Bronze is brilliant!

I pulled out my beloved 40mm Prehistoricalistical Europeanoids (a.k.a. North European Bronze Age) minis for a game on Saturday. My last game with them was in 2016 with Kevin Smyth and Phil Bardsley, when we adapted Osprey's En Garde rules to ca. 1800 BC. It worked OK, but rules for dashing swordsmen ca. 1650 aren't exactly suited for bronze age warriors going at it with axes, spears, swords, slings, and arrows. So, I went back to Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes, which is the rules set I used when I started with them almost four years ago. There's an advanced version, which I purchased after our game (see below).

So off we went in the Wayback Machine to the Bronze Age. Why? Because bronze is brilliant!

The players were Mike Lombardy, Troy Wold, Ralph Holloway, and I. Troy and I were the defenders keeping the forces of Mike and Ralph from disturbing the religious rites being celebrated at the stonehenge-ish site. It gave me my first opportunity to use the mini stonehenge I bought from Daryl Nichols at Enfilade! earlier this year.

Protecting the shameless naked cavorting at the megaliths

The forces were all roughly equal and I used pretty generic characters. Each warband had a leader figure with the values Q2:C5, plus special rules "leader," "Hero," and "tough." Our leaders all got into combat, but no one got killed. The rest of the forces were swordsmen (Q3:C4), spearmen (Q3:C3), Slingers (Q4:C3, medium shooter), and bowmen (Q4:C3, long shooter). Troy and I also had standard bearers who were like swordsmen (Q3:C4), but had the "tough" special rule. Each warband numbered 13 figures.

Separating our warbands was a mostly dry river, whose wet bits were impassible (but bridged). On one end of the table, Troy and Mike squared off, while Ralph and I went at it on the other end.

The field of battle, Mike and Troy at one end

Mike started out with his figures in two groups and used his leader's "leader" rule to move them forward. Troy and Ralph did similiar.

Ralph's boys start off in neat groups

I was just scattered all over and came at Ralph piecemeal. Why be methodical in my mayhem?

Dave's boys running higgeldy-piggeldy across the terrain

My initial clashes against Ralph did not go well. I was down three swordsmen before he'd lost anyone. He was able to get 2:1 and 3:1 against some of my figures. Being on the ropes, I started concentrating my forces and finally got methodical with my mayhem.

Mike started initially getting badly hurt by Troy's forces, but the worm eventually turned. Both of them fought in tight opposing lines. Ralph and I were more scattered with little clumps fighting in various places.

Ralph's initial successes left him a bit scattered and vulnerable for counterattack. A few good activations later and I was on him in force.

The axeman cometh

The first tough clash is known in my tribe's lore as the "battle by the tree near the swampy bit." It was here that I took my initial losses, but by bringing more warriors to bear—and my hero leader—I turned the tide. My leader exerted only moral force by the tree; when it came time to kick some Bronze Age butt, I rolled two failed activations with him. I just repositioned him with my one action and the battle by the tree near the swampy bit resolved itself when I brought my standard bearer into it.

My leader weighs whether to join the fray (he didn't)

My standard bearer shouting his enemies to death

The fighting was pretty hairy for a bit. Two of my swordsmen held off four of Ralph's spears. It started with just one.

2:1 in my favor and no luck

My failure to kill the lone spearman, however, drew in the rest of Ralph's spears. Another swordsman came to my help and I was then 1:2.

Suddenly a wall of spears!

I got one of my swordsmen killed (and one of Ralph's spears), which left the odds still decidedly against me.

Now 1:3...

However, the lone swordsman prevailed. I'd like to claim skill, but it was just lucky dice. Try as he might, Ralph's attacks were foiled by low scores which left us tied (no result) or had me pushing him back or knocking him down. Once down, a figure is pretty vulnerable to kills or the dreaded GRUESOME KILL (of which we had none this game).

