In the ancient Middle East most major towns and cities were surrounded by walls, which gave any potential invader a serious problem. Inferior forces might not stand against them in open battle, but sheltering in fortresses and cities would potentially force even a much-superior foe to spend a lot of time and resource in reducing such resistance, and could even bring disaster on the besiegers. Therefore any imperial power had to be able to conduct sieges, and the Assyrians were acknowledged masters of the art. However even a siege that was ultimately successful might seriously delay an army, so the Assyrians often chose to directly assault such bastions, despite the losses that would incur, in order to achieve more during the campaigning season. The many ancient depictions of Assyrian sieges gives us a great insight into how they conducted such operations, and the many methods they used to try and force the surrender or elimination of their target.

This set nicely covers various aspects of Assyrian siegecraft, beginning with the first two men in our top row. These are busy attacking the base of a wall with large chisels. Most walls were built of mud brick, particularly earlier in the period, so they were susceptible to being hacked away at the base until they became unstable and could be collapsed. Even if they were of stone (or at least the lower courses), these tools could be used to try and prise the stones away, eventually fatally weakening the wall. There are many depictions of this direct but dangerous form of attack on a wall, including the one used for the box art, so it is easy to envisage these two working away at some point, and are great poses. Both wear long scale or lamellar corselets that reach to the ankles as well as typical helmets with an aventail that cover the neck and much of the face. They have sword sidearms and the common wide waist belt, but of course are not expecting to engage in actual combat. Whether the Assyrians maintained units specially trained as sappers such as these is unknown, but they may just be ordinary infantrymen assigned to this task. The fact that both are very heavily protected agrees with the manufacturer dating of these figures to the 9th and early 8th centuries BCE, when such long armour was worn, but some sources seem to suggest that this long armour may have persisted well after these dates, particularly for troops in high-risk operations such as this, and since sappers have historically frequently been given extra protection, this seems plausible.

The next figure is a man wielding an axe, which we might imagine could be used to hack at a wooden gate, for example, or perhaps in construction. He wears a more typical Assyrian pointed helmet as well as a corselet that reaches to the waist, and long laced boots. These last date him to the 8th century BCE or thereafter, and he could be used in all sorts of roles since the Assyrians were also good engineers. Only the heavy Assyrian infantry wore armour such as this, but surely every Assyrian army would have many men that looked like this individual, who again is posed very naturally.

The Assyrians made great use of large shields, not just in sieges, and the reed shield next to the axeman is a lovely accessory. It stands 35 mm (2.5 metres) at the top, is curved, and supported by a single pole as can be seen. It is plenty large enough to give shelter to a couple of archers, perhaps as they approach some wall with a view to keeping the defenders’ heads down while the sappers do their work, but it could also offer some protection to others working in this dangerous zone, such as engineers building a ramp. Turn it around and put it up against the base of the wall and you have a cover under which sappers can attack that wall, since the pole would give it some additional strength against objects being dropped on it from above. Sometimes multiple shields were put together to provide a larger screen for the attackers, but the curved design of this one suggests it is not suitable for that. Nevertheless, it is a very worthwhile extra for the set.

Moving to the second row, we find two infantrymen holding smaller but still large shields. These too would be excellent shields behind which archers could operate, and are often portrayed in Assyrian reliefs. One is quite flat while the other has a considerable curve, and both designs seem reasonable. The two men are dressed in typical fashion; the first man has the same armour corselet and long boots as the axeman, and carries a quiver of arrows, though there is no sign of his bow. The second man, holding his sword, wears the typical helmet and wide belt, but his only body armour is a small pectoral disc on the chest and another on the back, so he is a lighter infantryman who might be holding the shield for the benefit of an archer next to him. The curved shield is made of wicker and has a handle, but the flat one is made of reeds and appears to have no such means of holding or carrying it, so is a rather more crude piece of kit. However both seem very plausible and would be common items in any Assyrian army.

