European Bronze Age query

[v_lazy_dragon]

So... I've been looking at the Foundry European Bronze Age figures, and thinking that there is good scope for a variety of raids etc (I know a couple of people have been down a similar line before - Bezzo had a thread a while ago), but the question this time is what figures to use as opponents? The foundry range should make for a nice, fairly homogeneous force; but I don't really want them fighting against a duplicate army.  I've pretty much no knowledge of the era, other than the few paragraphs on the range in the old Foundry Ancients catalogue. Unfortunately, most of the suggested opponents aren't particular my cup of tea - tending towards being the 'big players' of the era, and all focused in the south of Europe/Med and near east. However, they did mention neolithic tribesmen (for 'early bronze age') and very early iron age celts (I'm guessing Hallstatt culutre here).

 I haven't a clue as to what the neolithic tribesmen should look like (Possibly the Copplestone cavemen? I always got the feeling they should be earlier though) but I thought the easiest force might be proto-celts - especially if the majority of their weapons were done as bronze with only 1 or two iron artifacts and weapons (or even entirely as bronze I guess) and I left out some of the obviously 'celtic' figures/characters. The other possibility would be some of the more primitive ancient germans - wicker work shields, clubs, spears and nekkid nutters should be fairly period neutral I would have thought.

I'm not too worried about hard and fast historical accuracy as opposed to figures which 'look' about right (I guess you could call in Pulp or Hollywood accuracy...), but I wondered what anyone else thought/had done, and if there are any possible conversion candidates that I might have missed? The one 'worry' I have is that all these figures, obviously excluding the naked ones, wear trousers whilst the Foundry Dark age figures don't... would that be a major problem?

[Mad Doc Morris]

That's a fairly difficult question. Admittedly, the Hallstatt period is partly covering the later Bronze Age. Thus quite a few of the items the Foundry Bronze Age warriors are sporting (helmets, cuirasses and the like) could then be considered proto-Celtic as well.

Cavemen are rather out of place, to be honest. Neolithic people would – as far as we can see, of course – look a lot like Bronze Age folk bar the metal bits. They were farmers, able to manufacture their clothes from linen and wool and only the occasional leather and fur. I would perhaps represent them by using unarmoured (and unkempt) Dark Age models; the new Gripping Beast box is quite handy for that.
Most Celtic miniatures, in turn, are rather modelled on the (later) La Tène period, with lots of Gallic helmets and such. If you can avoid that, they might work. Perhaps Britons are a good choice, too.

Finally, I wouldn't care too much about trousers. They were around for quite some time, and even if people just wore "leg protectors" (gaiters, tights, whatever you call 'em), the actual fitting could be covered by a tunic, anyway.

[Red Orc]

Absolutely not the Copplestone Cavemen, in my estimation. They're probably not even that good for Upper Palaeolithic (about 7,000+ years before your time period, roughly, depending on where you want to be in Europe). Upper Pal ends about 9000BC in much of Europe, to be followed by Mesolithic and Neolithic (Neolithic starts coming into central Europe from about 6000BC, and reaches the Atlantic round 4000BC). These dates are very rough mind.

There's a theory that the Greeks considered 'barbarian' people to be those that wore trousers. So it could be cultural. Early Germans should be fine.Tunics, trousers, tunics and trousers, or not, should all be viable as clothing I think. Not so many skins (even when you do have people in skins they shouldn't look like 'cavemen') unless you're trying to game the interaction between Neolithic and Mesolithic (one lot were settled farming cultures, the other sem-settled hunter-gatherer cultures). Even then I don't think the Copplestone examples are very good as Mesolithic hunters. More like 'Land that Time Forgot' Pulp-fodder.

[v_lazy_dragon]

Interesting - thanks for your comments MDM & RO! I thought the cavemen were too far removed; so it's good to have that confirmed. 

Interesting regarding the neolithic people being effectively iron/dark ages sans metal... that gives a lot of scope actually; and makes conversions a lot less onerous than I had feared! The addition of trousers (of some sort) helps a lot too. I don't suppose you know of any celt/briton figures which might be particularly cuitbale? Or just a case of steering clear of gallic helms, chain mail and captured roman equipment? Anything else I ought to try to avoid?

Good to hear that Early Germans should be a pretty stright forward, and point noted re:skins and the 'cave-man' look.

I was also wondering about possibly using dark age picts or irish? I know they are later still, but given that they are generally in simple tunics with spears, axes and short swords, they might not look too out of place.