Whittled 'em down to two and soon to none

I lost several chances to kill Ralph's leader. I engaged him with my leader and managed to have him at 2:1 and fallen, but only managed to wound because of the leader's "tough" special rule.

So close...

The "tough" rule helped Troy also, whose standard bearer (a.k.a. "Penis Man" due to the ithyphallic deity totem he carried) was knocked down and wounded multiple times, but survived the game and was standing proud by the megaliths at the end.

I get knocked down, but I get up again...

On the periphery, the missile troops plugged away at each other. I tried a long shot at Ralph's hero, but the odds are so far out the best I could hope for would be a "fallen" result, which I didn't get. However, Ralph and I each took out two opposing missile figures.

Bronze Age firefight

Both Troy and Ralph had to make morale checks for losing more than half their initial force (more dead than alive). For Ralph, this affected only his leader, who scurried back one move. The rest of his force stood their ground.

By game's end, Ralph had four survivors: His wounded leader/hero, one intrepid swordsman, a slinger, and a bowman. I had my leader/hero, my standard bearer, three swordsmen, a slinger, and a bowman.

My men glower menacingly at Ralph's survivors

Troy was on the ropes, pretty much a mirror image of Ralph's situation, but Mike was almost as badly beat up. We called the game for the defenders. The henge ceremony went on without further interruption.

And there was much rejoicing (and gratuitous nudity) at the megaliths

It was a good time despite the pain (see postscript below). I really like my 40mm figures and need to get more—although they're not really available right now, but there is hope...


Final thoughts: Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH)

I like SBH as a system. The game moves along quickly and the back-and-forth can be tense. They're also great for limited numbers of figures. We each had 13 figures in a warbands. We could easily have handled more—if I had more.

They are, however, not quite what I want for the period.

SBH was created for fantasy skirmish battles. I use about 40% of the rules for what I do with them. They don't take into account weapons and armor and there are no rules for my big 40mm scale chariot. The other 60% of the rules cover fantasy rules staples like monsters and magic.

There was once some development on a set of rules to be called Song of Spear and Shield (SSS). I had some correspondence with Andrea Sfiligoi about them going back to 2014. They seemed to be always just on the cusp of being released, but other projects kept getting precedence and they're not even listed in the Work in Progress section anymore. As recently as a few days ago, Andrea confirmed that they will be released, just no indication when. Needless to say, I'm a bit flustered. Patience has never been a virtue I was overly supplied with.

However, I just got the PDF download of the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes (ASBH). It has a bit more of what I want (and a bit more of what I don't). The only armor rule is the same as what was in the standard SBH, i.e., "heavily armored," which adds +1 to your combat score if you're beaten, i.e., it can be decisive in turning a kill into a pushback. It's kind of moot for the Bronze Age, though. I have figures in cuirass and helmet, I have figures with bronze chest discs, I have figures with just shields (small and large), I have figures with nada but a weapon. It would be nice to have varying degrees of armoredness.

ASBH adds "reaction" to the options for players. It basically works that when a player rolls dice for activation, any failures can be rerolled for an activation attempt by the opposing player before the first player conducts his actions (if any) or rolls his next activation. If two dice fail in an activation attempt, which normally ends a player's activations, the opposing player can choose to have the normal turnover or re-roll the two failed dice as a reaction, which keeps the first player the active player. I can see a lot of advantage in this.

Weapons have been added in some way. Long spears, for example, can benefit from the "long reach" rule, basically letting you attack through/over a friendly figure. I'd give this to my spear figures. There are also rules for heavy weapons like two-handed axes (I only have one figure with that).

All in all, ASBH looks promising—but I'm still eager to see SSS released!

Postscript: Ouch!

I tweaked my back as I was loading my car to head out to The Panzer Depot. By the time I got there and was unloading, I was suffering. I made it through the game, but was only able to load up for the return trip with the help of Mike, Troy, and Ralph. It's Sunday afternoon now and I haven't unpacked yet. In fact, I've been resting since I got home yesterday, groaning every time I have to move.

