ESCI – 224 – Roman Legion

Description:

Unpainted and unassembled plastic soldiers in 1/72 scale depicting Imperial Roman legionaries, intended for around the 2 first AD centuries.

In 1986 ESCI tooled the only two figure sets they released dated before Napoleonic Wars, this Roman Legionaries and as counterpart, the ESCI – 225 – Barbarian Warriors (Romanic Wars).

Both sets shared some design options, as the hands in shape to fit the weapons rather than ring-hand shape and in both cases, the separate weapons and shields, take room in the sprue and so the number of figures and poses has been reduced versus the usual ESCI standard, and in the case of this Roman set, drastically, to 40 figures and 11 poses.

The subject, by 1986, was only covered by the Airfix set, tooled in 1967, and obviously ESCI did a big improvement against it, with a nice and good sculpture and detail level and good accuracy, except for the archer pose, who should have wear “auxiliaries” chain mail rather than plate cuirass as the rest of legionaries, which is sad, because it’s a nice archer pose. The classic ESCI solution for the shields, with two clips that fit around the figure’s arm, leaves the problem of the gap in the central front of the shield, that need to be filled.

The last problem of the set is that figures are not arranged into any kind of formation or specific task together, they are mostly a Roman Legionaries war band.

Of course, any of these appreciations bothered me in 1986, when i was just 9 years old and these were fantastic Roman Legionaries, perfectly sculpted and cast. Same figures were later issued under Italeri brand as Italeri – 6047 – Roman Infantry and ESCI issued them also in the Adrian’s Wall playset, as well as they were released under A-Toys brand, together with the Barbarian Warriors.