Tiny tin troglodytes (because I’m 3.64% archaic human, you know)

Back on August 16th, I was innocently minding my own business standing outside Silver King Hobbies in Tacoma waiting for it to open so we could play Saga on our biweekly game day. As I waited, I browsed through the Tribal player community group page on Facebook and saw this:

What could I do? I had to have them. 

I tried to order them on the spot, but there was no Wi-Fi and 5G was being squirrely, so I had to wait to order until I got home. I ordered two of the Clan Jakson mega-sets so I could have opposing forces with all the options.

I can't explain why I'm drawn to them apart from the fact that they're beautiful minis, but also a very obscure niche kind of mini. I'm an obscurantist if nothing else. They're also right in line with my current obsession: Tribal. I'll often see minis I love, but won't act on them because I can't think of anything to do with them. For example, Lucid Eye has produced Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons for several years as part of their Savage Core line of figures. I often looked longingly at them online, but never pulled the trigger (until now, see below). When the figures and rules come into alignment, it's, "Brace yourself, bank account, you're about to be pillaged!"

When the figures arrived from North Star (not without first bouncing around various cities for several days after making landfall in the USA and then getting "stored" in Sumner, WA for three days), I oohed and aahed over them. They were all I hoped they'd be.

There are five packs in all for a total of 25 poses.

The main force that makes up the warrior units are a pack with club-armed figures and a pack with spear-armed figures. The Clan Jakson set comes with two of each pack, enough to make four warrior units for your warband.

The firepower (such as it is) comes from the marksmen pack. These appear to be younger men/boys who would rather throw rocks and javelin-like sticks than get in close. Clan Jakson come with two packs of these, which is enough to provide the maximum allowed two marksmen units in your warband.

The warlord and heroes are provided by a separate pack. All of the heroes stand out from the crowd. There's one pack in the Clan Jakson set, which is enough for your warlord and four heroes.

Finally, there's a really nice pack that doesn't provide troops for your warband, but will come in very handy for playing the game. To keep the cave-fires burning when their men are away, there's a caveman family group pack with women, children, and wee troglodyte bairns.

They're great, but the women look nothing like Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. Maybe they represent a time before the fur bikini was invented—or more likely after it became passé because Neanderthals lived between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago, much later than Raquel's time.

They don't look like Wilma and Betty either, but their nonconformity to iconic paragons of paleolithic pulchritude doesn't distract from them at all.

The figures are beautiful with a lot of detail and well-animated poses. They've really put Bobby Jackson on my radar screen. He's best known for the excellent figures he's sculpted for Reaper Bones, so I've not seen a lot of his work before. He made the caveman figures because he's a Tribal player and sculpted his own custom warband because he can.

Painting

I thought a bit about how I'd paint these figures and decided that instead of my now-standard dip method, I'd go with mostly Citadel Contrast Paints and Army Painter Speed Paints. I wanted to get the one-and-done effect of things like the fur, which they all wear in abundance.

Skin - I wasn't sure what color to use for the Neanderthal's skin. Sources vary from saying than Neanderthals were darker skinned and darker haired to others who cite DNA evidence that points to fair skin and red or even blond hair. Not really knowing what I was going to get, I applied Citadel Guilliman Flesh. I'm happy how it turned out. They look pretty earthy, like they haven't washed in 40,000 years.

Furs - I got as many browns and grays as I could find as contrats paints or speed paints. I wanted to avoid a monochrome look for the furs. In a few cases, I did a light drybrush over an application of the contrast paint just to better highlight the raised bits. I'm pretty happy how that turned out.

Leather - there's a lot of exposed leather bits, such as the turned back meaty side of a fur. I was disappointed with the options for leather colors among the contrast and speed paints. As with the furs, Citadel has a color called Snakebite Leather, which goes on pretty dark. I used Army Painter Ancient Honey for some leather bits, but it's pretty yellow and I toned it down with a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone. Otherwise, I used Vallejo and Reaper leather colors that I applied as a wash or highlighted then washed afterwards. Some of the browns I used for the fur colors would work for other leather shades, but I wanted to keep the colors distinct.

Hair - I went with a variety of hair colors, but nothing too far out. I used a lot of auburn/chestnut color with a few darker brown. Several have a Vallejo color called Shrapnel Red, which makes for a nice deep red hair color. I highlighted that with a bit of Orange-Red. Finally, starting with a base of a light tan, I added yellow ochre highlights to get a few blondes in the mix, because they have more fun.

Stone - I imagined at first that I'd try to replicate the varied colors of flint, but settled instead on the Reaper Paint Stonewall Grey, which I applied to all the state-of-the-art weaponry.