I've been downing ibuprofen and applying heat and cold alternately. I'm barely mobile, but still able to sit and bash this post out. I'm about to go back to resting with the hope that by tomorrow, my back will be better. It's not spinal, it's a muscle spasm of some kind, just on my lower right.

Post-postscript: Grrr!

I went to work on this blog only to find that all the pics I took with my iPhone came out as HEIC files (i.e., Live photo). This is what the iPhone camera keeps defaulting to. Photoshop can't read that format, so I had to monkey about with a conversion utility just to get everything to work.

Apparently you can set the iPhone camera not to default to Live, which I thought I'd done, but it still defaults to Live. I wish I could just disable it.

Comrades in Arms

I ordered some figures Friday morning. It was kind of impulsive and it was an impulse driven by an impulse. I contacted Alan Rudd of Timeline Miniatures (formerly Hoka Hey Wargaming) about the 40mm prehistorical Europeanoids I love because he's picked up some parts of the old Monolith Designs/Graven Images ranges and I had an impulse to get more (which is difficult to do right now). I asked whether he would be carrying the Prehistoric Europe range and he sent an encouraging reply (fingers crossed). But that got me thinking about the excellent Border Reivers range they carry, which were also Jim Bowen sculpts. I'd been eyeing this range for some time. With the imminent release of The Pikeman's Lament from Dan Mersey/Osprey, I thought now might be the time to bite and get some of the 16th c. Irish from that range. So I did.

But then I felt a gnawing emptiness (not just in my wallet) because this was the point in my purchase that I would email Phil Bardsley, confess what I'd done, and receive absolution. Since the dawn of the Internet Age and email, Phil, Bill Stewart, Kevin Smyth, Dave Schueler, and I (and various others) have exchanged emails about our projects and enthusiasms. At some point in the mid-90s, every Sunday morning became a virtual chat session as we sat at our computers drinking coffee and firing digital bon mots at each other, discussing figure ranges, and planning games. They were fun times, and we who were in the vanguard of graying the hobby were tickled that we could still learn these new-fangled interwebs tricks that set the distance between us at nought.

This underscores one of the feelings that I've always had about this hobby: It's not so much the figures, the rules, the painting, the games—it's the people that make the hobby worth pursuing. As the people start to go, something of the hobby goes with them. I find myself reevaluating the projects that Phil was part of because they seem to have lost their charm with his death. Much of our Bolt Action activity in the last years was driven by Phil's desire to paint and play 28mm WW2. Our games will be different without him and I'm not sure if I'd rather sell off my Bolt Action figures/models and use the money to fund other projects. Dick Larsen has also been a huge part of those games. Dick suffered a minor stroke the same day Phil died and is recovering in hospital and, later, rehab. It will be a while before Dick is back in action.

Phil and I planned many projects together, mostly abortive. I still have some of the Langton 1/600th scale Napoleonic warships he and I bought 15+ years ago. That went nowhere quickly, but it was fun to plan, buy, discuss possible rules. It wasn't so much the project as the pleasure of planning it with a friend. In the last year, we'd been talking about expanding Bolt Action to do the Syria-Lebanon Campaign of 1941. Phil bought some of the Perry 28mm Free French and he was talking me into buying the Vichy that Perry makes. It would have been glorious.

Kevin Smyth and I have 25 years of schemings and collusions. We'll have widely roaming phone conversations that come to some incoherent plan of action that may or may not be disastrous—but always fun.

