Magna Grecia Peltasts - Agema conversion

Those are the peltasts I made by converting Agema Miniatures' Roman Velites. I used scabbards, swords and shields from Wargames Factory sets (Amazons, Skeletons and Persians), head swaps from Warlord Games/Immortal Miniatures Classical Greek sets and adding steel pin javelins as well as some green stuff here and there.

I really like this set from Agema miniatures, they are very nice in terms of anatomy and scale, they are on the thin side as far as bulkiness which for my taste is a good thing. The hand throwing the javelins is particulary cool as the hand and fingers are set in a throwing pose so rather than just gripping the whole javelin in a closed fist the figure looks more realistic.

As far as historical accuracy I figured that by calling them 'Magna Grecia' peltasts I will be able to get away with having some Roman heads, clothing in there as well as daggers to show the Roman influence.

 Magna Grecia peltasts 8/16 (D)

The shields that originally came with velites will also not go to waste, with a bit of greenstuffing they will make some good Tarantine shields and thus effectively converting my Macedonian cavalry into Tarantines. So that means the only thing I did not get to use from this set are the wolf pelt heads but with both Agema and Victrix gearing up to release Republican Roman sets I might just be tempted into starting another army.....

Galatian mercenaries

   These are the Galatian mercenaries for my Hellenic armies. I've made them using Warlord Games' Celtic Warrior (which I got from the Conquest of Gaul starter set). I converted a few of those by giving them the hoplite helmets from Classical Greek Hoplites set (Warlord/Immortal Miniatures) to set them apart from the European Celts.

   I decided to use only bare-chested models for this because that is the way they were represented in Ancient Warfare Magazine as well as in Nick Sekunda's book on Ptolemaic army. The shield design also comes from those. I suspect such uniform design was a later development which would make it suitable for representing them from around 250/200BC. On the other hand my helmet swaps are 50/100 years older/earlier but I decided not to worry about that too much- I just wanted to give them a bit of Hellenic flavor. I could not be bothered to do all of their trousers in the criss-cross fashion so a lot of them received 'Asterix and Obelix' pants, not sure how(if at all) historically accurate those are either. 


    I tried to make each figure unique so no two are identical. I've done this by either using different poses, shield variation, facial hair colours, trousers or helmet paint job. Check all 9 of them below (in the front rank):

 

 The guy on the right is holding his scabbard as well as his shield.

 

 

 This guy was bending down in previous photo so here is a pic which shows his face.

   I was relieved to find that they actually rank up very well. I remember people complaining that their dynamic poses meant putting them in ranks is difficult but I found it pretty easy. You can see the evidence below:

Historical background

   After Alexander the Great's death his generals (known as Diadochi) fought for control over his domain. After long and bloody struggle only two major names still stood- the Seleucus and Ptolemy I. Ptolemy would go on to die peacefully but he chose his second son to succeed him so that his eldest son- Ptolemy Keraunos (thunderbolt) decided to seek his fortunes elsewhere. He joined Seleucus who after series of conflicts came out on top of the Diadochi wars after he killed Lysimachus(in control of the Thrace region) only to be assassinated by Ptolemy Keraunos afterwards. 

  Although thanks to this Ptolemy Keraunos gained the Macedonian throne his timing could not have been any worse. With the collapse of Thracian kingdom Lysimachus helped build the flood gates have opened for Celtic migration South. Those Celts attacked and pillaged Thrace, Macedon and Greece- killing and(!) beheading Ptolemy Keraunos in the process (279BC).

   

   The Celts were known as great warriors and due to great numbers they were widely and cheaply available fighting troops (fact exploited by Pyrrhus of Epirus when he returned from his Italian expedition to tackle Macedon). The Gauls were finally defeated two years later in 277 by Antigonus II Gonatas (grandson of Diadochi general Antigonus 'One-eyed').

   Afterwards they migrated to Anatolia in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and became known as Galatians. Although over the years they became more 'civilized' and less war-like those among them who chose the mercenary life have retained their superior traits and were highly valued, mostly used by Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms.

