We are SPARTANS! or maybe Greeks!

Start a blog.  Get famous, see the world.  Work from home and get rich.

Yeah, I never heard any of that.  Instead I struggle in my little corner of the gaming world just to think of things to write about (I do wonder if going twice a week was a good idea about - well not quite twice a week).

I have gotten excited a couple of times when I've been contacted by people asking me to review their stuff, in exchange for a complementary (yeah freebies) copy of said stuff (it is hard to review something that you don't have).  A win-win for both parties.  I even started a page to give my sponsors a shout out.

You notice there is no link to such a page.  For all the offers (and I won't mention names / specifics) that were, well offered, I have yet to get a review copy of anything.

But all is not lost.  Apparently I have some very generous fans.  Well ONE very generous fan. George Bokisa is a former Warhammer Fantasy Battle player (aren't all of us who once played that game now 'former players'?  How many people still play WFB) who went the 9th age route (instead of Kings of War) when GW exploded the old world.  (Ohio seems to be a major epi-center for T9A here in the us - makes it frustrating for me when I see all the players in the south and struggle to get them here) (but I digress (I know, that is so unlike me)).

ANYWAY, George contacted me on ye olde book of face, saying he liked my blog and had a bunch of greeks that he was never going to use, and offered to send them to me, and refused any compensation.

top box

So the other day I had a big overnight box full of STUFF.

A big box full of STUFF

What stuff?  Well I did an inventory, and now have

3 Boxes of Hoplites (with 12, 30, 21 bodies each)
These are from Immortal miniatures - a company I was not familiar with.

bottom box

The box comes with water transfers for the shields for greeks.  Each sheet (I have one) has 50 transfers, so you can make your hoplites as individual as you like.

Shield transfers (the picture makes it really hard to see the white ones)

I'll be honest, I'm not a student of history.  This actually makes Kings of War Historical a good rule set for me, as it is more hollywood history than real history.  But then my knowledge of Spartans comes from '300', and of Romans from 'Gladiator'.

What I do like is each box came with a booklet talking about the real history of the unit.  The arms, armor and ages when each were used.  It did reassure me that Spartans did use Hoplites - at least according to the booklet :-).  It also has a historical color guide as well.

Cover

inside - and it talks about the Spartan Hoplites right there!

middle

inside

back cover, with paint guide

Each box has a command sprue, which had two bodies and all the parts to make leader models.  Cast by Renedra, they are of great quality.  (I only have 2 bodies, but that is enough!)

Front of Hoplite sprue

Back of Hoplite sprue

Then each box has four of the troop sprues - each one has eight models.  Two of them have no armor, one had brass armor, and the rest all have linen armor (I have never before heard of linen armor - we all learn things).

Hoplite troop sprue front

Hoplite troop sprue back

3 Ancient sprues (12 unarmored bodies)

These are from wargames factory.  They are all unarmored models, with a huge variety of arms for the four bodies.  I find it interesting that these sprues only are bodies and arms - which, when it comes down to it, are the most generic parts of the soldiers for the area.  The idea (I assume) is that they can reuse the same bodies and arms for any ancient army, then add a specific sprue of weapons, heads and shields for each specific army (as that is the true difference).

Ancients sprue front

Ancients sprue back

14 Numidian Sprues (shields, archer arms, slings, spears, heads).  These sprues even have some command (musician, standard bearer) bits, as well as slings and bows, which is what I'm interested in.  And the heads of course.  The spears and shields are not what I am looking for (the shields are too small, the spear heads aren't right), but I shouldn't need them.

Numedian Sprue front

Numedian Sprue back

A handful of arms (some metal) and bodies.  Except for the bodies, I didn't really do a count of these, but figure I can use at least some of them.

scattered bits

Lastly a Dark Age Warriors sprue - which doesn't fit these (why - because they are all wearing pants and have shoes), but should work very well as war machine crews for other armies.

Dark Age warriors sprue front

Dark age warriors sprue back

I went through all the bodies on and off sprues, and came up with the following counts

• 36 Linen armor
• 16 Brass armor
• 21 Unarmored
• 2 Leaders

I looked through the historical book, and then entered a couple of lists on easyarmy.  The lists are nearly identical - but then Sparta was actually a greek city/state - so it makes sense that armies from the same time and similar areas should be similar.

Greeks (995 pts)

• 18 Linen - Regiment Heavy Spearmen w/headstrong  (Hoplights) 185
• 18 Linen - Regiment Heavy Spearmen w/headstrong (Hoplights) 185
• 16 Brass armor -Sacred Band of Thebes 210
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of skirmishers w/bow upgrade 90
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of skirmishers w/bow upgrade 90
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of slingers 65
• 1 Leader - Epaminodas[1] 170

Spartans (1000 pts)

• 18 Linen - Regiment Heavy Spearmen w/headstrong & elite  (Hoplights) 200
• 18 Linen - Regiment Heavy Spearmen w/headstrong & elite (Hoplights) 200
• 16 Brass armor - Spartan Royal Guard 210
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of skirmishers w/bow upgrade 90
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of slingers 65
• 7 Unarmored - Troop of slingers 65
• 1 Leader - King[2] 170

When it comes down to it, I think I have to go with being able to yell "This is SPARTA!" when demoing with this army. :-)

Unfortunately I don't quite have time right now to put these together - but they are definitely in the queue, and I may push to have them ready for Origins.

The box, repacked showing all the sprue-age

I want to once again give a big thanks to George for being so generous, and even though he didn't want any compensation for all these models - well I sent him an Ohio War Kings messenger bag anyway.

Exclusive Ohio War Kings messenger bag

Because it is all fun and games . . .