And we've had a lot of collusions over the years. We've played and hosted many an ACW naval game together in two different scales and using a number of different rules (though like a dog to its vomit we always return to our adaptation of Yaquinto's Ironclads board game). Several times we put on our 15mm Tarawa game using Arty Conliffe's Crossfire rules. One year at our Enfilade! convention we joined forces with Dave Schueler and converted the Advanced Tobruk board game rules to 15mm miniatures and hosted a game of the battle of Mechili (1940). We've run many Silent Death games, played various rules adaptations for the Hundred Years War, and even gave WRG 6th edition Ancients a last hurrah together. Our latest collaboration is our Aztecs and Conquistadors project using our Quetzalcoatl Rampant variant of the Lion Rampant skirmish rules. Kevin and I also coauthored our (I think now defunct?) newsletter, The Citadel, while Bill did production and licked the stamps to mail them out. New collaborations await—even though Kevin has too much integrity to get cajoled into anything that has to do with pikes.

Being pulled into another's mischief is a central delight of having friends in the hobby. Left to my own devices, I have no idea what I'd get up to, but the most enjoyable projects I've done have been the result of discovering a synchronicity of thought with co-conspirators that blossoms into some action, possibly painted figures/models, and—miraculously—an actual game or two.

I met most of the guys I regularly game with when I first came to Seattle in 1991. I showed up at a quarterly meeting in August at the US Coast Guard Bear Room on the Seattle pier. I immediately got into an ACW game run by Kevin and later found myself collaborating on a group project with Kevin, Phil, Bill, Dick Larsen, and others that would be a refight of the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse (Phil was a descendant of Nathaniel Greene, so he was a big factor in picking that battle to game). I had already been painting 28mm AWI back in Chicago. As luck would have it they were doing the same out here. It was serendipity (or kismet).

That group has remained my core group ever since, though I've branched out into other games that pull in other players like John Kennedy, Steve "Puff" Puffenberg, Ken Kissling, Chris Craft, Mark Serafin, etc. With that lot, I've done 15mm WW2 (the Kampfgruppe Comander days), 1/300th modern, 1/2400th WW2 naval, among other things.

With Phil gone, some projects may fade away, but many others will never be born. It seems a long, long time since we worked on our first project together, but also as if it were yesterday. It's these somewhat maudlin (for which I apologize) reminiscences that make me appreciate anew the friends I've made in our strange little hobby.

Thank you, Phil, for all the years of friendship and fun. Thank you, my comrades in (wee) arms for the same and for all the times to come.

Song of Blades and Heroes: Mayhem at the Megalith

[Disclaimer: I know, I know. I promised to blog every week. I haven't. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I started this post in February, I think, and am just now finishing and publishing it. Enjoy.]

We recently played out first game of Song of Blades and Heroes at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland, WA. It was Phil Bardsley and I against Bill Stewart and Dick Larsen. We used every figure I have painted so far of my 40mm Bronze Age Europeanoids (except for the four-figure hippie cult group—maybe next game...). I also got a chance to use my nifty Jelling Dragon bone dice (I have 20 now) for the first time.

There was no subtlety to the scenario. Just set up and have at. Dick and I faced off over a stream and Phil and Bill contended for the Bridge of Sorrows (Bill's sorrow, as it turned out).

Face-off by the stream

The sides were more or less even. We each had a hero, some warriors, and a couple missile troops each. I used minimal special rules just so we could get through the game quickly and get the basic game down pat.

My hero steps forth all alone

The rules use an activation system whereby players attempt to activate a single figure at a time by rolling one, two, or three D6. The result is compared to the figure's quality rating (Q) with any result equal or greater allowing for one action. For example, a figure with Q=4 would get an action for every result of 4-6. So, a designated figure could get up to three activations or none. The trick is that any activation attempt that results in two or more failures ends the player's turn. 

I started by trying to advance all my men. The first out was my hero, who advanced to the stream's edge. However, my next attempt was an epic fail, so no one followed the hero. Dick, who probably threw 6's for 80% of his die rolls, quickly took advantage and forced my hero back to the dubious safety of being in company with his faint-hearted fellows.

Dick's boys edge up...

On the other flank, Phil moved out strongly against Bill, who was content to try to hold the trans-riparian end of the bridge, but not for long.

