Thistle and Rose

15mm Sassanid Persians

by Mark Chilenskas

Thistle and Rose have begun their Sassanid Persian line. They sent four infantry figures for review: slinger, bowman, javelinman and levy foot with long spear. Like all T&R figures, they have nice detail and proportions, but won't mix in units with smaller 15mm figures like Essex. be aware that I generally like T&R figures, having painted over a hundred in their Polish and Eastern European line.

The bowmen come in a very nice mix. One third are drawing an arrow from their quiver and have a shield on their hip. The other two thirds are in shooting poses, at a different angle of fire. They have a recurve short bow, and are wearing tunic, pants and a shirt. The tunic has some trim is around the edge. One third are bare headed, the other two thirds wear helmets.

The levy spearmen also come in a mixture of three poses, two advancing and one at rest. There are three shield types, mixed among the three poses, with some figures carrying the shield on their back and one or two shieldless figures; definitely motley, ill-trained levy. All have tunic, pants and helmet.

The slinger is provided in two very similar poses, both in a throwing position with the sling behind the shoulder. One pose has a shield, all are dressed in tunic, pants and helmet. I found that these castings were not physically as good as the usual Thistle and Rose figures; there was more flash, and two hands had broken off in shipment. The other castings in the shipment seemed cleaner and closer to the usual alloy, so probably this was just a batch that cooled too quickly.

Only one javelin figure was shipped, and twelve were sent rather than the usual 24, so I suspect there are other poses in production. The package was labeled "Afghan, Kurd etc." The figure is throwing the javelin, has no shield, and wears a shirt, pants and vest. The vest has a lot of texture, and could be painted as scale or fur.

The levy spearman and bowman are examples of Thistle and Rose miniatures at their best. You get enough variety of poses to paint interesting units, or even whole armies, using only the one line of figures. Only the levy spearman has the bulbous and distinctly Sassanid helmet. The other figures could be mixed with other ranges in the Thistle and Rose line; in fact, I am painting the slingers and bowmen as Early Polish figures for the Historicon Dark Ages tournament. They will also look fine on the table with units of figures from other manufacturers, but their size will make them difficult to mix with other manufacturers in the same unit.

More Reviews

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #58
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1992 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com