When I first saw the new Museum Miniatures Sumerians, I knew I just had to get some. Designed by CAD, they looked absolutely amazing.

The thing with Sumerians, however, is that you need to have an awful lot of them: to play To The Strongest (my current system of choice for Ancients) you need five or six spear blocks, with each spear block containing (the way I base) 48 figures. That’s 288 infantry: a significant investment in both money, and perhaps more significantly, time.

So a test unit was called for: 48 figures were ordered i.e. one spear block’s worth.

This was to be a double test: one for the figures themselves, and the second for the new Citadel Contrast paints I keep banging on about. I couldn’t face painting 288 figures my normal way (basecoat, wash, highlight i.e. paint each figure three times) but maybe I could if I only had to paint each figure once.

Sold!

The figures are as good as promised, and the paint as well. To emphasise again, the flesh, kilts, spear shafts, cloaks and shields are painted with one coat of a Contrast paint each. Only the bronze is double-painted, but that’s using non-Contrast paints.

Right, once more into the breach: only 264 spearmen to go!