Bill's Bronze Age bad-asses

Phil's tallest hero on earth leads his warriors toward the bridge

Phil was soon contending the bridge and pushing bill back. Phil's hero, the tallest figure on the table and swinging a death-dealing axe, was in the lead. 

Horatius not holding the bridge

Bill's hero was soon struck down, but Phil's hero followed him to Valhalla shortly after. Nevertheless, Phil kept the upper hand—especially since he quickly waded the stream and came at the bridge from behind Bill's defenders.

Phil's hero gone, but Bill's annihilation is at hand

The combat rules are very DBA-like. A fight is always between two primary figures who compare their combat (C) values plus one D6. Extra figures in contact can affect the score by reducing the outnumbered figure by -1 for each extra figure he's in contact with. The modified results are compared and the higher score wins in one of four basic ways: 

1. A simple win with an odd die result pushes the enemy back one base depth. 
2. A simple win with an even die result causes the enemy to fall (fallen figures much more vulnerable to continued attack).
3. A win by twice the enemy's modified result (but not three times) is a kill. If the enemy is fallen, only a simple win is required to kill him.
4. A win by three times or more than the enemy inflicts a GRUESOME KILL (which we mark with a little Litko skull token). If the enemy has fallen then only doubling the enemy is required for a gruesome kill. A gruesome kill also spreads panic among the deceased's fellows, who must check morale.

First GRUESOME KILL of the game

The first gruesome kill was inflicted on me by Dick's hero and one of his mooks. I was only doubled, but my figure had fallen, making it more susceptible to a gruesome death. I checked morale for each figure within one long movement stick by throwing three dice per figure and checking the results against the figure's quality. A figure moves one medium move stick away for each fail, if there are one or two failures; for three failures, the figure just bugs out and is removed from play. The resulting morale chaos sent most of my men running one or two moves away (no one bugged out).

Dick's wayward warriors wade the waters

Dick mercilessly followed up on this advantage by pressing forward. Because he couldn't seem to roll less than 6 on any die, he easily made his activations.

A world of mayhem

Battle of the standards

I managed to inflict a gruesome kill on Dick at one point, which sent some of his men scurrying back. However, Dick's special talent for rolling high kept his force pretty intact despite their fearful revulsion.

Run away! 

Dick whittling me down

In the end, Dick managed to reduce my force to just a few figures while he remained mostly intact. Phil and Bill had chopped each other up pretty well, but Phil held the bridge with his remaining figures. The game probably took around 90 minutes, but that includes a great deal of chatter amongst ourselves and pauses every now and then for photo ops.

The rules play quickly and make for an enjoyable time. We used pretty generic values for the rank and file with special characteristics only for our leaders. Adding more detail and variety to the figures will involve adding name tags (and having to come up with interesting Bronze Age European names!) and tracking the characteristics on rosters. The special abilities will add more time to the game, but also more character.

I hosted two games of SoBH at our Enfilade! convention in May, including the hippie cult group as major players in the victory conditions. Both games went pretty well and the players had a good time.

Ganesha Games has a forthcoming set of rules called Song of Spear and Shield that are a more detailed set of ancient skirmish rules. I'm eager to see these published, but I'm not sure how much effort the author is making to releasing them. Ganesha Games is a one-guy shop and he has a lot of irons in the fire. If the rules are published this year, I'll be ecstatic. I won't be holding my breath.

I've ordered some 28mm Cutting Edge Near East Bronze Age figures from Warlord Games. I plan to play skirmish games with them and SoSS would be ideal for it, especially because they include rules for chariots, which SoBH lacks.

Men of bronze (and brassy women)

I just completed the first eight figures of my growing tribe of Bronze Age warriors. The figures are from Monolith Designs/Graven Images 40mm Prehistoric Europe line. I recently reviewed these favorably and find that I love them even more now that I've finished the first batch.

