ShinRa's Greek Adventures

[ShinRa]

Thanks again everyone!

Quick update on the thureophoroi so far:







The remaining miniatures for the back rank are half painted at the moment. I'm not sure what miniature to use for the leader yet as the supplied one looks a bit out of place to me (he's very general-like, not as dynamic as the regular troopers). I'd also like to make a third rank but the cloaks are in the way! If I do thorakitai though, they definitely need to be three ranks deep.

The Athenian symbol on the standard is a placeholder- this will change to whatever Hellenistic faction I ultimately choose!

Mad Doc Morris, thanks again for your advice. I've since been reading around about the Hellenistic kingdoms. I really fancy painting a pike phalanx (3 such units forming a Hail Caesar division would look awesome!) so I think my options are as follows:

Epirus (does anyone know if Phyrros had thureophoroi?)
Later Achaean League
Sparta of Kleomenies III
Ptolemaic (elephants!)

Can't decide!

[bigredbat]

Love those- beautiful colouring!

[Mad Doc Morris]

Once again I admire your beautiful paintjobs. You've got an eye for colours, and highlighting is spot on.

Re your choices: If you really want to field phalanxes, it boils down to Pyrrhos (or any other successor in mainland Greece) and Ptolemaic Egypt. The phalanx required some kind of levy or militia system by which a great number of men could be called to arms. The state/monarch then also had to cover at least part of their expenses for equipment. Neither the poleis of the Achaean League nor Sparta would have been able to muster and maintain phalangites in sufficient numbers. They could've hired mercenary formations, of course. However, unwieldy phalanxes were generally ill-suited to the kind of warfare that Greek city-states were accustomed to, i.e. raids, seaborne attacks and (short) sieges. Wars within Greece were won by attrition rather than big battles.

Re Pyrrhos' thureophoroi: I guess there's little evidence. If the thureos was adopted from the Celts, it was probably not in use among the Greeks before the Celtic incursion of 279 BC. However, Pyrrhos employed a lot of mercenaries, including Celts, so he might have had 'proto-thureophoroi' in his army, who knows? I wouldn't get too fussy about these things, there's a lot of (mostly) educated guesswork involved.

[matiec]

Excellent stuff will follow your project......i think a lot of people collecting Greeks start because  the development options are almost limitless. Just keep painting.

[ShinRa]

Hi all,

I've finished my Thureophoroi:







Well, except for the banner as their loyalty is still undecided. I'm leaning towards Ptolemaic Egypt of 217BC at the moment, because of the pike phalanx and also because it would be pretty cool to paint elephants!

But the phalanx would come before that, and so I've bought some and painted a test phalangite:



I'm trying to give the army a sense of uniform but with minor variation when you look closer, so various shades of blue and red will appear frequently with purple on more elite units and commanders. Next up will be some Tarentine cavalry, more phalangites, and a decision on loyalty!

[Mad Doc Morris]

Striking colour scheme, I like it a lot. The phalangite looks also quite promising.
Ptolemaic Egypt offers a nice choice of troops, indeed. Really looking forward to what you come up with next.

[affun]

Very nice stuff. I really like the crispness of your paintjobs. And the tones.
Inspirational to say the least! Any chance of a group shot at some point?

[Eric the Shed]

these are gorgeous

[meraklis]

these look wonderful!

do you use transfers for the shields?

[nikko]

Hello, 
Very nice painting !!! Good choice of colours !!!
Nikko

[Melnibonean]

These are lovely.
Great work.