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!

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.

SPQR: The Successors

SPQR: The Successors: Pyrrhus of Epirus (318 - 272 B.C.) "The Red King" Antiochos III. (242 - 187 B.C.) The Great

Note to self: I need these two models!

'The Wars of Alexander's Successors' book review

   There are few things which spurred me to writing this review. First of all I am unable to paint any figures at the moment because some uncle I have never seen in my life decided to visit us and he is currently staying in my room (on the plus side he has been fixing EVERYTHING in out house, from showers, sinks, ponds to garage storage). The second reason is the fact that I got back into playing Rome:Total War mods, namely Roma Surrectum2, Diadochi and newly released Rome Total Realism VII. The last reason is the fact the Vol.2 of this book is out.

   I am going to divide this into good and bad points type review but you may as well know already that I really enjoyed this book.

  The book follows the history of Alexander the Great's successors in a chronological order but also from a perspective of several characters so in a way it repeats its content but adds to it and shows it from a differenct perspective with each chapter. I found this a good solution as at first I may have been confused but after third/fourth character you have a pretty good idea of what state the world was in at the time (if that makes sense).

  The author gives not only the facts (and explains conflicting sources when appropiate) but also goes into motives and thinking behind each decision etc, so we get something of a psychological profile of each diadochi: Seleucos who does not hesitate to take the risk, ruthless Cassander, the somewhat hesitant/cowardly Ptolemy, wise Antipater, the ever loyal son and father-Antigonus and Demetrius etc. This really gets you into the book and you find yourself rooting for or against certain characters. There were certain moments which if put into a historical fiction or a movie would definitly squeeze some tears out (I am mainly thinking of Antigonus and his son Demetrius)

   The question of boring, historical account in this books is, well, out of the question! The turns and twists of fates are numerous, empires won and crumble in epic battles or treacherous assassinations and no character is ever safe from the Moirae. The generals were not afraid to lead from the front either, a number dying in battle while the other portion were often slain in uprising, treachery or by their own army wishing to switch sides. What appealed the most to me was this: imagine the army which conquered half the world and dominated every battle, now imagine these unstoppable forces going against each other, phalanx vs phalanx, hetaroi vs hetaroi, Diadochi vs Diadochi.

  The down point is that the armies were mainly describe in the manner of X no. of Macedonians, X no. of mercs, X no. of cavalry. Battles also somewhat lacked in detailed and more maps should be  included as for some one with little knowledge of this era and its geography the book could prove challenging. On the other hand Vol. 2 of this book(I haven't bought or read it yet) deals with battles and tactics so this criticism is perhaps unfair.

  Overall I recommend this book to the fullest!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wars-Alexanders-Successors-323-Commanders/dp/184415761X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315512174&sr=1-2

Zvezda's 1/72 Macedonian cavalry

This is a slightly smaller scale (1/72) with multiple plastic figures. As I am writing this rather late at night I will just pose pictures and talk about them later so here are some companions with Alexander (Tarantines, Getai and Thracians will follow in another post).

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!