| I have a few Warrior cavalry, just about enough to do a couple of bases... |
| Not bad, though spears would have been better if replaced - they aren't good. Horse legs a bit iffy - tried bending them back into shape a bit. Design of the horses is pretty reasonable though. |
| Bought this lot about three years ago - finally getting round to refurbishing the pikes... |
| The first lot of 48. Actually 47 because I miscounted... one of the rear bases only has 3 figures at the moment. Correcting that mistake by painting an extra figure to the next unit... |
| There are two different poses - this is the front rank pikeman (not going to call them phalangites!) |
| And these are the back rank figures. |
| There's also an officer (acquired separately) hidden there somewhere. This photo gives an idea of how crude the figures are, as well as the fact they don't fit very well on DBX bases! |
| Still got a lot more hoplites to get out of my system. |
| This lot being more of my late hoplites. |
| This lot had been sitting around undercoated for ages, so it seemed reasonable to get round to painting them. |
| Usual paint job, though I have gone back to black outline on things like reins - haven't been doing that recently. |
| I've also kept up the plain basing rather than on a textured background. Much easier to do... |
As an aside/update - I've mentioned that I put in a trial order from Black Tree on the 6th, 10 days ago. Haven't heard anything back from them yet, so couple of days ago sent ant an email 'Is there an ETA for these?' - so far no reply. Normally I wouldn't have done this, it's just that this is a test order and I admit I'm testing them to a degree so...
| These two units are a bit of an oddity. All the slingers and javelinmen I have other than these are either Garrison or PB figures! These are basically odd figures acquired with other figures/purchases. Harry, Charles Grant and Harry all had Garrison light javelins and slings; Harry and I had PB javelins and slings in our Macedonian armies. |
| The slingers aren't all 'S' Range though. Some are PB. |
| One thing about 'S' Range is that there were usually a least two variants. The front two figures are both 'S' Range A.Gr.9s - according to the catalogue it's supposed to be equipped with a shield like the middle figure - but the front figure has the code engraved on the upper surface of the base. The figure at the back is a PB figure. |
| These figures are a bit strange. There is no light javelin listed, just 'Greek Peltast (Medium Infantry) Charging.' So I assume that this figure is the 'medium' peltast! |
| Again, two variations. In true Minifigs tradition, one of the these with spear held vertically was obtained by me in the 70s directly from Minifigs. It was in that order I've previously mentioned when an order for some Egyptians came with five different figures... so it could be a weird Egyptian figure with crescent shield :) |
Hard to believe that it was in 2014 that I acquired Harry Pearson's figures. The purchase included 70 Greek slingers, G10, some of which I've just gotten round to basing. Plus some peltasts I bought on ebay a while back.
| G10, Greek slingers. 36 of them, a bit over half the ones I got from Harry. |
| They aren't in Harry's painting style so I assume he originally bought them like this. |
| These peltasts came in with a load of early Warrior figures that I bought very cheaply. |
| Lousy paint job, but being a choice of basing them as they were or redoing the lot I decided to just base them! |
I already have one unit of this figure though not tied directly to Sparta.
| Although I already have several hundred Greek light javelins, they are all shiekded, so these two units should prove to be very useful in future. |
At least, the markings on the base say they are G4s - but G4 is supposed to be 'Greek phalanx spearman receiving cavalry'. On the other hand, codes appear to have been more a case of optional ids amongst early Minifigs - there seem to have been a lot more Greek hoplite types than the catalogue suggested, often with the same code!
| Anyway, as I said these figures were already half painted. I have to admit that although the figures are very basic I quite like them. |
Trouble with these, takes a long time to paint a full size unit...
| Also, tetrion ran out for bases - got another pot but ran out of paint to colour it... so will simply not base these until I get some more. |
| Looks like the officers plume still has a bit of bronze paint on it - not noticeable on the table so I'll not worry about it. |
| Went for a geometric pattern that is based on one of my earliest designs. Actually, was originally going to do that design, reached this stage and decided it looked better! |
| This is the pattern they were based on - the figures at the front are 'S' Range survivors of my first Greek hoplite unit painted around 1970 -1971 in my then University colours! The unit at the back is a unit of Garrison G18 I painted a few years ago. |
... or a Greek version of the Sambre from The Ancient War Game...
