with subtle variations in helmet details (all basically simple helmets with a nasal noseguard) and there are 6 right arms with a choice of swords, spears or open-handed.
There is just the one left arm the others being moulded integrally to 4 of the 6 shields provided; the shields are a 50/50 mix of round and kite shaped. The last third of the sprue contains 3 horses, each split into two halves and each with a separate head.
The differences of the command sprue over the basic one are limited to just the first third of the frame. The heads and bodies are replaced with 3 new bodies in padded and scale armour, one head with a scale aventail and fancy helmet, and 3 arms with a club, a standard and a hunting horn.
There is also a casualty figure; a dead or wounded knight on a fallen horse (one piece moulding.)
How does it compare?
The detail and proportions is reasonably good on these figures and they match up to existing 28/30mm figures very well.
The only area that jarred when I assembled one of the knights was the quite broad beam of the horse models accentuated by the very thin sinuous neck that must be glued onto it. Well within the range of shapes of horses that wargamers have inflicted upon them however.
The final word.
At £1.50 a figure these are good value and if you have a few spare horses knocking around, to use the three spare riders, the price drops to £1.20 each. A bargain. There are also deals available for multiple boxes for anyone wishing to field vast hordes of Normans, medieval knights or early crusaders. The only notable omission is any sort of explanatory leaflet or painting guide or any printed flags or shield transfers. Not a worry for experienced gamers/painters I suspect and easily obtainable from elsewhere for those who want them.
