New Newline Designs - Thorakitai

In June I received some lovely samples of some brand new Newline Designs 20mm Hellenistic Thorakitai. Filling in a much needed troop type in this scale, not only for Newline's comprehensive 20mm Ancients range but for 1/72 in general, those looking for Thorakitai to work along side their plastics will find these useful. Along with the African Veterans which can easily be used as imitation legionaries or more armoured Thorakitai with greaves these brand new Thorakitai represent the line art shown in Duncan Head's classic Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars - showing a thuroes bearing spearman with a mail shirt that lacks the reinforced shoulder yoke. 

When I received these in June they were a much needed tonic, with the way the last year and this year had been going. I immediately cleaned and prepped them. I used bristles to make the spears and the swords - I was aiming for a Kopis like sword. As ever they painted up remarkably easily, undercoated in black then dry brushed in an appropriate metallic, it didn't take too much effort to block in skin, tunic, straps and helmet. I've tried to show some versatility in the two poses offered spearmen, Javelin and sword armed warriors here. 

I was hoping this would prompt a break in the dry spell of painting but so far it has not been the case. The ongoing issues mentioned elsewhere have been very draining and I'd rather get back into painting when i have the time, energy and patients to enjoy it again. Even getting a chance to sort this blog out has been difficult. These are on my Newline shopping list again once I have the opportunity to stock up on these I will be doing so.

So here we have a impromptu diorama of possibly Ptolemaic soldiers moving through an oasis, or along the Nile. Of course are useful for any despotic Hellenistic Dynast. 

Thorakitai Advance

In the dark days before discovering Newline (a long time ago now) I was hunting for thureophoroi, I grabbed a few Hat Thracians that had suitable figures and to get them in strength would leave lots of spares, I needed to secure a source of dedicated thureophoroi. I got hold of some Xyston thureophoroi, sold as 15mm they seemed about 18mm, I contemplated using some creative basing to incorporate them or to simply change to a more common scale of ancients as I  really liked the Xyston miniatures. I then came across the Newline with their comprehensive selection and would be a closer match to the plastics I already had so the Xyston's ended up in a drawer.

What I loved about Xyston's figures was the helmets which were interesting and varied, I thought the size of their heads were roughly the same as Newlines so I thought while I was doing head swap conversions I could create a unique unit of Thorakitai using the Xyston heads and the Newline Designs 20mm African Veterans advancing. I missed the faces on the Newline figures but those heads were used on the Cretan Archers and now I have spares for future conversion ideas. The command figures remained unchanged.

I experimented a bit with the painting, I dry/over brushed the helmets with Vallejo Silver and used Agoras Dunes Contrast paint to give them a bronze tinge this was also applied to the greaves. Its an effective way todo metallics and something to consider for future projects. I also applied Contrasts to the shields again more of an experiment but I'm pleased with their turn out.

I got the railway background out to do some photos so I redid the last thorakitai conversions and attached below. I also got some pictures of  the Moria Goblins finally so that will be a post at some point. I've also had a bit of solo gaming in so once written up there will be some posts on Strength & Honour, Dominion of the Spear and Lost Battles. On the miniatures front I'm preparing some Celtiberians for now but time at the desk is very sporadic and progress slow. I could also pick up some plastic sets that are part built but I'm into ancients currently. I'm wanting to pursue Punic wars campaign so expanding armies for that is a goal as well as expanding armies for Hellenistic states namely Ptolemiac troops for Raphia.     

Thorakitai

 

I'm pleased to get this unit done representing Thorakitai, armoured Thureophoroi essentially, they were a labour love being a head swap conversions. Note if there were to be a dedicated set of 20mm Thorakitai made I would still certainly get them! The Command is the standard Macedonian command figures from Newline Designs 20mm Macedonian range, they just have shields from the Maccabean range. The rank and file troops are the African Veterans standing from the Carthaginian line. I snipped off the metal spears and drilled out the hands, filed the parts that the spear connected to on the tunics to add a replacement bristle spear. This allowed a small bit of variety as the spears can be held at slightly different angles and more bend resistant. The main conversion was the head swap. The heads were procured from the Greek range from mainly the old style Thureophoroi sculpts with clean shaven faces (I believe they have been re-sculpted with beards going off later purchases) also some heads from the newer Hellenistic infantry code. The heads were placed in various positions to give natural variation.

It was a tedious task but I was pleased with the conversion, they didn't have the smoothest joins but I tried to make out they were the sort of scarves ancient warriors might use to protect their necks from armour rubbing against it. Again the shields are the ones from the Maccabean line. I went for a blue theme with the unit and spent a bit more time highlighting the tunics.

I'll post up the African veterans soon, I've been distracted this week working again on a campaign setting for the 2nd Punic War. As with other campaign rules and rules is general they begin to get more complex so I'm trying to keep them as simple as possible with some flavour. I've settled on Strength & Honour for tactical settings and I have a map made so I'm working on getting it functioning but there's still lots of decisions to make with army lists and victory points.    

Bronze Shields

Finally here are the refurbished and rebased Bronze Shields! As mentioned in the previous post I had started them straight after the Silver Shields. The old base removal went as smoothly as it could, however many of them needed a bit more than the shields painted up. About half needed their linothoraxes highlighted white, and many needed a further highlight of their blue tunics. This took longer than expected, when I began the spear tips and shields I was ready for a change. I did slowly do the odd bit here and there eventually they were done, then with that complete the basing was done relatively snappy.

I'm hoping with these done I can get back into my main 20mm Ancients project but my attention span and focus is as fickle as its ever been. I'm currently finishing off another 10 Wargames Atlantic Les Grognards, however I'm ready to move on from my current sci-fi project even though it's barely started! I was then inspired to continue some Lord of the Rings as well, the Moria goblins are undercoated and dry brushed with a gun metal, but I've since moved on from that too. While my interest was piqued with LotR I looked towards dark age plastic kits as Middle-Earth warriors, but then that just lead me to look towards Late Roman and  Anglo-Saxon history, then those plastic warriors become earmarked to become built as historically intended. Currently I'm building some Victrix Normans but I'm not sure how long I'll remain focussed on them. While sorting this post I rediscovered some unfinished posts on rebased Iberians and Eastern levies so I'll hopefully get them posted up soon. 

 

Silvershields

It's been a while! A combinations of things lead to having a bit of a break from both ancients and generally keeping up with things online. I was pleased to get these 48 Newline Designs 20mm Silvershields refreshed and rebased but it was quite a task. The main challenge was painting the shield designs which took a lot of focus to finish, and with giving the pikes a proper tip along with the actual rebase it was a bit of a grueller. So then when I began the Bronzeshields, which are twice the number of Silvershields, I attempted to go in with the same determination to get finished. That was June and I'm still intermittently working on them!

In an attempt to rekindle interest in the hobby I looked to other projects. This mainly took the form of building plastic sci-fi soldiers for a Warhammer 40k setting. However I'm often put off by the list building, ever changing rules updates and general complication and special rules for the sake of it. All that in itself can make that project daunting but I picked up a copy of Xenos Rampant and that has helped focus the project. The simplicity of the army building and the general philosophy of them really helped to give me a reasonable sized army list to build towards.

In general I have not been able to focus with painting as I have also been trying to make a start on Moria goblins. Bit by bit I have been working on these various projects, but none yet have reached completion since these Silvershields. Even getting to the point of writing this post has been difficult even though the pictures were uploaded back in June. Hopefully by chipping away at what I fancy when I can I will hopefully get something finished at some point soon. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the pictures of these Seleucid Silvershields: