Hypaspists, Psiloi and Persians WIPs

  These are some of the figures I've been working on. They are working in progress because Psiloi and Hypaspists have no washes as of yet and all the models including Persians need to get some greenery on to their bases.

Victrix Mercenary Hoplites painted as Hypaspistoi

 These two are my colourscheme test. I am not too happy with the linthorax, rather than having the whole thing purple I might have a white linthorax with purple and yellow accents.

 Shields meant to show Alexander the Great in Persian headgear. This would mean it is a relatively late shield so could represent Alexander's army during his later years or that of Diadochi.

 Perry's Sudanese Tribesmen painted as Psiloi

These guys are standard, I've only added hats from ImmortalMiniatures/Warlord's Classical hoplites sprues. No washes on those yet so they look a bit plain.

Wargames Factory's Late Achaemenid Persians 

 This is the first try I tried to give infantry bowstrings and it turned out to be really easy- take broom bristle, dap both ends of the bow in some superglue and stick the bristle on. When dry clip of the excess bristle and paint over the dry superglue (it usually turns white so you will need to go over it).

Size comparison 

     
  A quick size comparison with Perry, Victrix, Wargames Factory, Victrix and Warlord Games phalangite. As you can see those ranges work very well together and you should be able to create a huge chunk of your Macedonian and Persian army with those.

Size comparisons for Ancients 28mm

 Here are a few comparison shots between Relic, Perry's, WargamesFactory, Warlord Games and  Immortal Miniatures. Some are slightly converted so read the descriptions please.

1. Relic Miniatures- Thracian

2. Perry's - Sudanese Tribesmen with ImmortalMin. hat (psiloi/peltast)

3. Wargames Factory - Hoplite

4. Wargames Factory -  Hoplite with WF Persian head (Takabara/Kardakes)

5. Wargames Factory - Persians

6. Warlord Games - Macedonian Phalangite

7. Immortal Miniatures/Warlord's - Hoplite

8. Warlord Games- Celtic Warrior with ImmortalMin. helmet (Galatian)

9. Warlord Games- Roman Imperial Legionary (scorpion crew)

Hopefully that gives you some ideas as to sizes. The bottom image shows Perry's Sudanese conversions to psiloi. The one above shows that if you want to have some sort of Parthian/ish opponents for Warlord's Imperial Romans... don't, look at the size difference!

Molon labe! - The Spartans

'Come and take them'   

 These are the first five classical Spartans from Immortal Miniatures/Warlord Games I have painted. As you can see from last pictures they all have short hair as otherwise the heads wouldn't fit with the torso (all heads have short hair whereas some torsos have long hair). Therefore for my next five I used green stuff to give them long hair. These are done already, just waited to get painted at the moment.

Progress on the 'Immortal miniatures' hoplites

    This is the progress so far. There are 15 'classical' hoplites on the left (blue shields) from the 'classical hoplites' set set to represent Athenian forces of Peloponnesian War while the 25 hoplites on the right are meant to represent a  the '300' Spartans and 700 Thespians from Thermopolea.


Free-hand shield designs

    I really liked the transfers provided with these miniatures. However after applying them I found that they are quite shiny/reflect light unlike the normal paint. I am not sure if matt varnish would remove that shine but instead I decided to some free-hand designs. Here are two design from the Athenian hoplites.

Cloaks made from the 'Green-stuff'

    This was my first attempt at sculpting with the 'green-stuff'. It is not great but at least something to seperate this figure and add to variety in the phalanx. Below is my second attempt, this one a much shorter, I tried to go for a Thessalian type cloak.

The raised Corynthian helmet

     The Corynthian helmet hides the face of the hoplite so ideally the command figures could have the helmet resting on top of their head like the famous Pericles bust and in fact I set out to have a Pericles miniature that would lead the Athenian phalanx. This helmet option is not provided in the 'Immortal Miniatures' sets so I made my own version by cutting the top of the bare-headed head option and attaching the helmet on top, filling the gaps with green-stuff.

  Here are the results (I quite like the fact I did not use any metallic paints on the Pericles figure except for the spear points):

And another example on a different figure:

   These are just a few simple ideas to make the figures more unique.

Immortal hoplites

So I bought two of those bad boys- a classical and a 'normal' set. It seems that the 'normal set' represents the earlier hoplites such as those of the Persian wars whereas the second is appropriate for Peloponesian wars.

First thoughts:

I was a fan of this time period for a long time but never went into miniwargaming figures and instead stayed with 40k. I found other minis sluggish and ugly but these are perfect as so customizable, a longer review will follow once I get both sets painted up!