Washes - In a few places, I used regular ol' paints, like for the stone bits, but also for the wood bits and the twine bits and the decorative shells and tooth bits. In all those cases, I used Army Painter Soft Tone applied just in the specific areas. I think I might also have used Citadel Agrax Shader (or was it Nuln Oil) at some place. In any case, washes were local and not an overall application to the figures.

Bases

I went with fender washers for the bases. All the warriors and marksmen are on 1" fender washers. The warlord and heroes are on 1 1/4" fender washers so they stand out a bit. I haven't done the family group yet, but I'll likely put them on 1 1/4" bases for the women with children castings and maybe a 1 1/2" base combining the single female figure and the zwei kinder.

I've used fender washers for my Xenos Rampant figures, Vietnam figures, and some ECW skirmish figures, so this basing is nothing new. I like the heft of the metal base (lack of heft is one reason why I never do plastic minis). Because I'm not doing the whole dip routine, I can mount the figure and apply the coarse pumice gel medium for texture before I start painting the mini.

I took my time with the first batch of 20: five spearmen, five clubmen, five marksmen, and five heroes. I gave them a shot of Krylon Matt Finish after painting the figures and before I started on the bases.

The result

I'm happy with how they turned out. I'm not sure if I'll use the contrast/speed paints much on other projects, but I'm glad I'm doing it for these.

I've got 60 more figures to go, but I can probably go faster with them, although I'm not sure I'll do 20-figure batches again. (No, I probably will.)

Newcomers

I mentioned above that I'd often looked longingly at the Lucid Eye Neanderthals. I decided to get some with an eye—a lucid eye—to mixing them in with the Bobby Jackson figures to get an even better mix of poses and such. I wasn't sure if they'd match, but I was surprised to see how well they do.

They don't have as many different poses at the Bobby Jackson figures, but they're all quite nice. There are two packs of warriors with mixed weapons, one hero/warlord type, and a female shaman type.

The hero figure is wee bit larger than the average figure and fearsome. He's definitely on a larger base as another hero or warlord.

I also got a figure that's more fantasy than reality. Give her a fur bikini and she'd be a dead ringer for Raquel.

She's labeled as Vahira the Herd Witch and described as a Neanderthal Cro-Magnon mix. She's as winsome as any full Neanderthal lass moodily wandering the Pleistocene heather pining for her troglodyte Heathcliff.

She's also carrying what looks to be an entirely imaginary stone/flint sword, but that's common with figures from Lucid Eye's Savage Core: Age of Ice range. There's a fantasy element to them that just requires some to wield some kind of swordy thing. I'd be surprised if anything like that stone sword shows up in some paleontologist's dig. I could use her as a person token for the game objectives or as a shaman character. In any case, she's on a 1 1/4" fender washer, so stone sword or no, she isn't going into a warrior unit.

I'm coming a long with these pretty well. They have less little detail bits than the Bobby Jackson figures, so they paint quicker. I'm hoping to have them done by the weekend. Then on to another batch of Bobby Jackson figures.

My ancestors, my inspiration

I noted in the title that I'm 3.64% archaic human. According to Living DNA, I am 1.92% Neanderthal:

And 1.72% Denisovan:

I can feel my knuckles dragging as I type this, but it could also be that I'm a poor typist. In any case, painting cavemen has a special interest for me now that I know I am one. My ethnic background is varied, but limited to the British Isles and Northern Europe. I'm more than twice as much caveman as I am Welsh. Although I've been to Wales, I have no interest in spelunking.

Cast your lead upon the waters

Cast your bread upon the waters: for you will find it after many days.

- Ecclesiastes 11:1

The awakening of Saga from its COVID-induced hibernation has had the interesting phenomenon of bringing to light lots of forgotten projects that might otherwise have languished in the Garage of Despond indefinitely. Back in 2018 until (very) early 2020, Saga had been a going concern for me and a group of players at The Panzer Depot. I had warbands for Welsh (Age of Vikings), Spanish (Age of Crusades), and Lords of the Wild (Age of Magic). I also had several warbands in the works and more planned. 

Last year, Kevin Smyth reconnected with a couple friends from when he gamed at Escape Velocity in Tacoma in the 80s. They had been mostly disconnected from wargaming for decades, but with retirement they resumed their old hobby. They were enthusiasts of Saga and managed to lure Kevin into it. They started a Wednesday Saga game day once a month, which has grown to twice monthly now, at Silver Kings Games & Hobby in Tacoma. What started with a handful of players has blossomed into a veritable troupe filling the ample gaming space at Silver Kings.

