The Argonauts - The Queen's Hand

Hippias, named the Devoted for his unwavering dedication to Hera, entered the Heraion.  He approached the statue of his Goddess and laid a small golden talisman at her feet between the flickering candles and burning incense.  

"O, Honoured Hera, of goddesses most excellent far, thine am I, all things are thine, and thou sittest authentic Queen of Olympus, and we fear no other female hand" the warrior said, as much with his heart as with his voice.

From his left Hippias caught a glimpse of the Oracle Clio.  She smiled gently as she approached, her arms open in greeting. "Hippias, the Queen will be most pleased at your offering - if you would let me, I can direct you to where more treasures await. Their liberation at the hand of those dedicated to blessed Hera would greatly please the Queen of all gods..."

Another warband is finished for Broken Legions - and this time it is The Argonauts (aka the shoehorn to allow people to use ancient Greek minis in the game).  Except where mentioned, these are all from Warlord.

Argonaut warbands are headed up by an Argonaut Captain - so here's Hippias the Devoted:

A pair of Heraclean Champions provides some muscle - here's Teukros (L) and Xuthos (R):

And rounding out the hero-level warband options an Orphean Champion called Icarion (L) and an Oracle called Clio of Mycenae (R):

Clio is a Gangs of Rome miniature from Footsore (Tisiphone).

Of course, you can't have an Argonauts warband without some Argonauts! First up, a trio of spear-armed chaps (L-R) Mydon, Agetos and Pythios:

And some with a mixture of xiphos and kopis style blades. These are (L-R) Iobates, Danaos, Koinos and Hypenor:

Using up the rest of the Warlord games sprue are a couple of Mercenary Hoplites.  I tried to make them visually different by using grey, which hopefully still complements the purple and white of the rest of the warband. These are called Eurybotas (L) and Ombrion (R):

Adding a little ranged firepower are a couple of archers from Victrix.  These are Diokles (L) and Anaxis (R):

I've once again kept the same basing theme across all the Broken Legions collection to place them in the same world.

Soldiers of the Eagle - Legio II Adiutrix's Finest

Former Centurion Gaius Vinicius was not one to complain, but he was questioning the Gods right now.

Two years ago he'd been taken from his Legio with a mere handful of men and ordered by Praefectus Hostus Allectus himself to carry out work for the glory of Rome. Gaius didn't really understand the importance of what he was doing - most of his orders came through the Frumentarius he knew only as 'the Shadow'. 'Fetch this clay tablet' or 'find this forgotten temple and note the carvings', that kind of thing.  Sure it might be important to Allectus, and maybe even important to Rome, but Gaius wasn't convinced.

His men had begun to grumble; these were once marines, taken into Legio II Adiutrix and serving with distinction in many campaigns. Errand boys they were not. But still, thanks to their loyalty to Gaius Vinicius they continued to carry out their duties.

Little did Gaius and his men know, they were about to be plunged headfirst into a secret war that was being fought between Rome and her many enemies.

Well, it has taken a while (now I look back, over two years 😱) but remember those Soldiers of the Eagle I posted about? Well I've only gone and actually painted them!

First, thanks to Quick Play Rules on Twitter for providing the seed of inspiration behind the colour scheme - and therefore the fanciful background for this warband above!

Here's (former) Centurion Gaius Vinicius, leader of the warband and soon to find himself up against all sorts of enemies!  He's pictured with his loyal (and fierce) dog - Cerasus:

Next up are (L-R) Flavius and Titus - in Broken Legions these are Praetorians (think of them as Champ level guys):

Next is the shifty Frumentarius, Aspasius the Shadow - he's not just Gaius' handler, but will take to the field too to ensure success for his master's ambitions:

Next up is Marcus - a legionary with the standard upgrade:

Providing the backbone of the warband are the legionaries (L-R) Caelus, Oppius and Tertius:

Three more legionaries armed with pila give another option - (L-R) Placus, Appius, Sextus:

Finally, a couple of auxiliaries have been conscripted - these Baleares give another ranged option to Gaius' warband. Here's (L-R) Lyco and Citro:

All are Warlord Games minis except the Frumentarius (Footsore's Gangs of Rome range) and the Baleares (Victrix).  Having decided on blue shields I tried to tie in the non-Legionary minis - I think it works well enough.  I finished the bases with tufts from Tajima1 (grass) and Boon Town Metals (flowers) - I hope to do similar basing across all the Broken Legions collection to tie them into the same world.

Sons of Scylla - Companions

For my birthday last year I received a whole bunch of Mortal Gods stuff - well I've finally started prepping the minis!

As I mentioned in my post last year, I planned to use the majority of the starter set to form a mercenary Lochos - I've called them the Sons of Scylla to make them sound dangerous...

The bulk of any Lochos in Mortal Gods are the companions; the hoplites and skirmishers form the backbone of the force.

So, here's the light hoplites for the Sons of Scylla - three bases worth:

The 'leader' type guy will potentially be used as a veteran or if I need a lone dude at any point - so the lucky guy gets a name! He can be called Sinon:

I also made up three bases of heavy hoplites (well, proper hoplites I suppose):

The guy in the transverse crested helmet can be the veteran/solo guy when needed - so his name can be Onetas:

Finally for the companions, I went for two bases of peltasts (Athenians are getting archers and Spartans are getting slingers, so the Sons of Scylla get javelins!):

All these are Victrix miniatures - I found them a chore to do to be honest; not because of any issue with them (they are solid sculpts with enough detail to be interesting), just hard work!

