Warlord Scorpion Battery: A Review

These showed up last week:

A lovely box of the new Roman Scorpion Battery by Warlord games. In the box are three identical sprues.

Each sprue builds one scorpion with two crew; one kneeling ammunition handler and one standing to sight or cock the weapon.

These go together very quickly. I think it was a matter of 10 minutes to build each machine and it's two crew. There are multiple head and arm options so you can get some variety out of your artillerists. I did my first two on the right in bog standard loading poses. The hands on the lever are nicely done. The lever is molded into one hand and the other has a socket in it. I recommend slotting them together first before gluing the arms on at the shoulders. Make sure your scorpion is built first so you can position the arms so the lever fits into the crank when the glue sets!

The next pair on the left I opted for a more relaxed waiting pose on the loader while the gunner has removed his helmet and is shielding his eyes with his hands for a better sight.

The details are all nicely executed and the hands on the figures are very delicate. There is also a set of very tiny Optio's feathers to turn one of your figures into the battery commander. The arms are pretty interchangeable thanks to the big shoulder plates on the lorica segmenta, giving lots of options for how you combine them.

You can't see them in the background but there are big quivers of bolts to put on the ground beside the loader. Another nice detail is the metal face plate on the mechanism of the scorpion which matches archaeological findings. There are also some extra bolts to have loose on the ground or you could add them to a bigger wicker basket if you've got one. A final nice touch is the addition of some plastic sudes, or stakes, that the legionaries used for building camp defences. There are three singles that you can glue together into an X, or jack, like those WW2 beach defences and a section of 5 roped together to form a barrier at the top of an earthen embankment.

A must for anyone wanting to recreate the Siege of Jerusalem but also very useful for field battles. The Romans weren't shy about using artillery in set piece battles. Scorpions were quite accurate and deadly, being able to pierce the stoutest shield and  pin two men together.  Although the exploding napalm missiles from Gladiator are a bit over the top!