If Dascyleum, 700 hoplites from a Spartan army were out foraging in Asia Minor - the Spartans under Agesilaus had invaded - when they ambushed by the Persian Pharnabazus with 2 scythed chariots and 400 cavalry. The Spartans lost about 100 men before the rest of the army intervened and drove the Persians off!
Basic DBX rules used but a couple of changes. Persian cavalry used as Knights rather than Cavalry - it's basically a cavalry charge so Knight fits the use better.In combat, - 1 if disorganised, for example, they are foraging and spread out or just surprised. Dice roll of 4-6 for them to get organised. Infantry 6" move, cavalry and chariots 12".
| The Greeks are out foraging with the main camp some distance off table to the left. Spread out, wandering in all directions (OK, very unforage-like behaviour but..), inbetween a river and some lightly wooded hills. |
| And behind those low hills, watching and waiting... |
| A mad charge catches the Greeks completly unawares! |
| And the Persians lose a chariot! On the other hand, the Greeks lose 5 elements! |
| The Persian charge continues, cutting down more Greeks. |
| As the Greeks start to get better organised some of them start heading back to the camp to get help. |
| The Greeks nearest the camp even manage to catch some of the Persian cavalry and destroy them. The Spartan high command would probably be a bit irritated that one of the elements doing the damage seem to be Theban mercenaries! |
| At that point the Persians called it a day and left. The casualty count was very much in their favour - took out 15 Greek elements for the loss of 1 chariot and 2 cavalry elements. |
Although it looks like a total rout (OK, it was) the combats were usually quite close, even with the Persians having advantages like starting off uphill, Greeks usually getting -1 for being disorganised and Persians having an overlap.The main advantage the Persians had was making the Persian cavalry Kn. Many combats were won by 1 or 2 but Kn against Sp give an immediate kill then - Cv don't have that effect. Hadn't realized that until after the first combat!
Overall, fast and furious fun game. Enjoyed it.
Having cleared away Newhaven and having all those hoplites I've painted this year lying around I thought: let's have a Garrison Hoplite Review...
| I originally planned to leave spaces between the units but couldn't get them all the picture. |
| There are slightly more than 1,000 of them, but who's counting? |
| With the exception of some of the Spartans and Thebans the front 6 ranks are all G3, next 6 ranks the cavalry conversion. Back ranks are various other Garrison hoplites - I haven't used any of my Minifigs hoplites in this Review, they are all Garrison. |
| The original set up didn't include my Asiatic Greek hoplites but left me a bit under 100 figures short for the full 1,000... so I thought 'why not?' |
OK, so that would suit one target - I can field 1,000 Garrison hoplites; what next? Probably 500 each of G3 and cavalry conversion (must give it a code!)... so that would leave me another 400 figures or so to paint. Perhaps that would make a good 2021 target? Can't see me managing it though!
Continuing with the 'big' units, this early hoplite regiment took twice as long to paint as the Late unit because of all that armour.
| Basically scale armour and a white horse head on red background shield blazon. |
| It's a while since I've painted armour as scale - I used silver paint instead of steel because it shows up better. |
| I think the best I can say about the horse head blazons is that quality of the artwork is 'variable'! |
| Not exactly a Review, but having painted two full size (48-52 figure) units since the last Review, plus increasing the size of another from 24 to 48 figures, it seemed like a good time to put them together for a photoshoot. |
| Realistically the side view looks better. Note that there is another G3 unit in use as Carians so not here. |
| Shouldn't miss out the late hoplites - likewise, 2 48 strong units completed this year. Probably best to look at the box on the right as National/City contingents, the left box Mercenary regiments. Roughly 300 figures |
So between the two blocks a bit under 600 hoplites.
The early hoplites include a 48 strong unit, for the late hoplites I went for a full size unit from the start - though actually did a few too many.
| Which means I can field two 28 figure units! |
| Nothing else to say about them really, other than I painted full tunics on the musicians. |
And the next 48 figure early hoplite unit has been undercoated...
'Bycatch' is the term used in the fishing industry for any fish caught that don't belong to the target species. In this case the target species on the mould were early and late Greek hoplites, the bycatch included this lot. Only one on the mould, but they cast well and I'm doing a lot of hoplites.
| This conversion started life as artillery crew. Simply gave them a javelin to throw. |
| I've just painted them with a plain white tunic but they should really have a (goatskin?) wrap on top. |
| I feel that I should do a few of these units, for example as early Spartan helots. |