The Battle of Carrhae was, in the main, an exercise by Marcus Licinius Crassus to gain a triumph and some military glory, something both his co-triumvirs, Pompey and Caesar, already had in abundance, and which he felt had been denied him after the defeat of the Spartacus slave revolt. From his allotted province of Syria he chose to attack the neighbouring Parthian Empire in 53 BCE, but his army was destroyed by Parthian horse archers, and he himself killed shortly thereafter. It ranks as one of the most disastrous defeats ever suffered by Roman arms, and it directly impacted the events that followed, including the civil wars and rise, first of Caesar, and then of Octavian.

As the box title points out, this is merely set 1 of a series, and it is far from a conventional collection of figures. Our top row shows a couple of legionnaires holding swords, plus a centurion, but most of the interest in this set lies in the second row. This shows two groups of men, both themed on the handling of the wounded. The first has two men supporting a third who has been wounded, most obviously with an arrow in the calf of his right leg. This has a beautifully natural and realistic feel to it, and must have been a common sight on any battlefield. The second group shows three men attending to another man wounded by an arrow, this time much more seriously injured, as the arrow is in the man’s upper chest or throat. He lies on the ground, with his head cradled in the lap of a comrade as another attempts to extract the arrow, and a third joins his friends in holding down the casualty while this is being done. Such a wound would of course have been extremely dangerous, yet it makes sense that the man’s friends would have wanted to remove the arrow and help in any way they could, and the result is a touching and utterly believable scene. Figure sets rarely have scenes of tending the wounded like this as it takes up room many would prefer to see occupied by fighting men, but when a whole series of sets is produced, as Linear-A have already done, more unusual poses and groups can be included, and here these have been beautifully done.

All the men here are dressed and equipped in typical fashion for the first century BCE. All have a mail shirt over their tunic, and the obligatory military boots. All wear a helmet, either the Montefortino or the more modern Coolus, and one of the legionnaires has a crest on his. The centurion has a much more elaborate transverse crest, perhaps helping to identify him in the midst of battle, but he is also set apart by the more ornate, Hellenic helmet. These were not the usual distinctions for a centurion at this time, but at least one fresco of the period shows this panoply, so it seems to have existed. More typically, this man also has several awards (‘phalerae’) arrayed on his chest, an indication of why he was made a centurion in the first place. Finally, he has a dagger attached horizontally to the front of his belt. While some aspects of the centurion may not be typical, they are not incorrect either, and all of the men are also properly dressed. Their swords and shields look good too; the shields being oval with a long central spine and a boss protecting a horizontal hand bar.

As we have come to expect of Linear-A 3D-printed figures, these are beautifully produced. In all cases the figures come complete, including any weapon and shield, despite these being held in a very naturalistic way that partly obscures the body (brilliantly natural, but a challenge to reach for painting). The three-figure piece evacuating a casualty is a single piece, but the group attending to a man on the ground does need some assembly. The wounded man and central kneeling figure come complete with the base, but the two figures either side are separate. They have a peg under the foot which fits into a hole in the base, and as can be seen, this produces a very tight little group. The fit of peg into hole is very easy, so the whole thing is simple to assemble. We do question why the tunic hem of the downed man does not rest on his knees rather than hover above them as it does, but in general this set is marvellously sculpted. At this scale, any mail would appear merely as a slightly rough texture, but is in previous sets, here the mail has been given a very strange regular pattern which looks like a poor attempt to depict individual rings, which is absurd for figures this size. Nevertheless, the usual lack of flash and excess plastic makes for some terrific figures.

Carrhae was a battle where the Roman forces had to stand and suffer the storm of arrows sent their way by the horse archers, as the Parthians were smart enough to avoid direct contact until the Romans had been greatly weakened. Consequently figures suffering from arrow wounds are particularly appropriate for this battle, though far from unique to it. Since the Romans were mostly on the defensive, having swords drawn in expectation of an assault also makes perfect sense, so all of these poses are very suited to that day as well as many others. Slight niggles about dodgy mail texture and a possibly atypical centurion do not detract from some lovely sculpting and very natural poses, so while no one is ever going to make up a large formation based on just the figures in this set, it does provide some interesting and useful extras for such a Roman force, and some great figures to look at too.