Bronze Age hedonism

I'm in the midst of painting another 10 figures and have eight more cleaned, assembled, and primed. After I prime them and before I start painting, I attach the figures to a 25mm x 30mm Litko base and apply a slab of Golden Coarse Pumice Gel to build up the area around the figure.

Based and gelled

However, I've run out of Litko bases, more of which should have arrived yesterday according to the USPS tracking website prognostications, but it looks like they're stuck in Valparaiso, IN. I can't think of a worse fate, unless it's being stuck in Barstow, CA (which almost happened to me many years ago).

En garde!

The figures are mostly dressed in a kind of kilt. So far, I've painted these in solid colors. I may get creative with some figures and try painting some sort of proto ur-plaid pattern. The Iron Age textiles I saw in the Danish National Museum had patterns like that and I recall thinking back then that I would paint that pattern on a figure some day. The man and the moment have met...

Bowman and slinger

My color palette for these figures is pretty subdued. I'm not sure what kind of dyes they had available ca. 3000 years ago. Browns, grays, muted greens, perhaps some orange and madder red. There are books on Neolithic-Bronze Age cloth, but they are very expensive. If you think wargaming is a spendy niche, try following prehistoric textile studies.

Bronze Age champion

So far, I've used Vallejo Hammered Copper for the metal, although I brushed some Vallejo Brass on the sword blades and armor highlights. Over that I did a black wash.

Snazzy kilt, shiny sword, knobby shield

I've given the figures just one shot of dullcote so far. I'll give them a spray of Krylon Matte Finish, which is just a bit satiny, and a final dullcote after that. The last touch will be brushing some gloss (or maybe satin) clear over the sword blades and armor to give them a polished sheen.

The way of all flesh

The first eight figures gave me a sense of how they would paint. I thought I would need to experiment a bit more with new methods. My biggest concern was that there is a lot of bare flesh (and even more so with my cult dancers "Fella and Ursula") and I didn't think my standard methods of painting skin would scale up to 40mm. However, it did.

I applied an overall base coat of Howard Hues Ruddy Flesh. When dry, I apply a thick wash made up of two big drops of Liquitex Matte Medium, one small drop of Ceramcoat Burnt Sienna, and about six to 10 drops of dihydrogen monoxide. The result is a not-too-thin varnish that adds a patina to tone down the starkness of the base coat and seep into the crevasses and contours to provide depth to the surface. I've been doing this for caucasian flesh tones for about a dozen years or so. It works.

Contours and crevasses

The wash has a mind of its own, however, and it tends to pool sometimes in places I'd rather it didn't. The effect can look like the figure has been playing in the muck or shat itself. For the Bronze Age I suppose either could be true. Other times, other customs. I won't judge. Nor will I try to clean up the awkward brown pools. I might just mess things up further.

Damn your eyes

I hate painting eyes, mostly because I suck at it. I've abandoned it for 28mm figures to no ill effect. Unless you pick up a figure and scrutinize its wee face, you won't know that it's blind like a mole. But I thought that the bigger 40mm figures would require more attention. So they do, but the sculpting of the figures seems to have a lot of the eyes in a squint. For these figures, I just applied a second, slightly thicker wash to they eye sockets. In the few cases where the eyes appear more open, I painted the sclera using Vallejo Silver Grey. I opted for that instead of white so as to keep from getting too much of a popped effect. I then just gave it a dark dot (as near to a dot as my feeble skills can manage) for the iris/pupil.

Eyes help when shooting a bow

The effect works pretty well. Although, I always fear getting the cockeyed look when you don't (or can't in my case) manage to synchronize the pupils. It will look like there was a lot of lazy eye in the Bronze Age.

I can tell by your eyes that you have the legs of a dancer

Or art thou base, common and popular?

After I complete painting the figures, I give them their initial spritz of dullcote, and then I finish the base. I apply a slightly thinned coat of Vallejo Mud Brown from their Model Air range of airbrush-ready colors. When that dries, I drybrush over it with Vallejo Iraqi Sand to give it some highlights.

