Wow, they are brilliant but really, really odd.  I suppose they were easier to cast.

I dont know a lot about them though I think they were stamped rather than moulded...you can still buy them but you have to paint in a lot of the details yourself freehand something I am crap at

Looking at the link all of those have details both sides so I may well have been 'misremembering'

Quote from: NTM on 02 August 2013, 09:59:33 AM
Looking at the link all of those have details both sides so I may well have been 'misremembering'

Yep detail both sides but effectively no depth to them - imagine a cardboard cut-out but cast in lead.

Somewhere in the shambles that is my house there is a cupboard within which lurk 6 Assyrian Archers, 2 Assyrian Pavise Bearers, a Slinger and an Assyrian King. They were produced in Germany and cost me three or four quid for the ten - at a time when I was earning £32 a week.

Sods Law. About a forthnight later I discovered Minifigs figures which were "round" not "flat" and a darn sight cheaper! So the Assyrians have languished ever since. As my first ever metal figures I am loath to get rid of them but as 40mm (iirc) flats I'm never going to use them.

Yes you are, monumental statues in a built up area!
Four times life size sounds about right for a Sumerian king!

Quote from: mad lemmey on 02 August 2013, 10:54:33 AM
Yes you are, monumental statues in a built up area!
Four times life size sounds about right for a Sumerian king!

I suspect any sculptor who produced flat statues of the king would be given a swift introduction to the insides of the sacred crocodiles, or equivalent!

Though suitably positioned as part of a wall they could perhaps do service as bas reliefs.

Quote from: get2grips on 02 August 2013, 09:15:05 AM
Only if you're a retro gamer: the new ones don't contain lead.  Unless Techno and Leon have been raiding church roofs 

There's still an element of lead in a lot of the figures on the market today, as well as the usual bismuth and antimony found in pewter alloys, as you need it for pliability.  A 95% tin figure would be very brittle, and rifles/pikes/spears would snap rather than bend.  I think our alloy is about 85% tin, 15% other metals.

As a fun test, try writing with your figures like a pencil.  The easier it is to read what you've written, the more lead is likely to be in the metal.

Isn't that why we say "lead pencil"? They made drawing instruments (like silverpoint) out of bullet lead during Napoleon's expedition to Egypt.

<See, I can do more than moan about certain tracked beauties!>

"Lead" pencils are actually graphite, not lead.

I am old enough to remember writing on slate tablets with slate pencils at school, though.

Miniatures and all related items 

toy soldiers and whisky

Agreed!!!

For me its Austrians in every scale and period. I try to stay away from Austrians but some how I just find myself buying and painting them; 15mm WWI 10mm WWI 15mm 1920's, 6mm SYW, WAS, 10mm WSS, 10mm APW (APW after I wrote down plans to build a Danish army then ordered Austrians?), I don't know what it is maybe it has something to do with the letter A? Other day I started thinking about a Austrian early WWII army no idea why?

Wouldn't they be part of the Wehrmacht? I believe the 2nd Panzer Division was recruited mainly from Vienna and environs.

Nope. Würzburg and based in Vienna before the invasion of Poland.
CiC was Heinz Guderian (Mr Tankwarfare)

Wine gums.

Quote from: Leon on 02 August 2013, 03:15:06 PM
As a fun test, try writing with your figures like a pencil.  The easier it is to read what you've written, the more lead is likely to be in the metal.

A test we used at the Evil Empire to check whether the figure being painted was a master metal or a production figure, was to hold the figure close to your ear and tweak something relatively 'bendable' like a sword or spear....(We're talking '28'mm soldiers here.)

You could hear a very faint 'crackling' sound with a master metal....Nothing at all with a production model, which was made of a much 'softer' mix of metal.

This worked very well until the day that I swore the figure I was giving out to be painted was a master, only to be told the crackling noise I was hearing was the sound of my ciggy singeing my hair, as I held both model and ciggy up to my ear at the same time......Muppet !!

Cheers - Phil (Who gave that habit up about 20 years ago,)