As a working stiff (albeit from home), I was never able to make it to the Wednesday games, which start at 11:00 am and last till the last game is over, the wee men are back in their boxes, and the last game mat has been rolled up and put in its carrying case. However, being laid off in May (alas) has given me the time to make the 55-mile trek down to Tacoma twice a month (huzzah). Sadly, that won't last, but while it does, I'm making the most of it.

I sold my Spanish, which I built as a Lion Rampant retinue, but was able to do double-duty with it as a Saga warband. (My Lords of the Wild for Age of Magic were originally painted for Dragon Rampant.) I still had my Welsh and resumed my Saga career with them in games against Kevin and his Norse-Gaels, Mark Waddington and his Normans, and Bill Stewart and his enervating Anglo-Danes. 

As new Saga universes appeared, I started thinking about my garage of wonder and all the treasures of darkness therein. I had a lot of Crusader Miniatures Carthaginians, Iberians, and Celtiberians from an earlier aborted Punic Wars project that Age of Hannibal was calling out to. With a lot already painted or half painted, it didn't take much time to get a warband together. I also benefited from a serendipitous find at our Enfilade! convention in May that netted me more Carthaginians and two Aventine elephants (whose story will be told in another post). I've been able to get a few games in with them as well. First with a single pachyderm:

And later with both:

I've also started dragging out the near-forgotten Wargames Foundry Macedonians I started in the 00s. There's more to do with them than with the Carthaginians, but they're in the works and I hope to field a Macedonian warband before the end of the year.

However, it's not just old figures. Last year, I bought some Curtey's Miniatures from 1st Corps for a Romano-British warband for Age of Invasions. They sat around for a long time before I started working on them last month. Also last month, I ordered some more Curtey's Miniatures recently to make a Pict warband for Age of Invasions. Curtey's are nice figures and I'm enjoying working on the Romano-Britons.

I also bought some Crusader minis for an Anglo-Dane warband for Age of Vikings. I've always liked the drama of 1066 and Harold Godwinson. Getting fatigued to death by Bill's A-Ds, spurred me to get some of my own. Their not really my style of play, which is more aggressively minded, but Bill put some hurt on me with his skillful repostes after I'd worm myself out bashing up against his shield wall.

However, just last week, I was browsing in a closet and found a box of painted and partially-painted Old Glory Picts that go way back to the 90s. I started a project back then for painting 28mm DBA armies for Dark Ages Britain. I bought several packs of Old Glory Picts, Romano-Britons, Irish, and Saxons. That project sort of morphed into wanting to make them for Dan Mersey's first (as far as I know) set of wargame rules, A Glutter of Ravens, that came out in 1998. Somewhere around 2000 (maybe), the minis I actually painted wound up mounted on single stands for playing Pig Wars. 

At some point in the last decade (or so), there was some interest in playing Dux Britanniarum by Too Fat Lardies. My interest was piqued when they released a supplement in 2014 for Picts, Scotti, and Irish. I accordingly started rebasing my Picts from their 3/4" x 1" plastic bases and put them on 25mm x 30mm Litko bases.

And then they sat. I had them tucked into a corner of my hallway closet in one of the cardboard flats that came with Bogart's UR food. I'd had the Old Glory figs in the back of my mind when I embarked on doing some warbands for Age of Invasions, but I went ahead and ordered the aforementioned Curtey's minis.

Running into them on one of the rare occasions that I open my hallway closet (it's scary), I was struck by the notion that right in front of me was an instant warband of Picts—Insta-Picts!

They just needed a bit of TLC and I'd have a goodly force.

Since pulling them out from the darkness into the light, I've been working away at them. Looking into various places where I'd stored partially painted Picts (PPPs) from years gone by. I also had to dig through my box of unpainted Old Glory Dark Age Britain minis to find another four crossbowmen to build out the unit of 12.

It turns out that exactly 12 were all the Pictish crossbowmen I even had in any state of completion. They were part of a pack of skirmishers that were a mix of javelins and crossbowmen. Out of 30 in the bag, only 12 had crossbows. I used some of the javelins for my Attacotti. 

Most of the figures only needed the basing completed. However, there were eight crossbowmen that needed to be painted from raw lead (after they were found, of course) and four Attacotti who were primed only. Moreover, I had to go old school with them.

My painting style has evolved since I painted the first batch of picts 20+ years ago. Now, I use a dip method with Minwax wood stain. Then, I did straight-up painting with shading, washes, and highlights. I also painted eyes—eyes! I hadn't painted eyes in years.

