Painting Hellenistic Pikemen Rank and File

Just a quick painting guide for my Seleucid Phalangites. I try to keep things as simple as possible and I depend a lot on the science of the washes to provide the main shading with only a basic highlight of the original colour. Also its a handy future reference for my future pike blocks I have found quite often that I come back to a project and think "how did I do these last time!?". Using a white undercoat was something I had not done since I first started painting in the mid to late 90's. I have become a fan of the Army painter spray paints an basically use the methods from their painting guides the main being undercoating in the dominant or main colour.

Base/undercoat: Army Painter white spray paint

Base colours

Flesh: GW Tallarn Flesh
Tunics: GW Enchanted Blue (thinned down a bit over the white gave them a bit of shading also)
Straps, scabard & sarissa: dark brown
Helmet & greaves: VJ Brass
Sandles: mid/light brown

Washes:

Linothorax: watered down GW Mud wash over the white undercoat
Everywhere else: GW Mud wash

Highlights

Face: GW Elf Flesh
Tunics: GW Enchanted Blue
Straps & scabards: GW Vermin Brown
Sarissa: GW Snakebite Leather in thin varied length lines
Helmet & greaves: VJ Old Gold

Sarissa and Shield

Tip and butt: Black basecoat, GW Chainmail for tip and VJ Brass for butt
Back of push pin shield: GW Vermin Brown

Hat and Newline Designs comparison pics

A few older comparisons I did a few years ago and posted on the "1/72 Ancients" yahoo group:

 

Painting Samnite Infantry

Roughly how I painted Italian Allied Legionaries:

• Base coat with GW Tallern Flesh. 
• Paint tunics various colours.
• Paint armour, helmets, standard with VJ Brass.
• Paint spear shafts Bronzed Flesh.
• Paint Feathers black.
• Paint leader's cloak with dark grey.

• Apply GW Delvan Mud Wash.
• Highlight skin with GW Tallern Flesh (face with GW Elf Flesh).
• Highlight tunics with original colours.
• Highlight armour, helmet and standard with VJ Old Gold.
• Apply GW Flesh Wash to spear shafts.
• Dry brush leader's cloak light grey.
• Base coat spear tips and swords black, paint with GW Chainmail. 
• Shields, base coat GW Deneb Stone/Bleached Bone/Space Wolves Grey, GW Mud Wash, highlight original colour.
• Shield boss base coat with GW Boltgun Metal, highlight GW Mithril Silver.

Painting Ancient Italian Cavalry

This guide is going to be very simple and mainly to remind me of the general steps I took for Italian Allied Cavalry.

• Undercoat horse and rider with black.
• Base coat rider with GW Tallern Flesh. 
• Base coat horses in various colours.
• Paint rider's tunics and flag various colours.
• Paint Armour VJ Brass.
• Paint reigns, straps spearshafts dark brown.
• Paint Feathers black.
• Paint leader's cloak with dark grey.

• Apply GW Delvan Mud Wash over horse and rider.

• Highlight horses in original base colours (black with GW Granite).
• Dry brush horses' mane and tail with original base colour. 
• Highlight rider's skin with GW Tallern Flesh (face with GW Elf Flesh).
• Highlight rider's tunic and flag with original colour.
• Highlight armour with VJ Old Gold.
• Highlight reigns, straps and spear shafts with light browns.
• Dry brush leader's cloak light grey.
• Base coat spear tips black, paint with GW Chainmail. 
• Metal shields as above, apply transfer, gloss varnish.
• Other shields, base coat GW Deneb Stone, GW Mud Wash, highlight original colour.
• Shield boss base coat with GW Boltgun Metal, highlight GW Mithril Silver.

Hat 1/72 and Newline Designs 20mm Carthaginian Comparisons

I received a request on Benno's Figures Forum, where I posted about my African Mercenaries with the blue shields, about comparison shots between Hat 1/72 figures and the Newline Design 20mm figures. I am popping them here in the workshop for future reference.

I have said before how I collected 1/72 Ancient miniatures initially following army lists in Field of Glory supplements. However I looked into filling blanks at the time with Newline Designs 20mm lines, namely the Thureophoroi and I asked about African Veterans in Roman armour. After receiving the metals I loved them and over the years I have been collecting Newline miniatures with 1/72 plastics as secondary.

Newline miniatures tend to be chunkier than the Hat plastics depending on the sculptor. Earlier Newline miniatures seem noticeably smaller than 1/72 and I think that as quite a lot of people asked Sean at Newline about how close they were to 1/72, later miniatures were made a bit larger and fit better height wise.

