I must have spent a large chunk of 1973 studying the above Minifigs catalogue - well it either that or phsyics homework. I guess I must have got a copy during a foray to The Stamp Shop in Middlesbrough. My focus was the colonial section. Eventually after much deliberation I handed my mother a chunk of cash in return for a cheque and posted off an order for 50 S range zulus. About a month later the cheque was returned with a curt note telling me that the figures I had ordered had now been discontinued. No further explanation was forthcoming. S range had gone for ever. The era of the chunky monkeys was upon us.
Back then I wouldn't have been much delayed by the ancient section of the Minifigs catalogue. The only ancient gaming I did in those days was with a friend of mine and his younger brother who had aquired an odd assortment of 15mm Chinese and - if memory serves - Khmer from Peter Laing. Tiny, lumpy little things they were. And the figures were a bit odd too.
Anyway, I have more than made up for that oversight since. At some point on this blog I mentioned that one of the few S range ancients I have never seen is AA2s - Assyrian standard bearer. Oddly enough the only others I haven't seen are also A2s figures - AP2s (Persians standard bearer), AE2s (Egyptian standard bearer) and AS2s (Sassanid levy archer). Apart from that I've clocked all of them, even the Philistine ox chariot and the off-the-wall Gaul or Hun mounted archer.
It's odd that the standard bearers are the figures nobody seems to have bought as they usually rank high on any wargamer's shopping list. I wonder what happened to them all?