It didn't really take much effort to ease back into my older style, though I won't be going back to it except for painting out more Old Glory Picts (and some other Age of Arthur minis that I started).

Waiting in the wings are some Old Glory Irish, which I'll augment for Saga with some Crusader Irish slingers. Old Glory's Dark Ages Irish were pretty simple: Upper class warriors and lower class warriors. That divides well between hearthguard and warriors, but they didn't make missile troops. Hence the Crusaders minis.

I have fewer Irish completed for Pig Wars and many of them are the later Norse-Gael types with big axes. In the Arthurian age, the Irish were spearmen/javelinmen with lots of slings.

Also amongst the treasures of darkness is a Byzantine warband (The Last Romans for Age of Vikings) that I started pre-COVID and never got back to. Those are Crusader minis and, given time, I'll get to them as well.

It's been a great adventure resurrecting dead legions and getting them back on the tabletop. I'll post again about the Insta-Picts after I play my first Saga game with them...

Build me up butternut

It was a spur of the moment project, but I'm pretty well along with completing an ACW force of Confederates for Rebels and Patriots. I had ACW in the back of my mind, but I was planning to focus on AWI first and get to the ACW later. I forget why I rushed into it—I don't really know why I have impulses like this—but in a mad flurry I placed three consecutive orders to Sash and Saber. The initial one for a lot of infantry and guns, the second for mounted and dismounted cavalry, and the third for more infantry (because I didn't think the 70 figures I bought at first would be sufficient).

I went with Sash and Saber because my putative primary opponent, Wm. Stewart, Esq., has a large and beautiful Sash and Saber collection. We used Bill's collection in our first game, The Battle of Hardtack Hill. Sash and Saber are great minis and they have a lot of variety in their skirmishing infantry packs.

My first order arrived quickly. Sash and Saber is fulfilled through Old Glory and they're fast. I tore into them right away and got the first 22 completed and based in a few weeks.

Right now, I've got the remaining 48 nearing completion, as well as 12 dismounted cavalry, 2 six-pounders and crews, a mounted officer (Lt. Jubal Tardee—with cat), and 6 mounted cavalry. Another 30 infantry, 12 dismounted cavalry, and 18 mounted cavalry are still basic lead.

I have had a jar of Howard's Hues Rebel Butternut paint sitting around for years. I've always meant to apply it to some figures, but just didn't. I have some Sash and Saber 40mm Rebs, acquired after playing some Smooth & Rifled games with Phil Bardsley using his collection of 40s, I also had a pile of unpainted Dixon ACW (both sides), but I sold them at our last Enfilade! bring 'n' buy with the intention of doing the project using Perry or Sash and Saber minis. Now that I consider it, I should have kept some of the Dixon bandsmen minis, they make a great vignette and Jubal Tardee is just the sort to go to war with a brass band in tow.

You just don't see enough butternut on the wargame table. Everyone goes for gray, but not me. These boys'll stand out.

Bill and I have another game looming for April 6. I expect to have much more than 24 points ready to go. It'll be nice to field a company using my boys in butternut.

The AWI has not gone lacking in all this ACW activity. More on that in a post soon, but I have 24+ points worth of 'Mericans (depending on how I buy the units, it could be way more than 24 points worth). Most are militia, but I can use them as straight up line. Like the ACW, I have a lot more to paint including mounted militia, Lee's Legion dragoons, a couple units of Continentals, a lot more riflemen, and guns (a 3-pounder and a brace of 6-pounders). And someday, when my Wargames Foundry order arrives—if ever—I'll have another 24 militia to paint.

Sumer-time and the paintin' is easy

Sumer? Yes, Sumer, I Akkad you not. I may be rash, mercurial—even mistaken—but to Ur is human and the urge to Ur is upon me. As with many serendipitous projects, the moment has met the man and I'm going full speed ahead. Sæpe erro, nunquam dubito!

I blame Ernie Calvillo for this sudden development. (The cats are innocent—this time.) He posted on the Lion Rampant Facebook Group about the Sumerians he was painting, and that got me all worked up.

Ernie's Sumerians

I've been a fan of Sumerians for pretty much ever. Yet in all that time, the only Sumerian minis I've painted were for a 15mm DBA army (Essex Miniatures), since sold. I'd wanted to do a 28mm army for a while, but I never had a feel for the right minis to use. Wargames Foundry started a range years ago. I love their minis. The range looked promising, but they abandoned it. It was unavailable for a long time and is now available again. However, it's a very limited, unfinished range and there's no chariots; in fact, it's just spearmen and javelinmen.

