1. I have had a cursory look - they ended up on a different multi sprue set up to what was posted on the website, and I think linked earlier in this thread.
The small sprues thing is weird - several sprues for just a few weapons, and different sorts of shields. Some of the weapons appear in both the Infantry and Cavalry boxes.
I also got a box of the Amazons and again some of the same sprues are in there - the female limbs look very spindly.
They look ok, but I think it will need some experimenting when I get round to building them - which will not be happening until after the Eurobash.
2. I just like all Artizan stuff. The Arthuians have sort of crept up on me as I picked up some Black Tree at half price, and I have a lot of Saxons and Vikings, so I was looking at some combatative armies from Late / Romano British and early Dark Ages.
3. Again Northstar did a half price Crusader Spanish Army deal, and so I bought them
mainly because I had seen 'allied spanish units' in Fall of the West etc., and didn't really understand what some of the terms like Caetrati and Scutari meant ....... I have been educating myself a bit since.
4. Conquest are new - I met Mike at the show, youngish guy who is doing it as a part time enthusiast - he has plans and ideas for more units, but it takes time and getting the capital for Renedra to make a sprue is not easy.
I think the way WF churned out units was the exception - if you look at Gripping Beast, they have done two, Vikings and Saxons, in over a year, and the Perrys probably manage only 2 or 3 a year, and indeed Warlord Games who are probably the most prolific UK outfit have been going a while now, and several of their supposedly 'different' box sets use the same base sprue.
Mantic may be a bit more regular, but I haven't been paying them much attention to be honest.
I think it is around £50,000 to develop a standard unit size sprue, which means if you are selling a box set at £15 - £20 each then you have to sell around 2500 to 3350 sets just to break even.