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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Tarentine Pike Phalanx


I've been meaning to come back to my Pyrrhic project for sometime now and finally got around to doing so with some Tarentines. The Tarentines are famous for their cavalry, but they did need infantry as well. These represent some of those citizen soldiers trained to fight in the Hellenistic fashion using pikes. I'm not sure if they switched from hoplites to phalangites through the influence of Pyrrhus or were introduced earlier to this style.


My approach to painting them was to make them colorful and rather individual looking. This served to give them a less uniformed look then the better trained Phyrric phalangites and further distinguish them. It was great fun painting in several bright colors if perhaps time consuming. I also arranged the the them with the heavier armoured to the front and progressively lighter armoured to the rear.


The figures are from the fantastic Pyrrhic range from Aventine miniatures which are easily among the best ancient figures around in my opinion and an absolute pleasure to paint. The shields are transfers from LBM and while I highly recommend them I find transfers do not adhere to oval shields very well(yes I did the pre-cuts) and so that took some extra adjustments. I also painted some extra highlights on the edging and free space on the shields as well as a little on the designs as well to help blend the transfer and bring the design out a little more.


I originally started with a slightly darker basing on my first Pyrrhic unit, but decided I wanted something a little lighter so lighted up the base on this unit to give a more southern Mediterranean look and I am happy with the results. I have since re-did my other units to match this.


Lately Nick and I have been playing a lot of Impetus and having a great time which has really motivated me to continue painting more Impetus units so I will be adding another unit to this project soon. They way things are going this could be a real banner year for me in getting some progress on my ancients/medieval as I want get some cavalry for my Germanics, cavalry and infantry for my Romans so we can game a Roman civil war and light infantry next for my Pyrrhic army plus I purchased some Republican Romans. Lots of plans!



Collecting  a Pyrrhic army is a very fine army to collect as it offers quite a few different troop types to collect along with enemies like Rome, Carthage, Sparta and other Hellenistic opponents which if you collect the enemies leads to Peloponnesian War and Punic Wars and....well you get the idea.


Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Aventine miniatures









42 comments:

  1. Superb painting Christopher, great colour choices and nice basing, and could not agree more on Aventine miniatures, they really are the best ancients around!

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    1. Thank you very much Chris! Yes indeed they are fantastic figures and easily in the running for best ancients.

      Christopher

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  2. superb painting!
    congratulations Christopher!

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  3. Stunning colours Christopher, full of life!

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  4. Gosh!... Your painted Tarentine Pike Phalanx are awesome! your "clean matte" colors on the figures look brilliant - love the flocking of bases too....

    cheers,

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    1. Thank you very much Phil very kind of you to say!

      Christopher

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  5. très belle unité :)

    ça c'est de la phalange

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  6. Superb work! This is one the figure ranges and armies that has long been on my wish list to work on... you've now bumped that to the top of the list!

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    1. Thank you Mike! You won't regret buying them Mike I promise and I'm looking forward to seeing your version of the Pyrrhic army!

      Christopher

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  7. Very impressive unit, greate paintwork !!!

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  8. Hello Christopher,

    Superb phalanx unit !!! I like the different colors of tunics.

    Nikko

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    1. Thank you very much Ray very kind of you to say.

      Christopher

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  10. Very nice shadows on the figures. You know that I like your painting style very much.

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  11. Those are quite wonderful, Christopher, quite wonderful!

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  12. Superb Tarentines Christopher!

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  13. Christopher, your Tarentine warriors are real beauties!

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  14. Fantastic, these are gems! So jealous of your Impetus painting and playing. You have a lot of interesting periods and projects going.

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    1. Thank you very much Monty! That's part of the problem I have too many periods!:-)

      Christopher

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  15. Quite splendid, fine figures you have done them proud.

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  16. Outstanding details on the clothes and shields, and beautiful bases...congrats, this unit is really impressive!

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  17. Stunning work Christopher! Wonderful painting and basing, and those long sticks look rather nasty!

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    1. Thank you kindly Rodger and in fact they are a bit sharp!

      Christopher

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  18. Apologies for the late comment, Christoper; but these pikemen, along with the previous works are truly stunning. All works of art in and unto themselves.

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    1. Thank you very much Dean and happy you like them.

      Christopher

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  19. Beautiful figures and painting and an inspiration. Thank you for the post.

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