Delicate (too delicate) beauties: Lucid Eye Amazons

A short while ago, I found an image of the Amazon figures that are being produced by Lucid Eye Publications for their Ziggurat range. In the pictures I saw, they looked good enough to eat. Plus, they're sculpted by Steve Saleh, one of my favorite figure sculptors out there. He's the one who did Wargames Foundry's World of the Greeks range—in my opinion the best figure range ever made.

I ordered one of each pack they had and the figures arrived yesterday.

They are beautifully sculpted. The detail is very good and I look forward to them being a delight to paint. They're 28mm from foot to eye, but have a very tall look to them. They're also very slender figures, which is a good look for willowy Amazons.

Willowy Amazonian war-women

However, I was immediately disappointed in a few crucial aspects of them. Overall they seem delicate—so much so that I effortlessly broke off a plume while working on one figure. The metal is softish. Trimming, filing, and drilling into the metal is pretty easily done, maybe too easily.

deplumed

When I saw the pictures online and on the Lucid Eye website, which show the sculptor's greens for the figures, my impression was that the spears were cast on. That gave me pause. I really don't like cast-on spears. It's a sculpting practice I had hoped to have been left in the 70s. Nevertheless, many companies still do it. The effect—as it was in the 70s—is to have oversize barge-pole spears that, after a bit of use, wind up being all wibbly and wobbly. Even before use, it's impossible to get cast metal spears straight. Separate never-bending wire spears have been a thing for four decades. We have the technology, why don't we use it?

Why, oh why?

But it's worse than that. The spears are cast on, but cast onto the hand. Just the hand. The hand isn't cast onto the figure. You have to glue the hand holding the spear onto the figure. The point where hand joins figure is the wrist, the delicate willowy wrist of an Amazon war maiden. It's a very, very small point to attach them. It does not threaten to be a future place where the figure breaks, it promises. In simple, normal use of these figures I can guarantee that I will lose hands and spears. I should prepare myself for replacing them with hooks or some similar prosthetic.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

My joy of finding the package from Lucid Eye in my mailbox yesterday was soon dissipated when I saw how the figures were. Had they left the hand attached to the wrist and made it open to accept either a cast cartoonishly large spear or a metal wire spear, they would be infinitely better figures for gaming. I can only ask myself, again and again and again, "What were they thinking?"

Hire people with hooks

Rather than just butt-weld the hand/spear to the wrist, I drilled out both and pinned it with brass wire. I hope that helps, but I'm not at all confident that will create a strong join.

The shields are separate, which is typical for figures with shields. They too are attached by a simple butt-weld of fist to hollowed out bit behind the shield boss. That's also pretty standard for figures. I have a lot of Aventine Romans whose shields attach exactly this way. (Aventine, BTW, provides their legionaries with separate sword arms to glue on. That's not great—I hate having to glue appendages onto figures—but at least it's not butt-welding hand to wrist.)

Probably OK if I don't drop it

Apart from the shields, the sword-armed figures are one piece. Also entirely one piece are the archers, which are very nice, so nice as to practically redeem the entire range by themselves.

Perfect, one-piece, what's not to love

I may be whinging a bit—but I'm not merely whinging. Wargame figures are playing pieces that get handled a lot. Even if you're the only one handling them (and you never are) there's the ever-present danger of mishap that results in lost spears or shields. With these figures, I will lose whole hands, which are not easily repaired once broken.

I fell in love with the images of the figures I saw on the Internet. I'm much less in love with the figures I received. Having glue-on hands holding big barge-pole spears is just dumb and ensures future breakage. Had I known this about the way the range is cast, I would never have bought them.

I'll make the best of it now. I'm primering the first batch today. I have another package coming with more spears, more archers, and a new figure: the Amazon queen. I plan to use them with Mortal Gods either as part of the Mythic supplement or just as normal troops—albeit willowy, bare-breasted troops with delicate wrists. But still I ask myself, "What were they thinking?"