Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of Myths, Gods and Empires => Topic started by: Sinewgrab on February 18, 2021, 02:17:49 AM
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So, my friends and I are starting to play Men in Bronze, and while they have gone with Athens, Sparta, and Thebes respectively...I am wavering between Corinth and Argos.
More importantly though, I am finding my Google-Fu failing miserably when it comes to painting guides for Ancient Greeks.
Anyone care to point me in the right direction?
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Duncan Head.
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For inspirational visuals look for Peter Connolly illustrations.
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I think wargames Foundry have some on their page.
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Hi, yes Wargames Foundry have painted examples of their figures on their website. There are also several Osprey books on the ancient Greeks which have excellent colour plates. Peter Connolly is another good call but not sure if still in print.
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This book is a good place to start, for illustrations of different city states and options.
The best place to look for shield design ideas is to check out ancient coins websites. You will find that the Pegasus is a common Corinthian theme. The Argives used the Octopus as a symbol, and the snake as seen on the cover.
https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greeks-Elite-Nicholas-Sekunda/dp/085045686X
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Beautiful. That gives me some help.
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Sinewgrab, Osprey also produce "Greek Hoplite" in their Warrior series ( no 27). Unless you really like painting complex shield designs, I would also recommend you buy Little Big Men Studios (LBMS) shield decals as these really finish off the figures superbly. He produces decals specifically for a lot of manufacturers . Other decals are available and are often sold my the figure vendor.
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I have to plug my stuff here :).
Another way to make really nice Greek shield symbols is to do them yourself. I often find the commercially available ones to be too over the top, too cartoony for my tastes. This way I can do my own research, and can have as many of own design as I need for a unit.
There is a process for making your own transfers if you have a decent inkjet printer. They are not as high resolution, and do not have white ink backing like commercial decals- but that is often something I want with Greek symbols.
Spartan shield decals:
https://ancientbattles.com/HeroesOfGreece/AncientBattles_Homebrew_Transfers.html
https://ancientbattles.com/HeroesOfGreece/Spartan_shields.html
Agrianian faux ribbed shield decals:
https://ancientbattles.com/Agrianians/Agrianians_AncientBattles.html
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There's a few decent tutorials from the old Wargames Soldiers and Strategy youtube channel...
Unfortunately, it seems that the channel is now dead for a couple years, but the tutorials are still good
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I second the Little Big Man Studios transfers. They are dead easy to use and really help the final model POP.
Thanks for picking up Men of Bronze!
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You're welcome.
And thank you everyone for the ideas and assistance. I was out of my depths going this far back in history.
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If you read through Jeff’s amazing site (AncientBattles.com) you’ll learn a lot!
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Another plug for Jeff's website and shield-making guide, here :) I've made a few myself using the process and it works quite nicely! The main drawback is there's a lot of "up-front" work to get it working; it took me forever to figure out how to set them up on a page, and there is occasionally a weird issue where some of them will just straight up disappear from the page after hitting "print" (a known issue; sometimes transforming to .pdf first works). Anyway, I've had a massive slowdown on the mini-front the past couple of months so my own shield-making is on hiatus, but I agree that there's something extra cool about seeing designs you actually made yourself on your minis! (Especially if like me you can't paint designs to save your life lol )
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This might be of use:
https://www.warlordgames.com/painting-greek-hoplites/ (https://www.warlordgames.com/painting-greek-hoplites/)
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Here is a specific page that has the base steps of how to start with Hoplites:
https://ancientbattles.com/merc_hoplites/merc_greeks.htm
(Thanks for all the support!)
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I prefer the simpler silhouette style shield pattern as it just feels more realistic.
I use the Veni Vidi Vici ones
http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/upshop/shop/hellenistic25mm.html
available in a variety of colours.
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Here's another useful link for shield patterns. Lots of other good stuff on Luke's pages too.
http://lukeuedasarson.com/Greek_shield_patterns_1.html (http://lukeuedasarson.com/Greek_shield_patterns_1.html)