Retro Retro Review

[Steve Ettinger]

As most of the experienced (i.e. old) Planeteers will know Osprey Men at Arms usually created figures to go with the awesome art in these great books. When this title came out about 1987, it had a limited edition of only 150 for the cover art vignette, and for the time very expensive. Yes, I lusted after it but, you know wife , kids etc. Well I was E baying and saw this and I just had to have it. Kit is marked of 150 but no piece number shows , and none that I can see on the two bases supplied in the kit. Upon close examination without removing from the packaging, everything seems intact, swords and lance are a little bent but no problem. The face of the Jannisary falling is well done as well as the beautiful helmet with the armored mask. Comes with an unfinished hardwood base, color instructions , and a copy of the different types of lance pennons. A real Golden Oldie.

 

[Nemo]

great find...congrats

 

[Mat Lambert]

Interesting , I never knew there were figures produced to match the cover illustrations. Are there pictures of any more out there?
Cheers
Mat

 

[gerryj199]

Yes. Quite a few. They weren't limited to cover designs as there were many figures based on illustrations in the books. Also, many of the illustrations were used as a basis by figure manufacturers other than New Hope Design. If you google "new hope design miniatures" you'll see that there aren't many photos of the figures. As far as I know, they only ever released kits with line drawings of the models based on the illustrations. I never saw any cover art featuring photos of painted figures but others might be able to shed more light on that.
Gerry

 

[polyphemus]

I think the figure based on artwork from MAA books included bases marked to that effect. Some were produced in 75mm as well as the very many in 54mm.

Geoff

 

[chippy]

You'r one lucky man .
chippy

 

[arj]

Interesting , I never knew there were figures produced to match the cover illustrations. Are there pictures of any more out there?
Cheers
Mat

Mirofsoft has a large number of catalogues on his website and New Hope Design is one of them. This is just a listing of all the products. The next pdf is titled New Hope, and this has many photographs of the New Hope Design products. The link is:-
http://www.mirofsoft.com/nostalgia-old-catalog-pdf/
A great many of these photos tie-in with the Osprey MAA publications.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Mat Lambert]

Mirofsoft has a large number of catalogues on his website and New Hope Design is one of them. This is just a listing of all the products. The next pdf is titled New Hope, and this has many photographs of the New Hope Design products. The link is:-
http://www.mirofsoft.com/nostalgia-old-catalog-pdf/
A great many of these photos tie-in with the Osprey MAA publications.

Cheers,
Andrew

Wow, what an excellent collection of old brochures on Mirosofts website. Good too now someone is recording this stuff and it's not lost forever.
Cheers
Mat

 

[Kevin D.]

GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!!!

Kevin

 

[garyjd]

A lot of the Men at Arms Collection figures I recall were not that good. There were a few that were not bad, but for the most part they don't hold up that well to today's standards IMO. That could possibly be one reason why pictures of them are rare.

 

[Richard Baxter]

I have a couple in my grey army: Henry V at Agincourt and a British Line Infantryman from the Peninsula. I also have a few made up from the 1980s:

• Earl of Oxford and Charles d'Albret from the Agincourt book;
• Some figures from the SAS series....Operation Nimrod, Oman/Dhofar, WW2 LRDG and operations in the Aegean in WW2.

Sculpt quality is a bit variable. The Agincourt ones are quite decent as is the SAS Nimrod figure, the others less so. All are 54mm. Golden oldies indeed!

 

[Mirofsoft]

For the record :
All MA from DelPrado publications are coming from the New Hope Design Men a Arm serie
The leaflets that were delivered with, were copy of New Osprey pages Men At Arms

 

[pgarri27]

Are you going to pait it up, or keep it as a relic in the GA? Love the Polish Winged Hussars!

 

[Steve Ettinger]

I am glad my post sparked some good conversation. Since posting , the horse has been assembled, along with rider. The pose is not the same as in the illustration. He is posed looking down to the right, lance couched downward at the falling Jannisary. The armored face masked head is a fantastic sculpture, and makes the figure stand out from the typical Hussar figure. The lance I found to be too short , so I have added a piece of rod to make it the correct length. When posing the two figures together, the added lance, makes the two piece vignette quit far apart. The wing attachment is different in that, the animal skin cape has no head and is draped around the figure like a cape, and the wings are attached through the fur cape. According to the painting guide, the animal skin is Ocelot. After looking at the small leopard like animal that doesn't get over 40lbs, and is a native of South America, I decided to make a Tiger skin instead. All in all the kit is one of the better Men at Arms figures and is a fun build. I will post some pics in WIP soon.

 

[Metal Extremo]

It's a little treasure. You're a lucky man

 

[polyphemus]

I think the SAS figure was sculpted by Keith Durham. He did some of his early work for New Hope Design. They used several sculptors which might explain the varied quality of their MAA figures.

Geoff

 

[Mirofsoft]

Some names of peoples who worked for New Hope : Malcolm Dawson, Roslyn Young, Peter Roger, Ray Brown

 

[Mirofsoft]

The Winged Hussar and the Saracen were sculpted by Malcolm Dawson