  Below are some of the pictures I have found of Galatians and blue cloaks with white shields with blue stripes is a recurring theme:

 Galatian mercenary in Egypt.

 Galatians in Ptolemaic parade.

 Galatians in battle (on the right).

 Galatian mercenary on the right.

Galatian mercenary in blue cloak.

 Late Galatian mercenary (around 150 BC).

   

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!

Loot from the Eastern Front Game Show

   So below is the 'loot' I got from Norwich's Eastern Front Show. The Highlight is the Lord Of the Rings book which I got for a staggering price of £2. I got some WFactory WW2 Germans for my little brother, Hail Caesar starter set (~90 miniatures with the rulebook), some sand, Greek blisters,  Slingshot and Ancient Warfare Magazine issues as well as Society of Ancients membership (comes with handy 10% discount for a lot of wargaming companies, including Warlord Games) and last but not least some Foundry Macedonian Companions (12 for £25!).  

 Ancient Warfare Magazine is a historical magazine with a few wargaming adverts and 1-2 pages of miniatures review whereas slingshot is wargaming magazine with historical discussions. On the other hand Ancient Warfare Magazine has more illustrations and in general is of better quality (but more expensive!).

The starter set with full colour, hardcover rulebook

 and about 90 miniatures, all for £60.

And the 12 Foundry Companions below.

Batch of Macedonian Phalangites done (ish)!

      Those are 12 (out of 40) Warlord Games phalangites I just painted up. I decided to base them on thin plastic Rendra bases while my Immortal Miniatures will be based on thicker bases so that their heights roughly match. Though there is sand on the bases I am still going to add some foliage/greenery at some point.

    First two pictures are the four deep rank I am going to have the unit in while the third picture shows the guys in the back ranks. In the last pictures you can see helmet variations. To make sure this is not an army of clones I put in some extra work there, particularly the last guy on the right where I tried to give him that laurel wreath made gold, not sure whether you can tell though!

 

 

Up next will be Sudanese Tribesmen (still in the mail, use as Thracians with some conversions) and Warlord's Celts (converted to Galatians) which I am going to pick up from Norwich's Eastern Front game show along with Hail Caesar rulebook this Sunday!

Another batch of phalangites

These are the four test minis I've done already:

And this is the batch I am in the middle of:

Wargames Factory Persians WIP

So with the crazy discounts on Persian sprues I started a Persian army which I am going to use as army of Darius to fight Alexander and possibly later as some levies for Diadochi armies too (I'm thinking Seleucid). So far I've put few archers together and greenstuffed the shoulders so there is no crack where the arms and heads are attached.

First four Macedonian Phalangites

    I have made attempts at plastic phalanx before but I in the 1/72 scale with Zvezda's Macedonian Phalanx. However the sarissa was too flimsy and I was somewhat discouraged. Then I discovered these in 28mm scale and I knew I had to get some!

  There are only four poses but really to represent the phalanx it is more than enough. However I was disappointed that there was no pose where the sarissa can be positioned parallel to the ground (ei. what the first rank would do). These are slightly chunkier than the hoplites I have been doing so far but I think that I can swap heads from both sets easily enough.

  Each sprue allows four of these to be built so this is a test sprue run. There is a selection of 6 helmets on each and 6 sarissa poses (the two additional not shown have the Macedonians hold the sarissa by the buttspike). With 40 total that gives 10 sprues plus transfers. I went with white colour-scheme for the armour, yellow for pteruges detail and red for clothing. Though metal parts are gold I went with bronze (Chalkaspides-Bronze shields) (Citadel's Brazen Brass) to give them the standard rank-n-file look rather than make them look lite the elite phalanx (such as argyraspides which Warlord Games has a separate metal set for).

  I plan to use them in multiple armies, from Alexander to Pyrrhus to Diadochi up to Seleucids. Overall I am very happy with the detail and sculpt of these guys. Once I get all of my hoplites and these guys out of the way I can start getting some cavalry!

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.