Are there any plans for Strelets to produce any Byzantine Medieval figures? Would go well with the Normans and Arab Muslim figures. Any thoughts?

i'd like medieval byzantines very much! and a new frankish range (and steppes riders pechenegs, bulgars, avars, hungars...), so we could recreate a whole age (franks, arabs, byzantines, steppes peoples, saxons and anglo-saxons, vikings (10th century) and normans (11th century)...unless we could use normans as franks...? maybe the shape of the shields is not correct (round shields vs. almond shields). why franks (and byzantines) are so neglected by the hobby?

Exactly Giorgio! It does seem several ranges such as Franks have been neglected. I'm okay with the Anglo Saxons and Normans though that Strelets has produced. As far as the Byzantines, we are talking about approximately 1,000 years of an empire!!! Strelets needs to produce several lines from the Dark Ages to Medieval Ages to cover this period of time, starting with the period of Emperor Constatine. The Byzantines played a pivotal part of this period. Strelets I think would be the best to produce this line of figures as any other Byzantine figures I have seen in plastic are not very exciting.

Dear Michael,

to the best of our knowledge, Orion have made several sets for Byzantine, along with some nomads and early Rus warriors, that can serve as their adversaries. It looks as if they are going to develop this line and it will be wrong for us to interfere in their project.

Best regards,

Strelets

Thank you Strelets for your reply. I understand, but Orion is no where near the quality of Strelets!

Dear Michael,

with all due respect, we can't agree with you on that! Have you seen recent Orion's releases, like Jacobite rebellion, etc.?

Best regards,

Strelets

Ok, so we have byzantine enemies from Orion (even if i think there could be room for more and better of these) and we are going to have a lot of byz, even of it's unclear if this will be from Orion or from Hat. The battle for taking the spot is still raging. Normans and (anglo)saxons are quite covered, but Franks? What we could use for Roncesvaux or Poitiers, or against the Vikings, the Avars or the Longobards or for burning down the Saxons' Yggdrasil? I'm not really satified without a full range of these formidable warriors that conquered nearly the whole Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire e long before Napoleon!

Nice response, Strelets. Spoken like a Gentleman.

This is a niche hobby, and a relatively small market, so it's nice if companies (even competing companies) can be respectful of one another, and develop new or complementary figure lines, versus competing figure lines.

My only caveat to that is where the initial offering is of an extremely low standard and begs to be improved upon.

I do of course support my fellow hobbyists desires for more Byzantine sets (although not an area of great interest to me personally) and hope Orion can produce additional sets to meet their needs.

Giorgio - are you aware that Strelets already produce a set of Carolingian Cavalry, and Vikings vs Franks infantry? Do these meet your needs?


Regards,
Andrew

Dear Strelets how many roman legionares were produced before you made your sets? The fact that one manufacturer coverd this subject does not mean a ban for you.This is very broad topic.It would be great to see Strlets Belisarian or Heraclian scutatos....Orion did not cover it well....

Given the Byzantine Empire lasted about 1000 years , the subject is way under represented in 1/72 even if we do have some nice sets of Byzantines and enemies from Orion.

Orion haven`t released any sets for this theme for several years and as far as I know they haven`t announced any new sets?

So that being said Strelets maybe you could consider some sets for this period like Arab Islamic army for the battle of Yarmuk and some Byzantine Cavalry sets for 5th-8th century or a set of Byzantine Orthodox priests and monks who usually accompanied their armies into battle armed with crucifix, psalters etc.
And what about a set of Turkish Seljuk foot soldiers ?? or a Byzantine transport set with mules and wagons ?
Hears hoping at least !

Thank you all for the comments and opinions. I agree history is wide open and I run a small business myself. There is always room for friendly competition in the market. Strelets frankly is the only company I have been interested in purchasing plastic miniatures because of the detail and range, especially the dark age and middle age. I have a lot of 1/72 and 20mm metal miniatures and just think the Byzantine Empire could use a little more focus in the market, whether in plastic or metal.

Hi Adrews,
of course i'm aware of the carolingian sets produced by Strelets, but, as i said, i'd really like if we could have a full range for these figures, just like the normans range.
ah, and i think, that, while Strelets' answer was a gentleman's answer, it was a businessman's answer too, infact producing something that is already sold by others doesn't help you to dumper the production costs while can only help you selling not as many sets you need to cover them costs.
I guess, at least.

I once again stress that this topic is very wide broad and so far we have only foot of Orion(quite good), but no one made Greek fire.....or Byzantine marines..