28 mm African Archers

[Poiter50]

Guys, in our club we have a number of people who want more 28mm African Archer figures, Foundry even with their sale are a bit pricey and we like variety. Does anyone know of other manufacturers for that scale & figure type??

[Buzgob]

I can only think of Copplestone himself with some Ngoni an Somali archers.

[Malamute]

Old Glory have a Darkest Africa range. Can't vouch for the quality as I have not seen them. But its a 30 figure bag for a fraction of the foundry cost.

[Lowtardog]

If you have open handed figures it shouldnt be too much to buy some bows and quivers and fit them on the figures, I have done this with some Cimaroons.

[JollyBob]

Old Glory have a Darkest Africa range. Can't vouch for the quality as I have not seen them. But its a 30 figure bag for a fraction of the foundry cost.

My big birthday parcel of OG Darkest Africa stuff has lain untouched for about six weeks now. I was quite disappointed with some of the sculpts, like they'd blobbed the muscles on then hadn't smoothed them out or put skin over them.

That said, some of them are pretty nice, and I have been distracted by other things this month, but really, the quality is a bit hit and miss.   

[Banderium]

I was looking for darkest africa archers too and... there is no alternative to Foundry At least no one that i'm aware of.
Copplestone make only women  archer and somali.
Old glory doesn't make archers at all.
I suppose that the better solution is Eureka 100 club!

[Lowtardog]

Might be worth looking at ancient figure ranges such as Numidians etc perhaps?

[Neil Todd]

who does 28mm Numidians? that could work well

Neil

[aecurtis]

Most Numidians from the various ancients ranges will not look much like sub-Saharan Africans.  Apart from being commonly depicted in a short-sleeved or sleeveless tunic, they are normally depicted as being at least partially Semitic in origin: curly beard and longish hair in ringlets, but not Negroid features.  A couple of manufacturers have been kniown to confuse "Numidian" with "Nubian", with startling results, but they are rare.

Equally rare are Numidians in "archer" poses.  The bow played a very minimal role in warfare in the Western Mediterranean in classical times, and that was true among the Amazigh peoples as well.  However, because there were a couple of references to "Moorish" archers (in the ancient world, Moors were simply cousins of the Numidians: both Berber, or in their own language, Amazigh), a couple of wargame figure ranges have followed suit.

Moorish archers are available in 28mm from Gripping Beast:

http://grippingbeast.com/product.php?ItemID=1205



...or Navigator, now Magister Militum:

http://www.magistermilitum.com/product.asp?numRecordPosition=8&P_ID=1767&strPageHistory=cat&strKeywords=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=1275



...but as you can see, these aren't exactly the sort of fellows you'd have beenlikely to encounter along the Congo in the 1880s.

An option for spearmen might be Gripping Beast's "Desert Frontier" native spearmen in loincloth (the ones in teh upper half of the photo):

http://grippingbeast.com/product.php?ItemID=145



I have used these for various Nilotic/Sudanese tribes.  But the oses aren't really suitable for archers, especially as (in common GB practice), the shield hand is a bit of a nub, and would reguire re-sculpting to hold a bow.

Sorry I can't offer any better suggestions (I just sucked it up, and have lots of Foundry DA archers--and pygmies!).  But I wanted to let you see what Numidians looked like before you headed too far down that path.

One last thought.  1st Corps makes a pack of "Numidian Skirmishers" (PU25), which are inexplicably sculpted with Negroid features, and have elaborately coiffed ringlets:



They are quite small, almost "true 25mm", and as you can see, the poses are going to make conversion to archers difficult.

Allen

[twrchtrwyth]

These any good?

South American Javaro Archers from Brigade.

[aecurtis]

Well, there are:

http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/proddetail.asp?prod=PBE%2D10

Not great, but cheap.

http://www.castawayarts.com.au/catalog/catalog_main.php?cmd=groupload&group=24



The Castaway Arts Western Sudan archers may be the best bet.  But they're not a great savings over Foundry.

Allen

[axabrax]

Obelisk minis does some nice female amazon types and some great animals

http://www.obeliskminiatures.com/

[Poiter50]

Thanks for all the comments. One of my Ebay suppliers has come good with some more Foundry African Archers. That will have to do, providing us with a pool of Archers that we can draw from. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the Foundry ones are still the best on the market.

[Lowtardog]

My bad I meant Nubian  I will get my coat

[BlackStatic]

I've been wanting to get some of shadowforges' tribals to paint as african natives for a while but most look too "caveman" so only a few are appropriate.
They do ones with bows and it'd be interesting to see them painted as africans.

http://www.shadowforge.com.au/
(they are in the fantasy section)