A dozen different Thistle and the Rose 15mm Viking figures were submitted for review. There is some good news and some bad news. First the good. Thistle and the Rose figures are obviously designed by someone who is excited about the subject matter. That really cones through in the design of the figures, in the dizzying variety offered by the manufacturer and in the obscure periods they sometimes delve into. Inside the Viking range the gamer could easily create units of desperate, murderous sea rovers with no two figures alike. Quite an improvement over those Dark Ages bands in which everyone looks more or less alike. Anatomy and sculpting are up to current nmrket standards.

Now the bad news. I was looking at these figures in my basement wIen I accidentally dropped one on the floor. It landed next to an old Airfix Robin Hood figure that I dropped in the early 1980's and hadn't gotten around to picking up yet.

[Ed. Wait a minute... didn't they stop producing those figures in the '70's? Knowing the 'cheap and LAZY wargamer' personally, the poor Airfix figure had probably been dueling with the mice for control of Ardo's basement for fifteen or more years!]

When I looked down, I was amazed to find the two figures matched perfectly for scale. I had always thought of Thistle and the Rose as being somewhere on the high end of the 15mm scale, but these new figures really push it. To make matters worse, the older figures in the Viking range are smaller. This scale issue may or may not be a problem for a particular consumer but you should be made aware of it when making your buying decisions.

Having said that I should point out a few things editor Terry said about scale. He mixes different manufacturers figures in his uhits and they look great. The Thistle and the Rose figures are just the brawnier guys in the group. If you take a group of 'real' people, you will notice wild variations in "scale":

(Ed. Truer words were never spoken. I hate a barbarian army which looks uniform. Let's face it, people range from 5' to 6 1/2' in normal size... your units should reflect this variation and using a variety of different figures-goes-a long-say towards replicating this look on the table)