Victrix Dark Age Archers and Slingers

The last figures I completed in 2024 were a quartet of Victrix Dark Age Archers.  These were my oldest outstanding 28mm miniatures purchased in late 2022.  

After completing these I thought it would be interesting to look at all the different figures I made using the Dark Age Archers bodies as the basis.  You get 36 bodies (one piece legs and torso) in each set.  Four are meant as archers, two as slingers.  There are numerous heads, arms and bits.  I sold one spruce which left me with 30 to do.  In reality I only did 28 as I used the legs from two of the archers with some Oathmark Elves.

As with all plastic kits some bits work better together than others and Victrix do give instructions as to what bits fit certain bodies.  If you were doing these all as archers for the same army, you’d inevitably end up with some quite similar figures which in my eyes defeats the purpose of using plastics but that's just me.    

When you’ve worked on a few of the different kits across the range you see how similar if not identical some of the parts are, which makes them so interchangeable.   I didn’t make too many straight from the box and used parts from: Unarmoured Late Romans; Armoured Late Romans; Late-Roman Archers and Slingers; Vikings and the new Rus set to make figures for my Late-Roman, Goths, Norse and Rus forces.

Archer Body 1, left to right: generic Dark Age archer, later Dark Age/Norse warrior, generic Dark Age archer, generic Dark Age warrior, late-Roman warrior.

Archer Body 2, left to right: generic Dark Age archer, later Dark Age/Norse warrior, generic Dark Age warrior, Germanic/Goth warrior, late-Roman archer.

Archer Body 3, left to right: later Dark Age/Norse warrior, Later Dark Age/Norse archers x2, Rus warrior.  Note there's only 4 of this type as I used the legs for an Elf figure.

Archer Body 4, left to right: Goth archer, generic Dark Age archer, later Dark Age/Norse archer, Rus archer.  Note there's only 4 of this type as I used the legs for an Elf figure.

Slinger Body 1, left to right: Germanic/Goth warrior, generic Dark Age archer,  generic Dark Age warrior, late-Roman staff slinger, late-Roman warrior.

Slinger Body 2, left to right: generic Dark Age slinger, generic Dark Age warrior, late-Roman warrior, late-Roman staff slingers x2.

And there we go, a really versatile kit but mainly when used in conjunction with others.  I have a note of all the parts I used to make all the Victrix miniatures I’ve made over the last few years.  One day I’ll type it up, but that’s a job way down the list.