Antonine 2mm blocks

As mentioned in my last post Warbases don't carry stock of the 2mm blocks of troops for Strength and Honour.  So on Tuesday I made use of the free postage voucher they gave me and ordered some on online.  I spent just under £15.00 and bought four different types to see what the castings were like.  Given that this included 2mm thick MDF bases it was a decent price to pay for what I received.  This was:

• A Roman Legion of 10 cohorts,
• A pike phalanx, well its actually three of them on a single base,
• A cavalry unit (as heavy or medium cavalry not lights)
• a Barbarian warband.

My first thought is that these are big units, which is as they should be as they represent several thousand men each.  The castings are a little more 'abstract' than Irregular's 2mm offerings and seem ever so slightly smaller but that isn't noticeable when placed side by side.  The pike phalanx is much bigger than anything IM offer but the pikes are not as high as the IM ones. 

Antonine pike phalanx compared to IM pike block (centre)

The cavalry are rather nice although a bit 'cubist' in design, as they are made up of rectangles and lack the detail of the IM cavalry. They look great from arms length thoughI suspect that I might use Irregular's cavalry in preference to Antonine's

.

Fuzzy photo (sorry) but you see why I find the cavalry a bit 'Cubist'

There are a couple of different warband castings but all have the same style, depicting an unorganised body of men in unorganised mass. each unit consists of several castings which can be combined to give different shaped masses of men.

Barbarian warband base

I spent around half an hour this morning gluing the castings to the bases ready for painting and they do look good.  The castings lend themselves to this approach as there isn't as much need to get to the sides or rear of castings as would be the case with IM equivalents where each block would be several castings. There was little to no flash to worry bout and no visible mould lines which is a bonus. Under coating will proceed once weather and Covid symptoms allow the spray can I prefer to be deployed outdoors.

If you would like to peruse the entire range they can be found at Strength and Honour which takes you to Warbases website.

Given that armies in Strength and Honour run between four and fifteen (roughly) units an army will probably cost a maximum of £50 and that includes bases, which is very reasonable.  I'd be a bit more exact about that except I can't access the link for the PDF version of the rules I bought since the Lardies website went down!  The moral of the story being don't be cheap and buy a hard copy not the PDF.