For flocking, I apply a coat of Mod Podge and then sprinkle Woodland Scenics Earth Blend Turf. I do a second coat after the first has dried and I've removed the excess. I have to daub a thinned coat of Mod Podge over the first layer of flocking, otherwise I'll smudge it all around. Two coats give a better depth and coverage. On top of the Earth Blend flocking, I daub on patches of full strength Mod Podge and then apply a layer of Woodland Scenics Light Green Coarse Turf. I press this on to get a thickness. I have to carefully remove the excess after it dries, which usually requires tweezers to get into tight spaces. Finally, on a base or two, I apply some of the Army Painter flowers for a nice touch beauty amid the mayhem.

Les fleurs du mal

Next steps

If my Litko bases arrive today, I'll get several more figures prepped to paint. They paint quickly—no Napoleonic piping nastiness—and even spending time individualizing each figure is no hinderance to rapid progress. Unless I see a shiny thing in the near future, I should have the figures in my first Monolith Designs order finished by the end of February.

I ordered a chariot, another champion, and some of the bucklers for the tucked-in-shield-arm guys. Steve Mussared mentioned that he will be getting to making some more masters in February. I hope that means there will be more figures to order. I'm planning a game for our upcoming Enfilade! convention in May.

Postscript

In case you're wondering, yes, that stuff in the close-ups is cat hair. The little furballs get everywhere.

Monolith Designs/Graven Images 40mm Prehistoric Europe review

My order from Monolith Designs arrived at last on Wednesday, just shy of four weeks in transit from the UK. The wait was worth it. I first saw the range online a few years ago and was immediately intrigued. I'm a fan of arcane things. Neolithic-Bronze Age Europe falls right into that niche. I have books and books on that era in the library here at Stately Chez Dave. I wanted to buy the figures when I first saw them, but was a bit put off by the price. 40mm figures aren't cheap. Last year, I saw on TMP that Jim Bowen, the sculptor of the range, had died suddenly in April. The sad news got me thinking about that range again.

When I learned that the range was still being sold, I resolved to buy and in mid-December contacted Steve Mussared at Monolith Designs and sent in an order. I was delighted to learn that even more was available than what was listed on the site. In all, I was able to order 16 swordsmen, 8 slingers, 4 bowmen, 8 spearmen, 4 champions, 2 standard bearers, and a nice little cult group of prancing priest and priestesses with a musician keeping the beat. That's a nice stash of 46 figures, but it came down to a daunting £157.00 GBP—or about $264.00 USD (including shipping). (That comes out to $5.73 per figure!) I'm awfully glad I love these little lumps of lead.

So, when they arrived on Wednesday, I eagerly tore through the package and oohed and ahed at each figure as I pulled it from it packaging. These are truly lovely figures.

Cleaned, primed, mounted, and awaiting the brush

Sculpting, casting, and detail

The figure size is 37M/H on the Barrett Scale, which was developed by Toby Barrett of Thoroughbred Figures to classify figures within a given scale. 37M/H means that the size from foot to eye level is 37mm and the weigh or heft of the figures is Medium to Heavy. (From foot to top of bare head is exactly 40mm.)

The detail is quite good overall and the distortion is minimal. Most figures wear a kilt of some kind, which might be supplemented by some kind of armor. Only the champions and one of the standard bearers wears a bronze corselet. Otherwise, the armor consists of a bronze disc front and back. Some wear helmets, others wear various caps of cloth or leather. Figures are either barefoot or wear shoes and stockings. One figure has fur leggings.

Weapons are mostly cast on. However, the spearman figures have a detached hand holding the cast spear. The hand has a long tang that can be inserted in a hole drilled in the handless arm. I'm concerned about whether that will be a weak point on the figure. I haven't assembled any yet, but I think they'll hold. There are some other hands grasping weapons, like swords and hand-axes, that can be used instead of the spears.

