A recent family trip to the RAF museum at Hendon gave me the opportunity to also pop into Hannants model shop, just round the corner at Colindale (next to the tube station). Fortunately I knew what I was looking for - the new ancients figures from HaT, but, of course, I came out with more than just that ! To start with the HaT figures - these consist of 4 "half boxes" of 24 figures for £1.99 each. These are various "barbarians" to annoy your Imperial and Late Roman armies with - Picts, Visigoths, Franks and Saxons.
As well as being half boxes, these new releases have only four poses of figures each. However, because the sprues have been made with 6 figures on each, there are 2 poses which have 4 figures each, and 2 poses which have 8 figures each per box.
The weakest box is probably the Saxons. All the figures are spear armed, although one is also holding a sword. Despite the box art showing all figures wearing tunics and trousers, two of the poses look to me to be bare chested, also the heads on the two standing poses of figure seem a bit small. Useful for padding out the Revell Saxon figures, but probably not one to build an army from on its own.
The Visigoths are much better – two spearmen with "coffin" shields - one with a long cloak as well, a swordsman with a shield and a bowman firing. These latter 2 are generic enough that they could be used as, say, Saxons. The only problem here is the lack of cavalry for building, say, a DBA army - but Celtic cavalry could be converted for use.
The Franks feature a spearman throwing and three sword armed figures, all four poses are good, and the figures all carry a round shield. Two poses of the figures have their hair in a topknot. A clever idea in this box is that the spearman has been modelled with an axe blade at the end of his spear - cut this off and he's a spearman, cut off the front of the spear and he's an axe man. Two of the sword-armed figures also have throwing axes tucked into their belts.
The Picts are three spear and shield armed figures in various stages of dress (loincloth up to long tunic), and a crossbowman. Again, one of the spearmen has been moulded to be convertible to an axe man. Cleverly, the tattoos and body painting of the Picts have been moulded onto the figures, which should make them easier to paint. Again a problem with these figures is lack of any cavalry. Except for the Picts, these boxes can be mixed with appropriate choices from the Esci Barbarians box (which has now been re-released, I believe, by Italeri). With the exception, perhaps, of the Saxons, these represent an excellent set of figures - if they are followed up, where necessary, with half boxes of cavalry, they'd be perfect.
Also purchased were the Gladiator set from Orion miniatures of the Ukraine. These are 42 figures, 2 each of 21 poses, for £5.99. These were a bit of an impulse buy, and I'm not really sure what to do with them - I already have a fair few 25mm metal gladiators. However, be that as it may, the figures are excellent, and posed in a very lively manner that seems appropriate to the subject. There are a variety of gladiators with swords, with net and trident (retiarius), gladiators wounded (including one who has a hand cut off !), gladiators triumphant. There are also slaves in chains, an Emperor, lions and lionesses. In fact this box painted up and mounted on pennies, along with the gladiator combat rules from Gladiator Games (my current favourite set) and you've everything you’d need for an enjoyable set of combats. Could also be usable in a fantasy game setting.
The final purchase of the day was the A7V Sturmpanzer kit from Emhar - a 30-piece kit of the German WW1 tank (£4.99). This is an excellent little model - very detailed exterior components, which looks as if it'll go together very easily. Four sets of decals are provided to enable different historical machines to be made up. With this, Emhars Mk IV male and female, the Airfix Mk I and the HaT/Airfix/Emhar WW1 figure and gun sets it is actually possible to put together a varied set of forces for WW1 games in 20mm plastics. According to the box Emhar also do a 1/72nd scale Whippet - but perhaps fortunately Hannants didn't have any (something to look out for another day).
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