Fumbling my way around the world of Ancients

I decided to opt for Macedonian Phalanx shield designs on my Hypaspists, mainly because I decided that when I get around to adding Greek Mercenaries I want them to have Greek shield designs and to stand out from the Macedonian troops.

I have no idea if this is historically correct, but I kind of like the look of them.

The Hypsapists are elite infantry and fill the gap between the Companion Cavalry and the Sarissa Phalanx.

After that I quickly knocked out a unit of Mercenary Cavalry.  They are actually Greek Cavalry which I figured could forma portion of the Left flank.

To help show them apart from the Companion Cavalry I added a couple of extra colours.

Yellow and Bronze.  The Bronze I used on breast plates and the yellow and I added to some of the clothing and some of the helmets.  I also used red on a few of the helmets too.   None of my Macedonian troops have red or yellow helmets and I figured these little additions would help separate these from the Companion Cavalry.   To add to the effect I also based these a little different.  From what I could find out these fought in a Square formation.

I wasn’t actually able to do a square with the footprint size I wanted to use so instead went for a rectangle.  What do you think?

So my little army is growing and currently looks like this.  I will definitely need to order more figures to complete this army.

So I am crossing the units off as I go.  I am pretty excited to see what the finished army will look like.

Next up I have some Mercenary Infantry to do.   I could do these 4 bases deep too but I kind of like the idea of smaller units to help emphasise how large the Phalanx is.

I still want these smaller units to look like they have a decent amount of men in them though.  I am currently looking at 4 bases each of 6 men, so units of 24 models.

From memory these models are actually Successor Thureophoroi Infantry.  I don’t mind and they add a nice difference in appearance to the other infantry.

I have enough figures to do 2 units of 24 men.  I will probably add some command figures to these because I like how it looks with an obvious leader in the units.

I managed to get some Hypaspists done.   With these I went with 5 models per base to help represent that they fought in a more open order than the Sarissa Phalanx.   They can still form a Phalanx, all be it with shorter spears.

I am not really 100% sure on how to do the shields.   I know they were armed with Greek style large shields but I am not sure on the shield designs.

Should I do them with Greek patterns or should I still do them with similar Patterns to the Sarissa Phalanx?  Please help with this one.

Just a small update as I haven’t managed to get too much done due to work commitments.

First though, a massive thankyou for the Golden Button.  It is very much appreciated and totally unexpected.

I’ve painted up the Companion Cavalry that I have.

I have also added movement trays to my cavalry and ordered some movement trays for my Phalanx.

I did experiment for a while as to how I was going to arrange the models.  It seems that they fought in the wedge formation and this is about as good I could do without having to have a really large base.

The Wargames Foundry painting guide has an excellent article for painting horses and the colours to use for different breeds.  I highly recommend this book.  It came in invaluable when I painted up a Warhammer Bretonnia army several years ago.

So far my army looks like this.  I really should add another two trays of Companion Cavalry but that will require me to order even more figures, so that may have to wait for a little while.

5 blocks of Sarissa armed infantry done, well almost.  I have a standard bearer and a musician left to paint.  All the spear tips to do and of course texture the bases and that will be 320 figures done.

I have decided to stick to 5 units because I have run out of both figures and metal spears.  Also sticking to 5 units should mean my total army frontage will be about 3′ long.   This should leave enough room for some manoeuvring and allow for possible flank attacks.

I used shield decals from Little Big Men Studios

They are great little decals although I did find it easier to peel back and then replace the plastic covering before cutting them out.  This seemed to just loosen the bond enough to allow the plastic covering to be easily removed from each tiny individual disk.

I really like the red shields.  I had to paint the rims and rear of the shields and for this used Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet.  I also added a Hero looking model to the front rank.  I am not sure this would be historically accurate but I liked the model.

For the shield decals with the image of Alexander I used Citadel Xereus Purple to neaten up the edges in the same way I did with the red shields.

I found these particular decals didn’t sit as nicely on the curved shield surface as the other designs did.

So far I am really enjoying this little journey into Ancients.

I am going to keep plodding along with the Macedonian army despite those Elephants in the India army looking very tempting.

This is pretty much what the plan is to work towards.

I know that the table I have is 6′ x 4′ (approximately 183cm x 122cm) and using 15mm figures I can field a larger army, however I still want to leave enough table space to allow some manoeuvring.  Basically I want to avoid two lines walking towards each other.

With the India army including chariots, elephants and cavalry I really want them to be able to come into their own and have room to move.  If I am not careful I could create a situation where the Chariots have no other choice then to perform head on charges.

With each Sarissa Phalanx measuring 8cm across and 8cm deep the centre of my Macedonian army should measure somewhere between 45cm and 54cm across if I leave a 1cm gap between them all.

With that in mind I am envisaging that the entire army will have a facing of roughly twice that.  Approximately 90-108cm or roughly 3 to 4 feet.

I have been steadily smashing through the Sarissa armed troops.  I currently have 3 units done, with the exception of spear tips, basing and shields.

I have enough of the metal spears to do 5 units in total, so 320 men.  I was hoping to do 6 units for a total of 384 men to form the centre of the battle-line.

I guess that will depend on if I can source some more wire spears in the same style as the ones I have already used.

Once I have got the Phalanx finished I am thinking of doing either some Cavalry as a little reward or possibly some Hypaspists.

Hypaspists are an elite selection of  loose formation infantry with shorter spears and larger shields.  A bit more like traditional Greek Hoplites.  They normally formed up on the right on the Phalanx to protect the flank and form a flexible link between the Phalanx and the Companion Cavalry.

Cavalry would probably be Companion Cavalry (Hetairoi) which were the elite heavy cavalry arm of the Macedonian army.  They were an offensive force that made the decisive attack in most of the battles of Alexander the Great.

Just a quick comparison showing my initial idea for a complete unit and my final idea.

Spears tips and shields to be completed.

I’m a fan of keeping thing simple so with these I’m going to go with a 2 or 3 stage painting process after undercoating.

I undercoated the models first with a grey spray undercoat and then a light spray of Games Workshop Wraith Bone.  The Wraith Bone was sprayed from about 45 degrees to give a zenith highlight.  I am not sure its necessary with these figures but for the sake of a couple of minutes extra work I decided to do it anyway.

I then blocked in the base colours in this order;

Flesh with The Army Painter Kobold Skin

Tunics with Citadel Contrast Blood Angels Red

Sarissa Shafts with Citadel Zandri Dust

Boots and Straps with Citadel Gorthor Brown

Bronze Areas with The Army Painter Weapon Bronze

Blue Areas with The Army Painter Crystal Blue

I wasn’t overly careful with blocking in the colours because the next stage was going to be a wash.

I mixed a wash from equal parts

Strong Tone from  The Army Painters Quickshade

Quickshade Wash Mixing Medium from The Army Painter

I felt that strong tone on its own was just a little too dark for figures at this scale and I didn’t really want to go with a lighter shade, just a more diluted shade.

The result was rather mucky looking but I figured adding highlights to a couple of the colours would enhance the miniatures a lot.  Besides the main focus on the figures would probably be the shields once they are done.

I chose to just highlight a couple of colours, the White and the Blue.

White with Wargames Foundry 33C White

Blue with Citadel Lothern Blue

So far I am reasonably happy with the results.  Its a very quick paint scheme and with over 300 Sarissa armed troops to do I think I will appreciate that by the end.

I did a few of the helmets in blue and a some in white to break up the bronze look and because pictures I had seen had helmets in different colours.  I did toy with the idea of doing some in red but ultimately decided to just stick to the 3 colours.