Reviewing Plans for the Northern European Bronze Age Collection

This collection is one of my all time favourites but has languished in boxes in a cupboard for a few years.

The main reason is rules, I am really not sure what will give a good game for these guys, some years ago Chris Charlton and I did a lot of work to alter Saga to fit this collection, it worked really well but I find Saga to be a fairly boring game after the first 5 or 6 games if I am honest. A few rules seem interesting, Infamy Infamy perhaps or Dux Brittaniorium ( I probably spelt that wrong) I do like Lardie games so these may be 

worth exploring.

These are really simple figures in terms of clothing so you can spend a bit more time getting the best out of them. The collection is of course based on the old Foundry North European Bronze age range by the Perry Twins, lovely as it is, it is also a bit limited so for the larger games I envisaged (maybe 40 or 50 per side) I needed to be a little creative in expanding the range, simple conversions and additions from other ranges, for instance the nearest of the chariots below has ponies from a different range so they are not all the same.

The female leader below is a Hasslefree miniature of Boudi, a stylised Boudica, like her a lot. Basic paint job but I cut down the base so there was ust a little spike left over, drilled the chaiot base out and slotted her in. I think it works really well.

I did also pick up the pack of villagers so the Heroes have an audience. I like having characters but I dont do many as they distract me from painting the figures we will actually game with.

I initially worked towards two factions with a degree of colour difference to help me distinguish them, below are the red/brown facion, baddies of course with skull banners, I cut away the sun disk from the banners and replaced with annimal skulls which I think look pretty cool. Other than that these figures are pretty much as they come.

This bunch are my double handed axemen, the majority again as they come, a little bit more design on some of the kilts to shwo their status. The chap on the left is a spear man with the spear cut away and axe head added, next along has a head swap ad far right is a charioteer mounted onto a foot base. Each charioteer has a matching figure on foot so he (or she) can dismount and duel with other heroes.

This next bunch are a bit richer still with swords and large sheilds, mainly bronze ones, again only changes here are the charioteers mounted onto foot bases.

The spearmen below mainly sit within the blue/grey faction and I do have some conversions in with these, I had a lot of the guy advancing wih double handed axe so for a few of these I cut away the axe head and added a long spear, far left and far right are good examples of this with far right also gettign a head swap, third from the left is also a different axeman with the head cut away and replaced with a spear. It just adds a little diversity to the group.

Some lovely characters in this range, the eleborate horn is lovely, I have added a trophy head to the dismounted charioteer at the back and Boudi is at the front un-altered. The chap to the right is a North Star figure of an Irish chieftain, looking at his long sword probably Iron Age but Iwont tell anyone if you dont.

The spearman leader figure is also really nice, pointing at the back, the warrior next to Boudi on the left is carrying a hand axe, got a couple more of this one.

The standard bearer is as he comes with bronze sun symbol, this is the original for the two skull standrads earlier.

There are 3 different mounted figures, I have tried to make them reasonably diverse, however as I understand the ponies would have been very much like our Ex-moors I have limted myself to a simple pallette for them and dropped a couple of greys in to break it up a bit.

Depending on the rules I end up with I may need to supplement these a little as 13 is hardly a round number. It did occur to me to buy some dark age Irish cavalry and then convert a couple for Bronze age and the others for the Elizabethan project. Food for thought.

Foundry only made two guys with avelins and as I wanted quite a few I have needed to make additions. As well as greenstuffing kilts onto Irish dark age figures I have also added European heads onto Perry plastic ansar which seem to have worked quite well. The Irish have worked less well to be honest but it was worth a go.

Like the javelins the bowmen have only two figures in the original range, I have expanded this by adding in a couple of picts and some Trojan wars archers.

The Foundry range has ust the one slinger, a boy which works well as it would have been the village youths that employed the sling, I have done some head swaps and moved the arms a bit on some of these but not painted any of the Foundry ones yet, I added a pack of Warlord biblical slingers, the slim build is perfect but they were all bearded so lots of head swaps required, ust these two so far, pesterign a wounded warrior.

And a Bronze Age collection would not be complete without Shamen and semi naked dancing girls. I added the sword so he had somethign tosacrifice to the water spirits.

I still have maybe 40 figures to paint for these and probably some bits to pick up to fill gaps in, I have though been reluctant to invest any more time or money in this lovely project without an end goal in site in terms of rules. A few have been suggested, I am actually tempted by the simplest route which would be minor amends and down scaling to use Hail Ceasar. Fleshing out the rules on duels and chariots might make it playable, not sure if I would capture the flavour of the period though.

Food for thoughts, see you all again soon. Stay safe.