Dan Becker's 28mm Scale Paleolithic Miniatures

This section shows a scenario of a typical day in the life of early Homo Sapiens. This small band is on the move, seeking food and shelter. The band has a leader and a number of warriors with stone tipped weapons. Some younger juveniles and gatherers come along to support.

Suddenly the humans spot some wild horses. These horses are fast and tough to catch, but they would make a valuable possession for travel or trade. They also can be eaten.

The chase is on.

For this scenario, evey blind corner can lead to another encounter. In this case a number of primitive hominids jump out from behind a hill.

These figures represent earlier species of hominids now extinct such as Homo erectus or heidelbergensis. The Hide, Stone, and Bone rules only discuss Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, but I model these with statistics similar to the juveniles of other hominids in the game

The ancient hominids prove to be no match for the Homo Sapiens. The tiny ancestors are wounded and flee.

Notice the bases have different colors. This is to keep the homo sapiens, neanderthals, and erectus easily distinguishable. The green bases have letters L, S, W, J, and G. This stands for Leader, Shaman, Warrior, Juvenile, and Gatherer, all of which can be played in the game.

Back to the chase. The wild horses appear again, and the band of humans, minus one casualty, resume the pursuit.

If the humans can catch up with a horse, and leap on its back (a very agile feat), the horse will be captured.

And while cresting the next hill, the humans encounter a wooly mammoth family. The humans are barely a match for one mammoth, much less for two adults with their offspring.

Wisely the humans flee for their lives.

This section describes the Peter Dennis paper figures and the ones I chose to build and use to learn the Hide, Stone, and Bone game.

This photo shows the Homo Sapiens. To the far left is a Shaman, religious leader. To the far right is the leader. The other rows make up the warriors, juvenile, and gatherers that make up a typical tribe in the paleolithic era.

Peter Dennis describes these as 28mm. I measured a few of them, and yes my prints of the adults measure in the 28 to 30mm range. One nice thing about printable paper models is that you can adjust your print scale to 95 or 105 percent, whatever it takes to match any existing models you use.

My paper cutting is not as precise as most of the pros. However, wherever a white outline or edge shows, I have colored it in with a tan marker. This makes the obvious outline disappear into the background.

This band of proto-humans are the Homo Neandethalis. They are now extinct, but there was a time when this species of human bred with and interacted with Homo Sapiens. Modern humans have a percentage of neanderthal gene variations in us.

Like the previous group, there is a Shaman to the left and a leader to the right. The remaining rows are warriors, juveniles, and gatherers.

My neanderthals have gray bases to distinguish them from the other hominds. The bases are made from cereal box cardboard. I hand cut these bases, but later I splurged for a one inch circle punch to speed up the process.

This photo shows the last group of Peter Dennis hominids, the Homo Erectus. They could also be Denisovians, Homo Heidelbergensis, or other ancient hominids. They are shorter and more naked than the previous two groups.

The Hide, Stone, and Bone (HSB) rules have no specific rules for these figures. I just them as juveniles.

HSB has a campaign mode where individuals can age and develop skills, your band can research and acquire tools, and potentially be starved into oblivion. Here I presented a scenario, so I could learn the actions and combat of the game, but the campaign mode has many nice features.

Now let us look at some of the paleolithic fauna which is covered by the Peter Dennis Stone Age Family and Animals set and also the Hide, Stone, and Bones rules.

Here are the wild horses of the paleolithic age. An excellent representation with the horse being smaller and a light bay or dun coloring.

Here are two types of herd animals. On the left is the now extinct wooly rhinoceros and calf, and on the right are a male and female red deer

Here are a hefty pack of wolves. Likely these creatures would be the most common and deadly enemies to early humans.

Here are some bison for your paleolithic adventures. Peter Dennis calls these European bison, but they look very close to the North American buffalo.

Here are a number of hyenas and saber tooth cats. The saber tooths are now extinct, but these models will do for lions, tigers, and cheetahs or other scary human predators.

Here are two cave bears. Many prehistoric movies feature cave bears.

Finally here are the wooly mammoths, a now extinct species, but well represented in the fossil records of Asia and North America. It is nice to have an adult male and female and two poses of calves. The heads on these models are separate from the body and can be assembled in different angles.