Cutting Edge (Warlord) makes Sumerians, but I can't bring myself to use that range. I bought some Middle Bronze Age Amorites (think Mari) from them a few years ago. I was pretty eager when I orderd, but then very disappointed by the minis when the order arrived. They're beautiful and have a lot of nice detail—but they're so wee! Compared to other 28mm ranges, they're like skinny children. I like chunk. Cutting Edge minis have no chunk at all.

Newline (L) and Cutting Edge (R)

I'd seen a few other ranges, such as Eureka Miniatures and Castaway Arts from Down Under, but I hung back. I didn't want to make a move without first seeing the minis or at least seeing better pictures of them.

Finally, I just wasn't sure of what I would do with a lot of Sumerians after I'd painted them. I love Ancients, but the state of that part of the hobby seemed to be in a doldrums, at least to me. But now I know: I'll use 'em for Pat Lowinger's Chariots Rampant variant for Lion Rampant (Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, Issue 82).

Ernie and I gamed together back in San Jose, CA 30+ years ago. He's now in San Antonio, TX and I'm in here in Beautiful, Formerly-Bucolic Lynnwood, WA. Ernie has always been an excellent—and prolific—painter.  He's also always had an eye for good minis. When I saw the pics in his post, I asked who made them. He told me that they were Newline Designs and that for July they were 20% off their normally reasonable price of a bit more than £1.00 per figure. In my head the voices screamed, "BUY NOW!" What could I do? I bought now and for a ridiculously low price, I got more than enough minis for a Chariots Rampant army—with options! Now I have an unexpected summer Sumer project on my hands.

So, why Sumerians?

Well, because they're cool. They're one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. So old they're just on the cusp of being prehistoric—and I like prehistoric things (see my love for prehistorical Europe) as I love all that is old and arcane. I strive every day to be older and arcaner myself.

Sumerian soldiers wear sheepskin skirts and go barefoot; they're like The Flintstones with ziggurats. They used four-wheeled, shambling proto-chariots drawn by "equids," i.e., not quite horses. They fought in phalanxes 2000+ years before the Greeks figured it out. They wore shiny copper helmets and fearsome, metal-studded capes long before Batman made wearing capes cool.

Caped Crusaders - 3rd Millennium BC

Sumerians invented writing, art, literature, and law. (They also invented government bureaucracy, so it's not all good.) They invented the cat—no, seriously, see this. They invented cities. They had ginormous eyes.

They invented sexagesimal mathematics, which we still use to calculate time, angles, and compass points. They invented the sail (maybe) and the wheel (also maybe—at least it wasn't that guy from the B.C. comic strip). They created the first armies and also produced the first records of how soldiers looked (ca. 2500 BC) on the Standard of Ur and the Stele of the Vultures.

Standard of Ur

Stele of the Vultures - detail

So, yeah, Sumerians are cool.

They're also easy to paint. Prehistoric, and nearly prehistoric, people dressed simpler than we do, and we dress simpler than people in the past. Try painting early 18th c. British regulars to see what I mean. But I digress.

The sheepskin, capes, and shiny helmets I mentioned above are about all the costume the Sumerian soldiers had. Only bare-nekkid Celts could be simpler—and they have those elaborate shield patterns to muck up the whole simplicity groove thing.

Sans spear, axe, cape, helmet, and shield he'd pass as Cro-Magnon

I ordered from Newline in two batches. After my initial order, I convinced myself that I needed more and made a wee supplemental order. The second smaller order came on Wednesday. It contained more of the infantry I ordered (spearmen, slingers, javelinmen, command), but also three straddle carts. The straddle cart seems to have been developed a bit later than the better known four-wheeled battle car. I haven't seen any actual Sumerian art depicting them. Yigael Yadin doesn't address them in The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands, but The Two Nigels show them in Armies of the Ancient Near East 3,000 BC to 539 BC. I had one in the first order, so I have four. I'm not really sure I wanted four.

Straddle this x4

I cleaned up several minis right away. The flash is minimal and the metal is softish (not rock-hard pewter), so cleaning was pretty easy. I replaced the cast lead spears/javelins with Northstar wire spears. I love those things. I must have bought a thousand of them.

Bronze Age warriors with brass spears

At this point, the first order hasn't arrived. International postal service isn't a science. I expect it'll come this week. Meanwhile, I've started painting what I have. So far, it's just the skin tone. I used Vallejo Medium Flesh. They look suitably Sumerian to me. There's not much else to paint for the most of them. They either wear a fringed kilt or some kind of sheepskin. It won't take much time.

I have a lot on my plate right now, but I hope to get a few units of these banged out this month and the rest in September. Then it's time for another Rampant game day.