[Mad Doc Morris]

As hinted, we don't actually know what people looked like back then. The presence of 'factual models' for those early periods (and likely way beyond that) is perhaps misleading. Evidence is very sparse, hence such reconstructions are educated guesses at best.
Essentially, what Red Orc and myself said, was: if you avoid certain clichés distinct for other periods (Gallic helmets or the "Neanderthal look"), you should be pretty safe with most fairly 'generic' models.

[Red Orc]

The problems with later figures are going to be helms and weapons. Picts and Irish sound fine in theory, depends really on the individual figures. Had an idea Gripping Beast might be a good place to start, just went for a look, a horrible site (and sight) so you're on your own there I'm afraid.

As for armour - any figure with armour 'plates' I suppose could be using pieces of bronze, which isn't I think utterly implausable. There's a sort of gold collar almost like a cape probably made for a young teenager which you could claim as being similar to armour (though it's almost certainly some ceremonial bit of dress) - http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_mold_gold_cape.aspx - so if you like, you could decide that a certain amount of armour might be made of precious metals for display. Maybe.

Having a look at Foundry, some of the Dacians might be OK for Bronze Age European warriors too. Certainly spears and bows are OK; painted bronze those 'falxmen' might be a little odd but I'd accept it if you turned up and said 'they're bronze swords'. The Picts look fine at first glance, can't think of anything that is't plausible for the Bronze Age there. The sword designs, while they aren't perfect, aren't too bad (curved tangs and all). Some cavalry too. And I know you say you want too steer way from the Med, but to be honest I think some of the 'Sea People' minis would be fine for the Central European Bronze Age too.

Mad Doc Morris was also replying as I was typing and sums up what I'm saying in much more long-winded fashion. Generic and uncomplicated - tunics, trousers or not, cloaks etc - will take you a long way.

[Captain Blood]

You could use Phoenicians or Mycaenean Greeks - broadly 'Bronze Age'. There's evidence they travelled to Britain to trade (and raid?).

[Red Orc]

I'd be happy with a lot of the Ancient Civilians for Bronze age Europeans as well - http://wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/civilians-18th-century-and-ancients/ancient-civilians-collection-bcciv003/

Not the couple of very 'Roman' chaps in the 'Roman Nobles and Ladies' set, but most of the other figures are OK I think, in general terms.

[Argonor]

Lots of pics, but if you can find minis to correspond, I don't know:

https://www.google.dk/search?q=bronzealderen&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=pgi3UfPXIMX3O-zVgIAF&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQsAQ&biw=1103&bih=510

[Glitzer]

There are some assumptions, that the mesolithic culture survived for quite a long time along the neolithic revolution in areas unsuited for agriculture. Using this as a parallel assumption you could as well use neolithic minis. Maybe using unarmoured Celts with some weapon swaps (to stone weaponry) would do the trick.

For ornaments on the cloth look at pottery (like that from the Lenyel-Culture) There's another assumption (which is quite propable) that the ornaments on pottery resemble those on weaved cloth.

[area23]

I would definately use ancient germans and picts. Bronze spear tips and wicker shields and you're done. Personally I would paint them all with dark hair. The actual bronze age figures like the Foundry ones could represent an advanced and rich bronze age tribe while, the other figures without helmets and plate armour could represent rival less developed tribes.

[v_lazy_dragon]

Thanks for the great feedback, information and comments guys - looks like I've found my next project then!

[Emir of Askaristan]

May I suggest you have a read of "Europe between the Oceans" by Barry Cunliffe or "The Horse, the Wheel and language" by David Anthony.

They ought to give you some good background material.

Then there's Otzi, the Iceman. He's from the copper age, so googling him and then following the links will give you plenty more background, as well as some visuals since he's been facially reconstructed too. The suggestion of ancient Germans sounds good, but you may want to use stone (flint or polished stone) and not bronze for spears/arrows/axes/maces, etc depending how far back you want to go.
 
Good luck !


 

[former user]

has Ötzi been shot and clubbed to death in vain? to be ignored by the sculpting community?




best late Neolithic/early Bronze age example you can get

or use woodland indians without iron weapons, you can't go much wronger than cavemen.....

[Firescale Whack]

I second using picts the foundry ones match perfectly with their european bronze age figures especially the naked blokes! I found these guys pretty useful with new shields and they have open hands so you can put whatever you want in them: http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/prod.php?prod=661&cat=1&sub=46&page=1