Shields are my only gripe. Overall, they're quite nice. There were four types that come with the figures: a large round plain shield, a large round shield with studs, a small buckler, and a large round shield with concentric rings on the front. Except for the last shield type, they all come with convex interiors and places hollowed out for attachment to the hand holding the shield.

Shield types

The concentric rings shield is also kind of thick and slab-like. I figured it requires some work to make it usable. I filed down the back using a metal file in order to reduce the thickness, which takes a while and leaves a fine gray film of metal shaving all over my hands. After that's done, I drilled a hole in the center back, and then used a larger drill to create a kind of counter-sink that would work for a hand-hollow.

Slab-shield before and after

The only other problem with the shields has to do with how the shields fit. Several figure types are sculpted with their left arms tucked in close to their body. Since the shields are designed to fit together with the figure's fist, the larger round shield cannot fit because the rest of the figure stands in the way of getting the round shield close enough to fit hollow to fist.

Tucked in close

The small bucklers are ideal for these figures. However, there aren't nearly enough to match the number of figures with tucked-in arms. The order contained a variety of the shields I mentioned above, but only three of them were bucklers. That leaves me with a lot of figures who can't be given a shield. The solution will be to ask for a separate batch of bucklers when I make my next order (and I will be ordering again soon). That's better than any other solution like filing down the impeding bits on the figure until the larger shield fits.

The casting on the figures is very clean and minimal filing and trimming is required. The metal seems to have a high tin content and is harder than the metal for most other figures I've worked with.

Painting

Painting the figures is a pleasure. I've only started a first batch of 20 figures that I have cleaned, primed, and mounted on 25mm x 30mm Litko bases.

First fruits in progress

The sculpting lends itself to washes and highlighting, which is pretty much my style of painting. My only agony is painting the eyes. I hate painting eyes and I figured I would have to do it with these larger figures—but that being larger, they would be easier. Alas. The eyes on several figures seem to be sculpted squinting, which obviates the need to paint the whites and irises. Other figure have their eyes kind of open. I notice that the figures in the pictures on the Monolith site, painted by Steve Mussared, use a darker wash for the eyes and don't provide detail. I feel like I'm cheating by not providing eye detail. I have done it with 28mm figures in the past, but I've given that up. If you paint eyes well, they really make the figure come alive. If you painted them not well, well...

One of the nice extras for the range is a set of religious figures celebrating some kind of obscene pagan rite. It's that or something out of Burning Man or Woodstock.

Which way to Yasgur's farm?

What will I do with them?

I've started a series of blog posts about skirmish gaming, which gives an idea of my plans for this range. So far, the leading contender is Andrea Sfiligoi's Song of Blades and Heroes, available from Ganesha Games. The rules have the advantages of providing enough distinction on a figure-by-figure basis to make things interesting while being fairly quick playing and allowing for multiple players in a game. A basic warband for the rules requires 6 to 10 figures.

Whither Monolith?

The figures are currently only available from the Monolith site, which requires emailing Steve Mussared to determine what's available and arrange shipping and payment (through CC or Paypal). It took about a week of trading emails until the order was sent. That actually proved to be a good thing since I was able to learn from Steve that there were more figures available than advertised. I also learned that there are masters yet to be put into production.

From what I have gleaned in emails, set to be released are more bowmen, more slingers, some long-spearmen, civilians, another chariot, horsemen, and two-handed axemen. I'm not sure when they will be available.

More recently Crann Tara Miniatures announced that they will be casting and selling the Monolith/Graven Images ranges. The 28mm Border Reivers and 40mm Disturbia, Cliffhanger, and Gotterdamerung ranges are already available. I understand that the Prehistoric Europe range will follow suit.

There is a Yahoo! Group for the Jim Bowen figure ranges available called JimbowensDisturbia. Steve Mussared is a regular poster and responds to any questions about the range. Graham Cummings of Crann Tara Miniatures is also a list regular.