Latest 2mm Antonine Ancients - Review

 

Thought I’d take a look at some of the latest releases in the 2mm Antonine Miniatures Ancients range - I’m a little late to the party in that they have been available since before last Christmas, but I’ve only recently taken the plunge and bought some.

Antonine have added to the range available at Warbases in the UK, including six packs of Roman buildings with a useful variety of types, and a whole Republican Roman Legion unit alongside a pack of Phalanx Pike Blocks:

https://warbases.co.uk/product-category/games-specific/strength-and-honour/?orderby=date

The buildings look really nice, 3D designed and printed, if it were not for already having a whole plethora of similar types as seen elsewhere on the Blog, I would definitely have taken the plunge, but couldn’t really justify the expense - so I limited myself to purchasing just the new troop types.

The Phalanxes in particular caught my eye, and I wanted to see how the Republican Romans would stack up against the bases I had already created as early Legions using the individual blocks from Irregular Miniatures.

Above you can see how the phalanxes compare with a few other miniature types, in the centre a cavalry block, a skirmisher one and a single elephant from Antonine, and to the centre right a Pike block from Irregular and a strip of Hoplites from the same manufacturer.

To use the vernacular, these new blocks are some big beautiful beasties ! - definitely more in proportion to some of the existing Legionary bases from Antonine, and very much in the Macedonian Phalanx category of things - they make the ABG16 40 man pike block from Irregular look pretty diminutive !

The view from above presents a veritable forest of pikes, with the attendant figures to the side faces, and some extra ranks at the rear - in line with all of Antonine’s output, the pikemen themselves are plain shapes rather than having any particular detail, but this does not take away from the overall impact.

All of the blocks I received were cleanly cast, with no flash present or mould lines in the areas that matter - I think in similar terms to the minis I painted before from Antonine, they should go well with a simple dots and lines paint job - although that’s still going to mean a lot of dotting in the individual pike heads !

Three of the blocks sit comfortably on the basic Strength and Honour 120x60mm bases, with two of the same matching up on my ‘get more bang for your buck’ 90x60mm basing standard:

Above you can see a work-in-progress base of some Epirote phalanxes made up of the blocks from Irregular alongside their somewhat larger Alexandrian cousins !

I think it comes down to a personal choice as to which you might find fits the image better - and in armies of differing eras, the larger Antonine might be the better choice - certainly simpler to paint and to base up, being a gargantuan single unit…..

Turning now to Antonine’s Republican Romans, I think that the new pack is an excellent representation of the same, and also superlative value - you get all the necessary blocks for Velites, Hastati etc, with of course the option to use the different types on separate skirmisher bases. Again, if I wasn’t so invested in those that I already produced using Irregular, I would definitely have gone large in using them to make as many Legions as possible, with tactical formations easily depicted with their individual, smaller blocks.

Some of the castings I received had a small amount of flash in place at the edges, but nothing major, and will be easily removed with a sharp blade or metal file.

The whole pack populates a 120x60mm base size, and anything smaller would give you plenty spare to play with - I find the small Legionary ‘century’ or maniple blocks better proportioned than some of Antonine’s earlier Roman cohort blocks, which I felt were a bit on the large size - giving, if you counted individual ‘figures’ too deep a picture of Roman ranks - these blocks could easily be combined side by side to give a flexibility in what you can depict.

Up against one of my existing Irregular bases - you can see how they might compare all together on a 90x60mm:

I think overall, these are a great addition to the existing range, and give you a whole host of options now, combining with parts from existing packs - as well as some suitably ‘heavy metal’ phalanxes should the mood take you !