28mm Samnites and Thureophoroi

When choosing mercenary units to paint for Saga: Age of Hannibal, the Samnites were a natural choice.  They would provide the Epirotes that I was building a unit that is good in rough terrain, which the Epirote phalangites want to avoid..  I also decided to build the thureophoroi, who besides having some nice special abilities that work well with the Epirote phalanx, should also be usable with some of the armies in the upcoming Age of Alexander book.

For the Samnites, I used the 'Samnites in Triple Disc Armour' pack from Crusader Miniatures because I liked the look of the disc breastplates.  The pack of eight miniatures contained two each of four different bodies and four different heads which resulted in plenty of variety.  While I am not a big fan of separate heads in metal, they fit very well and superglued on securely.  The tunic and shield designs are heavily borrowed from/inspired by two books:

Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars by Phil Barker

Caesar's Legions by Nick Sekunda

The Thureophoroi are also from Crusader, the 'Greek Thureophoroi' and 'Greek Thureophoroi Command' packs.  I gave them the white shield that is often seen in depictions from the Hellenistic era.  While the mercenary unit only has 8 figures in Saga, I have 12 in case I want to use them as Epirote levy skirmishers instead.