Coming soon - the Heroes!

Mortal Gods - getting started

I had my birthday recently and my wife got me a bundle of Mortal Gods stuff! If you haven't heard about the game, it's from Footsore and is a skirmish game set in ancient Greece. The game uses a mix of metal (or limited resin runs) miniatures from Footsore or the range of Victrix plastics.

Starting with the Core Set:

This has got the rulebook (obviously), dice, cards and the like to get playing - along with a nice selection of plastic Victrix sprues:

16 Mercenary Hoplites
8 Unarmoured Hoplites
8 Peltasts
6 Slingers

Add a Lochagos and a Promarchos and it's a nice Mercenary Hoplites Lochos ready to fight for glory!

But that's not all - I also received both the Spartan and Athenian boxes too!

These each contain a booklet, cards and a selection of miniatures.

In the Spartan box there was:

Meonas the Harvester (Spartan Lochagos) - metal mini
Spartan Hoplite - metal mini
Helot - metal mini
8 Spartan Hoplites
8 Unarmoured Hoplites

The Athenian box has:

Andronikos the Defender (Athenian Lochagos) - metal mini
Athenian Hoplite -metal mini
Light Hoplite - metal mini
8 Athenian Hoplites
8 Unarmoured Hoplites

Both boxes also include 19 metal shields each - the Athenians' shields feature the Owl symbol of their patron goddess, while the Spartans have the famous Lambda.

Add a few more options (I want some Marine Archers for the Athenians and some Krepteia for the Spartans!) and that's another two Lochoi!

But that wasn't all I got - included in the bundle were a couple of metal miniatures - the first I believe to be a Medium Promarchos; he can fit in with the mercenaries I think!

The second definitely has a touch of the Leonidas I about him! He's got a couple of weapon options and some head options too.  I think he's got to go with the Spartan Lochos really doesn't he!

I'm looking forward to working out what I want to pick up to round out each of the three Lochoi I've got minis for!  Footsore are also releasing other factions - Persians are already out and the Thrakians are on their way too.  I might not be able to resist the Persians...

The Argonauts receive some reinforcements!

As I mentioned when I introduced The Argonauts, I felt like I could do with a couple of archers to give a bit of tactical flexibility (and miniature variety) to the warband.  I'd been keeping a half-eye on suitable listings and found a box-splitter (such a helpful service!) that was selling 2-man sprues from the Victrix Greek Archers box.

Like the slingers in my Roman warband, these minis don't come with loads of options - the only real variety is the three quivers and the two different arms for the non-shooting body.  Now, in a game where I'd need more archers that would be a bit crap, but as I only need these two guys that's plenty of variety!

So, I assembled them and gave them the base dip treatment ready for a suitable break in the lovely English weather to prime them. First up is Diokles and he has a rather natty hat:

And here we have Anaxis, who has a face only a mother could love:

Great price, quick build, acceptable detail minis - these will definitely do the job!

Soldiers of the Eagle - getting started

So, I've already got a Sons of Spartacus warband underway but one of the benefits of skirmish gaming is that it's feasible to have multiple forces to give a chance to try different tactics and painting styles in an affordable way.  For most forces in Broken Legions a Warlord Games sprue or two and some metal characters (if you fancy it) set you up with all you'll need and a few extra optional warband members too.

As the game is Broken Legions it felt a bit wrong to not have some of the Roman Empire's finest - called The Soldiers of the Eagle in the game so I picked up a few bits and bobs to put together a warband - the backbone is the Imperial Roman Legionary sprue from Warlord games.

Here's the leader of the warband, the Centurion, Gaius Vinicius with his loyal wardog Cerasus:

Gaius is the 'cover figure' for Warlord Games' Hail Caesar picked up on eBay and Cerasus is a spare mastiff from the Celt range.

Next we have (L-R) Flavius (a Praetorian), Aspasius the Shadow (a Frumentarius) and Titus (a Praetorian):

Flavius is a Warlord Games Optio, Aspasius is an Agente miniature from Gangs of Rome (I especially like the mask he is carrying), Titus is a Primus Pilus mini (and was originally going to be my Centurion until I got the Hail Caesar mini so cheap!).

Of course, you can't just have heroes in a Broken Legion list, you need some henchmen to give you some numbers. Here's (L-R) Sextus, Marcus, Appius and Placus.

The three plastic minis were all made from the Legionary sprue and are armed with a pilum each to give a bit of a ranged option.  Marcus is an Aquilifer from Warlord Games - I figured if they are the 'Soldiers of the Eagle' they needed to fight under the gaze of the Aquila!

Next up we have (L-R) Caelus, Tertius and Oppius:

These three chaps are unupgraded Legionaries - but that's still heavy armour, tower shield and gladius! Obviously these were from the Legionary sprue.

Finally, and to give a bit of variety to the force, we have the Baleares (L-R) Lyco and Citro:

This was made from a Balearic Slingers sprue from Victrix.  Now, Victrix minis tend to run a bit larger than Warlord - but these guys aren't too bad and help bulk the warband out as they are cheap points-wise.

Ideally I'd like a couple of Numerus/Sagittarius to round out the options available for the Romans but it's not urgent and until I find a box splitter or suitable random mini or two it can wait!

Next up these will get the standard base texture dip I do before being primed and joining the paint queue!