Gripping Beast- Late Roman Cataphracts!

Continuing my descent into historical miniatures, I knew there was one set of models I needed to get my claws on- some cataphracts.
These guys just drip coolness, almost as much as they were probably dripping with sweat having to wear all that armor.
To my knowledge, Gripping Beast are one of the only producers of plastic Romans from towards the end of the empire. There are three horse designs along with four different riders. The poses are all pretty much set as is but at least there is a good variety of different helmeted heads.
It feels a bit bare bones compared to some of the offerings from Victrix, but I don't really see that as a big detractor. Since the poses are so limited I got everything built a whole lot quicker, and after having painted one of the models I feel that the real variance is going to come in how I paint them, not with what they're equipped with.
They look to scale well with most other historical kits I pulled out, as well as some of the more reasonably scaled fantasy lines.
Much like how Gripping Beast even mentions on their own website- these guys just plain look cool with all that bling. Who wouldn't want to have some of these guys smashing your opponents' ranks to pieces?
You can get them direct from Gripping Beast, who have a good variety of plastic Roman kits!
www.grippingbeast.co.uk/
If you guys want to help pick what we paint, and support our channel, check out our Patreon!
/ obscuritiesinminiature

[@lenHeartHSS]

Thanks for looking out, we are back to normal weather wise here in Texas, should be in the 70's...

[@axanax2534]

Gripping Beast does Goth 'Nobles' and 'Elites' and the only difference between the two is that the Nobles have unarmoured horses and the the Elites have these Cataphract horses. I'll have a video out this week building a Goth Elite.

[@owaissaeed5935]

4:15 I've seen enough "Spirit" to know that the horse is now free

[@austinng1137]

Given how unique cataphracts look in comparison to most Roman forces, these seem usable for fantasy games/purposes as heavy cavalry. I recently ordered a sprue of them on eBay for that purpose. They’ll go up against Victrix Gauls representing generic barbarians, lol

[@magimon91834]

Gripping beast has a pretty full plastic goth line. You can also use their dark age warriors for most enemies of rome at the time

[@ObscuritiesinMiniature]

I'd completely forgotten about all their cavalry units! I tend to block cavalry out of my mind. I don't enjoy painting horses unfortunately!

[@davidsjoblom3970]

While cataphracts in plastic is very tempting this box is just kinda meh; only 2 poses and no command options? No shields either, pretty sure small bucklers straped to the arm were used by these guys. Gonna wait for fireforge to release their cataphracts kit from the byzantine kickstarter, though theirs is a later period one i think. Good vid!

[@ObscuritiesinMiniature]

I'm waiting on those Fireforge ones as well! It'll be interesting to see how they compare with each other.

[@Celticelery]

I've seen some mounted Goths from footsore minis, albeit those are metal. There may also be some on the Gripping Beast website, but I can't remember for certain. Also, what kind of glue did you use to assemble these guys? Great paint job, by the way.

[@ObscuritiesinMiniature]

The orange testor's tubes is my go- to plastic glue, despite how often it spurts out of the tube unwarranted. Footsore is always my first stop to check for any models when it comes to ancients through the dark ages, despite me not owning any of their models (a situation I drastically need to rectify).

[@Celticelery]

@@ObscuritiesinMiniature Thanks! I'll have to get that glue sometime. Also, there are two GBP Goth cavalry sets on the website.

[@kareemjonson]

Im interested in getting some, but the horses just seem a bit small

[@ObscuritiesinMiniature]

I'd say they're about the right size given the time period and size of the people. When working with historical models I have to change my sizing expectations, as I tend to think in terms of heroic minis and larger than life rule of cool type figures.

[@tt8642g]

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