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.

28mm Cretan and Balearic Mercenaries for Saga Age of Hannibal

When planning my Age of Hannibal armies for Saga (Iberians and Epirotes), I took a long look at the mercenaries section to see what mercenary units were available and which I thought would work best for the two armies I was planning (Iberians and Epirotes).  

There are 8 different mercenary units included in the Age of Hannibal book, with armies only allowed to use those they historically employed.  For the Iberians, the only mercenary unit they can use is the Baelaric slingers so those were an easy choice.  If I don't use them as mercenaries there is an option to arm 8 Iberian warriors as slingers so there is a second option to use them.

The Epirotes can choose from 6 mercenaries, and I chose to build the famous Cretan archers.  They were used by most of the Hellenistic successor armies and should also be in the future Saga book Age of Alexander.  So in addition to providing support to my Epirotes they should be usable in some other armies in the future.

When ordering my Epirotes I bought part of the army from from Aventine Miniatures in Northern Ireland, including 2 packs of skirmishers to use as Cretan Archers.  They come with separate small pelta-size shields that attached easily.  This is the first time I have used Aventine and they are great miniatures.  The forthcoming Saga Age of Invasions book will include Sassanid Persians; if I like the battle board I will definitely be using Aventine to make the army.

I painted the Cretan tunics black since I have seen depictions of them in black, plus it gives them a distinctive look.  When trying to decide whether to leave their shields as plain bronze or to paint a design, I looked at the terrific Ancient Battles website by Jeff Jonas.  There is an article on Cretan shield designs, which heavily inspired the designs I painted.  You can find it and many other good articles on wargaming the Hellenistic period at:

Ancient Battles

For the Baelaric slingers I used the same color scheme as my Iberians; tunics in various shades of off-white with red stripes on the borders.  The miniatures are from Crusader, one of my favorite 28mm manufacturers for Ancients.