When the Greek colonies of southern Italy appealed to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (c.319 – 272 BCE), for help against the encroaching Romans, he travelled to their aid with an army that included 20 elephants. Such a creature had not previously been seen in Italy, and they were instrumental in several of his victories, including Asculum mentioned on the box of this set. After Asculum, Pyrrhus and his elephants campaigned in Sicily for a while, then returned to the Italian mainland, where they were defeated by the Romans at Maleventum in 275 BCE. The king then returned to his homeland, and had acquired more elephants by the time he campaigned in southern Greece, where he met his end in 272 BCE. While the king is not widely remembered outside of his homeland today, except in the phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’, the elephants that he brought to Italy have conjured up images of Roman legions facing these huge beasts, which still endure.

This set includes a generous four of these pachyderms, all of which are Indian elephants, which is correct. Their general anatomy is excellent, and they all stand at about 34mm (almost 2.5 metres) at the shoulder, so are of a good size. Our one reservation with these animals is with the ears, all of which have a rather triangular shape here when Indian ears are more rounded than this, but it is not a really obvious issue. The poses superficially look okay too, although in fact some are not natural, though few are likely to notice this. The downed animal has been made that bit more gruesome by showing its belly split open, so like some other Linear-A sets, this is not one for the squeamish. So they look great, but if you are going to be really picky about the stance then some could have been better.

Three of the elephants have a tower mounted. This was a new innovation in the early third century BCE, but as far as is known today, all of these look reasonable. All are of a solid wooden construction, some with shields along the sides for added protection, and they are big enough to squeeze four men in, though this would not give much room for wielding long weapons. Each tower is resting on padding and held on by chains running around the neck, belly and tail of the elephant. The elephants also have large caparisons and some decorative items, and the elephant without a tower has shields draped around it, which seems more to do with decoration than a serious attempt at protection. This one animal also has face protection, which the others do not. From what we know of war elephants of this period, everything here seems reasonable. The fact that there are some with towers and some without is a pleasing mix, as no one knows if all the elephants wore a tower, or if it was worn at all times.

Moving on to the crews, the men wear a variety of clothing and armour that is Hellenistic in style, and so is authentic. Many have the linothorax over their tunic, and wear one of a number of different styles of Greek helmet, all of which are likely. Most also wear greaves on both legs, and have a sword hanging from a belt on the left side. This is all pretty typical of Hellenistic armies of the day, including that of Pyrrhus, and so are fine. The two foot figures, who represent the light infantry that always accompanied elephants, wear just a tunic and a helmet, with no body armour. One man also wears a sort of scarf, which wraps round the neck and over one shoulder, in much the same way as a fashion-conscious woman of today might wear a chartouche. We can find no evidence for such a garment, and there is no obvious practical purpose to it, so it must count as an error. Surprisingly, one of these men also wears greaves, so although both are described as ‘psiloi’, which just means light infantry, the man in the second row is quite well protected for such a soldier. At the opposite end of the scale, the mahout (handler) of the first pictured elephant wears no more than a loincloth and a turban, and so perhaps is actually Indian in origin, and was probably recruited directly from India to tend to this elephant, as we know did happen.

The crews of the elephants mostly have long lances which range in length from 40 to 55 mm (2.9 to 4 metres), which would be necessary to reach targets on the ground. One man holds javelins instead, which is also perfectly correct, and a couple of the drivers hold a goad (‘ankus’), which is about the size of a javelin but with a large hook on the end. The two foot figures carry spears of conventional length (about 35mm, which is 2.5 metres) as well as flat, round shields. Many light troops working with elephants would have been archers or slingers, but these two are also fine for this role.

The sculpting as usual is really great. All the finer details of armour and clothing has been well done, and the elephants look very realistic too. The various spears are nice and slim, although as can be seen, we did find that the longest ones had a pronounced bend to them. Unlike some other Linear-A sets, the men here are perfectly to scale, and as they are 3D printed, there is no flash or hidden material, just some really natural poses that would be so difficult in a traditional two-piece mould. For the same reason, there is actually very little assembly required here. Each elephant is one single piece, complete with tower and accoutrements. Each human figure is also just one piece, so that includes any weapon or shield that they are carrying. The elephant crew have pegs on their feet rather than bases, and these fit easily into holes in the floor of the towers. So in theory you have to position them as we have done above, but it would be a simple task to vary this if required. Although ancient writers speak of towers taking four men, and you could do this if you wished, we thought the choice of two plus a driver in this set made a lot of sense, particularly with the long lances they hold (although even then it is easy to see how these two could get in each other’s way). The dead elephant is all one piece – animal, tower and dead crewman – but special mention should be made of the mahout climbing onto his elephant (our top row). It is a fantastic pose, and great for a ‘just before battle’ scenario, and he fits into a slot on the elephant perfectly. However both he and the mounted crewmen should probably be glued if they are to be handled to any degree.

There is one rather big fault in this set, and it really matters. The elephant with front foot raised (our second row) does not stand by himself, but leans so as to rest on this raised foot at an angle. Therefore he will need a base or some other means of support, which is poor design. In addition, you could argue that perhaps the inside of the towers should be as well detailed as the outside (they are completely plain), and did we really need to see the guts of the dead elephant? That said, this set has very many appealing elements, with good variety, an impressive range of models, and only small niggles over accuracy and elephant poses. Beautifully produced as usual, the vogue for elephants in many successor armies gives this set greater scope than just the army of Pyrrhus, so as a means of depicting a powerful but unpredictable tool in the arsenal of several armies, this set will take a lot of beating.