Some Hat figures appear to be full of action, mid-slash, running throwing etc. and some of the earlier Hat Ancients have shields cast on which lead to flat looking and sometimes awkward poses. Newline poses tend to be more conservative with most heavy foot either standing or advancing tucked and hunched behind their shield. These factors also accentuate the size difference.

I generally don't mix manufactures on the same base/unit but I would definitely mix within an army. I have seen them mixed within units and I think they mix well when painted and based in a consistent manner.

Some examples I have seen around the web:

20mmgamer.blogspot.co.uk

20mm Gamer

cameronian-onlyagame.blogspot.co.uk

jpwargamingplace.blogspot.co.uk

Painting Libyan, Liby-Phoenician, Carthaginian or African Spearmen etc.

Painting guide for African heavy infantry.

GW = Games Workshop Citadel Colour, VJ = Vallejo.

1. Undercoat with GW Foundation Flesh.
2. Linothorax with GW Foundation Stone.
3. Tunic, crests, cloaks with VJ Red.
4. Straps, scabards, spear, in GW Dark Brown.
5. Metal, helmet, greaves, armour, spearbutt with VJ Brass.
6. Sandles with light brown, hair with black/brown.

 

7.   Whole figure GW Brown Mud Wash.

8.   Highlight Skin with GW Foundation Flesh except face, use GW Elf Flesh.
9.   Highlight linothorax with GW Foundation Stone.
10. Highlight tunic, crests, cloaks with VJ Red.
11. Highlight straps with GW Vermin Brown, scabards, spear with GW Snakebite Leather.
12. Highlight metal helmet, greaves, armour with VJ Old Gold.
13. Speartip, swords with GW Chainmail.



Shields:

1. Undercoat with VJ Light Blue.
2. Wash Front with GW Blue Wash.
3. Paint alongside of spine with GW Ice Blue.
4. Highlight VJ Light Blue.
5. Paint Shield Boss GW Boltgun Metal.
6. Highlight shield boss GW Mithril Silver.
7. Apply transfers.
8. Highlight VJ Red if neccessary.
9. VJ Matt Varnish shield.

Heroics and Ros/Scotia Grendal AFVs

About a month ago I started a TMP discussion asking for opinions on Heroics and Ros/Scotia Grendal AFVs. Generally it seemed that it depended on the sculpt so I decided to get a few of the lines I was interested in and compare them. Below are some quick photos and a very brief overview and some sporadic observations.

 

BMP1s & BMP2s

 

The main thing with the BMP1s are that the Scotia's come with a separate turret. Personally I prefer Scotia's sculpts in this case, although there is not much in it for the BMP2s however the H&R BMP2s are 15p cheaper.



 



 

 

Chieftains and Challenger 1s

 

Between the Chieftains I prefer the H&R sculpt but I suspect the Scotia has the better proportions. The Scotia Challengers are markedly bigger so after consulting a source for dimensions I found that the Scotia to be the more accurate and I prefer the sculpting of the Scotia Challengers.

 



FV43s

Not a great deal between the companies, though there is a trend for Scotia's APCs to be ever so slightly wider than H&Rs. After measuring I found that the SG to be the correct width, both seem correct for length but I'm not too sure what is going on with the top of the SG model. It looks like the top of the hull is sunken? It seems to me that the HR sculpt 'looks right'.

 

 

LVPT & M113

With the M113s as above the SG is the correct proprtions I believe. The LVPTs are both decent sculpts but I'm not sure about the placement of the turret and other proportional details. After Looking a pics around the web I think the SG is closer to what I have been seeing.

 

 

M1 Abrams

Not much difference size wise, though I think the H&R sculpts appear crisper than the Scotia.

 

M2 Bradley

Scotia seems a bit bigger and more detailed. H&R look more to scale but I have not measured these ones.

 

Marder

H&R Marder is to scale whilst the Scotia is too big I reckon its nearly the same size as a MBT.

 

T72

The Scotia minis look a better size and proportion but the H&R are still nice

 

T80

As with the T72s above.

 

Leopard/Gepard

I can only really compare the Leopard 1s, I like the style of the sculpting of the H&R but they are too tall the Scotia have the correct height.

 

 

Challenger 2 & ZSU 23

 

I missed these whilst taking the pictures which is why most of the miniatures are cut off. Challenger 2s as the Challenger 1s above. With the ZSUs, H&R has the best proportions, the turret and the auto cannons are a bit short looking on the Scotia sculpt.

 

I hope others will find this helpful and since I'm not 100% when it comes to what looks right with every vehicle I hope others will point out anything I have missed or have misrepresented.