Our second row concludes with the two archers in this set. Archers and slingers were primarily tasked with clearing the battlements while other elements of the army attacked the walls or attempted to escalade, and so were a vital element in any siege. Archers were a very important element in Assyrian forces anyway, so there can never be too many, and the first figure is in the classic pose of about to loose his arrow. The second pose, however, gave us a lot of concerns. He is leaning forward and holding his bow to the side but at maximum draw, which we contend is physically impossible unless the bow is so weak as to be useless anyway. An archer might move around with an arrow at the ready, but not with the bow fully drawn like this, so the figure looks really odd and just wrong. Had he been holding the bow undrawn then that would have been much better, although we were not sure quite what was intended with this pose anyway, so definitely the weakest of the bunch here in our view. Both men wear armour; the first has the long corselet reaching to below the knees and the long lace boots, so dates from the 8th century BCE, although the long armour is somewhat debateable as some commentators say this has largely disappeared by this date. His awkward but superhumanly strong comrade has the normal shorter corselet and the same laced boots, so is typically dressed for a heavy archer of the later empire.

The last row shows two spearmen. Of course spearmen were a large part of the infantry in any battle or siege, and these two must be anticipating assaulting the walls or a breech in an action which would hopefully bring the siege to an end. The first man has very long body armour, which means he could not be about to climb any sort of a ladder, so must be prepared for a ground-level attack. Linear-A call him a sapper (though there is nothing here to back up that label) and date him to the 9th and early 8th centuries BCE, which is fine. His helmet is of an accurate but less common design, and he wears sandals. The second spearman is much lighter (labelled as an auxiliary), having just the chest and back discs as armour, and again just sandals, so could easily climb a ladder. His helmet is of the neo-Hittite style with a crest as worn by both Anatolian troops and later some Assyrians. While the first man seems to be moving somewhere, the second holds his shield up to his face as if protecting himself from missiles or blows as he operates somewhere around the walls, so is a more combative pose which we also really liked.

Finally we come to the mystery figure in this set. The box claims this is a soldier with mace for the 8th to mid 7th century. His long scale mail corselet seems somewhat at odds with that dating (though this remains a contentious debate), but it is his weapon that attracts our attention more. One source we found speaks of units of mace men, but we found no corroboration for that, and the contemporary images do not seem to confirm this either. Maces were usually more symbolic weapons carried by officers, and while they could be used in anger, that was not their primary purpose. In any case, they seem never to have been this long, or of this design. The mace here is 18 mm (1.3 metres) in length, and so very much a two-handed weapon, which is very strange. Also the mace head is a peculiar shape – something like a bell – and very bad for the intended purpose, which was to deliver as strong a blow as possible by concentrating the force on a small area such as a spike or side of a sphere. We could find absolutely no evidence for this strange weapon, although the whole figure is a perfect copy of a 54 mm metal figure.

In general these 3D printed figures are beautifully sculpted. As usual, the detail is breathtaking, especially the armour, but other elements like the two round shields are beautifully engraved with their basic construction details both outside and in. All of the large shields are also perfectly detailed, easily showing us their intended construction, and the hand weapons are very nicely done, with spears of a good length. Every figure you see above comes as is, with no assembly, which is a great feature of 3D printing, but there are also areas where traditional injection moulding still has advantages. One is with very thin elements, which would simply be too fragile for the fairly rigid material used to make these figures. In particular this is manifest in the exceptionally thick bow strings and the arrows, so this production method is less than ideal for archers. Otherwise the detail, lack of flash and beautifully animated poses match the quality of sculpting perfectly and make for some great figures.

The mix of periods for these figures makes it difficult to set them all up together, at least for the purist, but if you are a bit more flexible in such things then this is a lovely set of siege troops. Outstanding poses and beautiful production are the hallmarks of this collection, and the only flies in the ointment that we can detect are the thick bows and arrows, the impossible second archer pose, and the mysterious mace man, which seems to be non-historical. There is plenty here for the table-top wargamer to set out a decent siege and assault, and given how important sieges were in ancient warfare, that is a very good thing indeed.