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Author Topic: My Macedonian/Successors project - (9/23 - Scythian Chieftain)  (Read 19652 times)

Offline aktr

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  • Posts: 102
Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #15 on: July 03, 2020, 01:45:11 PM »
they look great

I'm looking at dipping my toe into ancients and I'm considering a Successor army
what do you plan on using for your eastern native troops?

Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #16 on: July 03, 2020, 04:13:28 PM »
they look great

I'm looking at dipping my toe into ancients and I'm considering a Successor army
what do you plan on using for your eastern native troops?

Good question. I don't have any yet, but I was looking at maybe Wargames Atlantic, or I know Victrix will be making some Persians soon that I *think* could probably be used without really converting.
"Nice try, history; better luck next year."

Offline mc_deli

  • Bookworm
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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #17 on: July 04, 2020, 06:35:15 PM »
Yes! Great stuff. Similar here. I could have written your intro, except I started at Xmas and in 15mm. ;)

That is an ace job on those pike and I hope they see many table tops and bring you great victories! Bravo!

Offline Jjonas

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #18 on: July 04, 2020, 07:18:34 PM »
Great start to pump up your army!
Having a 32 figure phalanx is definitely a strong start to your Successor collection. The trousered phalangites are certainly useful for many Early and Later Successor armies. You can plug in some silver shields, or other elites to fill out the collection. Usually phalangites are very interchangeable with few identifying items other than shield designs, and helmet styles, and growing uniformity over time. Trousered phalangites may have been a rare thing, but it is a nice way to delineate your elites from the also rans on the table top.

Length of the pike is another amorphous area as some state the pike got longer and less flexible to use as time wore on. But that is not really too much an issue for models except among the most pedantic. The real issue is strength of the plastic pikes. I had to abort my Warlord Pikes because too much breakage while prepping and priming. It seems my old fumble thumbs cant resist dropping things, *and snap* those pikes come off when they drop five inches. Now I'm afraid if I even look at them sideways they will snap off. So they have sat in the closet awaiting some girding of loins and vast energetic cutting and swapping with metal replacements.

Victrix cavalry are incredibly large compared to normal large 28mm figures. They really dwarf most of my 25-28mm figures from the past. I am close to finishing some, soon. Same problem with the xystons, beautifully detailed but I fear the snapping.
JJonas

Offline WuZhuiQiu

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1198
Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #19 on: July 04, 2020, 08:01:34 PM »
Jeff, writing of trousered phalangites, do you think that, with their sarissa drastically shortened and the addition of oval scuta or thureos, they might work as "imitation legionaries" or, at least, thureophoroi?

Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #20 on: July 04, 2020, 10:10:06 PM »
Great start to pump up your army!
Having a 32 figure phalanx is definitely a strong start to your Successor collection. The trousered phalangites are certainly useful for many Early and Later Successor armies. You can plug in some silver shields, or other elites to fill out the collection. Usually phalangites are very interchangeable with few identifying items other than shield designs, and helmet styles, and growing uniformity over time. Trousered phalangites may have been a rare thing, but it is a nice way to delineate your elites from the also rans on the table top.

Length of the pike is another amorphous area as some state the pike got longer and less flexible to use as time wore on. But that is not really too much an issue for models except among the most pedantic. The real issue is strength of the plastic pikes. I had to abort my Warlord Pikes because too much breakage while prepping and priming. It seems my old fumble thumbs cant resist dropping things, *and snap* those pikes come off when they drop five inches. Now I'm afraid if I even look at them sideways they will snap off. So they have sat in the closet awaiting some girding of loins and vast energetic cutting and swapping with metal replacements.

Victrix cavalry are incredibly large compared to normal large 28mm figures. They really dwarf most of my 25-28mm figures from the past. I am close to finishing some, soon. Same problem with the xystons, beautifully detailed but I fear the snapping.

Thanks, Jeff! Yeah I do agree that the sarissas on the plastics do seem a little brittle; I think I broke three or four just in the time I was working on these! But otherwise I love how they look. Maybe given a long enough time frame I'll replace them with metal at some point...
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 02:48:44 PM by Fremitus Borealis »

Offline AdamPHayes

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 600
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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #21 on: July 05, 2020, 07:23:58 PM »
Jeff, writing of trousered phalangites, do you think that, with their sarissa drastically shortened and the addition of oval scuta or thureos, they might work as "imitation legionaries" or, at least, thureophoroi?

I did much the same with Victrix Theban hoplites and I think they look very feasible. I cannot think of an example of trousered thureophoroi but they would probably be interpreted as Galatians if they did exist...

Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #22 on: July 05, 2020, 07:55:56 PM »
I did much the same with Victrix Theban hoplites and I think they look very feasible. I cannot think of an example of trousered thureophoroi but they would probably be interpreted as Galatians if they did exist...

The way I kinda look at it is also...how many examples of *non*trousered thureophoroi do we have, ya know? We have to remember that when dealing with the ancient world, any evidence we have is only a fraction of what originally existed. So given the length of time of the Successor period, it seems unlikely to me that there wouldn't have been at least a few units of what look like us like thureophoroi, but with trousers on.

That said, I'm new enough to the hobby that I personally can't speak for the reactions of one's wargaming opponents to any..."unexpected" looking units on the table  :D

Offline Jjonas

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 421
  • Ancient Modeler
    • Ancient Hellenistic Battles mostly
Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #23 on: July 05, 2020, 09:58:50 PM »
Jeff, writing of trousered phalangites, do you think that, with their sarissa drastically shortened and the addition of oval scuta or thureos, they might work as "imitation legionaries" or, at least, thureophoroi?

One thing that I have not commonly seen is an armored thureos user with linen thorax armor. In fact one needs to do a very deep dive to find anything close. Our evidence of thorakites seems to point to mail armor more than corselets. However in the Montvert "The Ptolemaic Army" by Nick Sekunda, there are some tantalizing references to thureos users with linen style armor. Figures 85-86 and 91-92 have linen style corselets. However neither have trousers.

As for trouser wearers we have little to go on. For the answer to this specific question- "Could I use these models as Pontic thorakites" I would say ok why not, with the caveat of "who knows" (did the Pontics have thorakites? LOL). Same for imitation legions, although I would be less cheerful about that.  It all doesn't matter much with Pontic or Galatian troops since they were not all that effective against real legions (except for the trained and drilled cohorts that came later, and probably had legionary gear). However there are references to Romans looking the same as Pontics- so that's a clue.

For the tabletop one can smudge a bit, as I often say. It is better if the units look the part even if one cannot formulate an exact reference. For instance the 1st Corps Ptolemaic machimoi models are very colorful- half Egyptian half Macedonian in style. In reality they were given state equipment so they most likely looked pretty much like regular phalangites with whatever peculiarities that Ptolemaic provisioners would provide.  On the game table though it works better to have them look the part - since it does not alter the stats. Often I defer to looking the part and knowing it might me wrong, over tending toward a 'reality' that is out of grasp.

I think one must take sources and important info such as presented in The Monverts above and AMPW by Duncan Head as the baseline of high probability of 'reality' and then we will have fill in with color and other attributes that suit our table army since not all gaps in our information can be resolved.

Trousered phalangites- there isn't any reliable exact info, but it solves the who is who issue on the table.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 10:04:49 PM by Jjonas »

Offline Easy E

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1928
  • Just some guy who does stuff
    • Blood and Spectacles
Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #24 on: July 06, 2020, 08:11:25 PM »
Yeah, I just use shield color to differentiate my Phalanx units..... modeling the guys with trousers means I have to cut off too many legs. 

What do I look like, a surgeon? 

Edit: I am specifically referencing the Victrix phalangites.
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Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #25 on: July 06, 2020, 08:50:34 PM »
Yeah, I just use shield color to differentiate my Phalanx units..... modeling the guys with trousers means I have to cut off too many legs. 

What do I look like, a surgeon? 

Edit: I am specifically referencing the Victrix phalangites.

 lol

I hear you, though I didn't mind much. I like the customizable angle, I guess.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2020, 08:56:25 PM by Fremitus Borealis »

Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #26 on: July 06, 2020, 09:03:30 PM »
Oh speaking of thorakitai, I forgot to post that I recently touched up the basing on a unit from Warlord (I think these are technically for SPQR?) that I had "finished" a while before the phalanx unit in post #1. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I guess no one's ever completely happy with their own work.

Actually, I think a bigger thing for me is it just doesn't look like there are "enough" of them in the unit. I'm still learning when it comes to unit width, numbers of models, basing, etc. Maybe someday I'll get more to help fill it out?

Offline Atheling

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #27 on: July 06, 2020, 10:04:36 PM »
Fab  8)

Offline FierceKitty

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  • Posts: 1718
Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #28 on: July 07, 2020, 02:09:03 AM »
Oh speaking of thorakitai, I forgot to post that I recently touched up the basing on a unit from Warlord (I think these are technically for SPQR?) that I had "finished" a while before the phalanx unit in post #1. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I guess no one's ever completely happy with their own work.

Actually, I think a bigger thing for me is it just doesn't look like there are "enough" of them in the unit. I'm still learning when it comes to unit width, numbers of models, basing, etc. Maybe someday I'll get more to help fill it out?

They look pretty good, whatever the numbers.
The laws of probability do not apply to my dice in wargames or to my finesses in bridge.

Offline Fremitus Borealis

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Re: My Macedonian/Successors project
« Reply #29 on: July 13, 2020, 12:16:06 PM »
They look pretty good, whatever the numbers.

Thanks 😁

I should be sharing some Victrix heavy cavalry in the next couple days. The poor horsies look a little crowded on the movement tray though, so I may have to fix that somehow.

 

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