Personal Protective Equipment part two - Zona Alfa

 Here are the two Empress Miniatures 28mm scale modern respirators:

Modern Russian and US Marine helmets.

Oathmark Odyssey part five: Work In progress

So here are some work in progress shots of the Ancient Greeks and Spartans (which will be two of the  factions in my Oathmark Odyssey).

Faction One

Human Warriors 

Heavy Armour, hand weapon and shield. Bonus points if you spot the odd one out.

Human Spearmen

Light armour, spear and shield. there are a couple of interlopers.

Faction Two

Elite Spearmen

Light armour, spear and shield

Elite Warriors

Heavy armour, hand weapon and shield.

Personal Protective Equipment - Zona Alfa

 The Event that created the Zone is potentially hostile to humans, and personal protective equipment, especially respirators is vitally important.

Crooked Dice have had their SAS Gasmask Heads out of stock since August 2020, which may be related to the release of Zona Alfa a couple of months earlier.

They were available from them las week, so I ordered a few of them to equip my Minions for Zona Alfa.

The classic Operation Nimrod head gear with stub necks. Suitable for use with Crooked Dice, Under Fire and Empress figures (and others), especially those interchangeable heads.

Currently building some Crooked Dice minions using the heads.

Oathmark Odyssey part four: Spartans

 The Spartan Hoplites box from Immortal Miniatures.

Those were the days when a box of figures cost £12.

Again the box says 24 figures, but there are at least three Ancient Greek sprues and four of the Spartan Hoplite sprues. Again, the count is probably ignoring the Bell Cuirass figures on the Ancient Greek sprues and counting only the available shields.

There is a decal sheet with the distinctive Spartan Lambda.

There is a booklet describing the Spartans and their equipment and colour schemes.

I have not assembled any hoplites, but I have assembled one as a Warrior for Oathmark. This uses the Muscle Cuirass and the Pilos helmet from the Spartan sprue and the Xiphos arm.

This is the only book I can currently find on the Ancient Greeks, though I should have a DBA rulebook and the WRG army list (volume 1) somewhere.

Oathmark Odyssey part three: Classical Greek Hoplites

 The Classical Greek Hoplites box from Immortal Miniatures

Now the box says it contains 24 figures, but there appears to be a lot more bodies (I think the 24 does not include the Bell Cuirass figures on the three Ancient Greeks sprues) and there are just 24 shields.

There are four Classical Greek Hoplites sprues and three Ancient Greek Hoplites sprues.

There is a decal set.

The booklet is different to the Ancient Greek booklet.

Oathmark Odyssey - part two: Ancient Greek Hoplites

Ancient Greek Hoplites are a form of infantry, comprising citizen soldiers traditionally armed with a spear and shield, and varying degrees of armour.

Over the centuries the armour changed, at one point only the head was armoured.

Immortal Miniatures brought out a box set of plastic Ancient Greek Hoplites in 2010.

Unlike later boxes from other manufacturers, these are two part boxes.

The box contains 34 figures, one command sprue and four identical Ancient Greek Hoplite sprues.

The command sprue has one body with the Muscle Cuirass and one body for a piper There are an assortment of ornate helmets two bare arms with Kopis and one armoured arm with a Kopis. There are two Diplylon shields with integral arms.

The main sprue has eight bodies. There is one Bell (Bronze) Cuirass, five linen armour bodies and two unarmored bodies.

There are enough Corinthian style helmets for all the figures, plus a number of different style helmets. There is one Xiphos arm and ten spear arms. There are eight Hoplite shields with integral arms (note they have two different shoulder types). There are four Xiphos scabbards and four Kopis scabbards, plus two shield curtains.

There is a sheet of transfers.

The box contains a small booklet covering the equipment of a hoplite.

Here is the first block of an Ancient Greek phalanx, five in linen cuirass and one in a Bell cuirass.

Two unarmoured hoplites.

Though traditionally Ancient Greeks fought with the spear and shield (Oathmark Spearmen), I wanted some armoured infantry (Oathmark Warriors) so used the Bell Cuirass. This is the command figure, using the Kopis with armoured arm, one of the ornamental heads and the Dipylon shield.

Armoured Warriors.

Armoured Warrior with Bell Cuirass.

Size comparison with an Oathmark Skeleton Soldier.

Size comparison with a Frostgrave Cultist.

Oathmark Odyssey part one

So there I was, watching the snow falling in lockdown 3.1, and I looked at the Oathmark/Frostgrave figures I had assembled (and occasionally painted) and thought “I need to get away from all this snow and cold”.

Prompted by a blog post by Joe McCullogh (Spoiler) I borrowed a time machine and went back to… 2010.

Immortal Miniatures introduced a range of injection moulded plastic Greek Hoplites at Salute 2010. At the time there were three boxes:

Ancient Greek Hoplites

Classical Greek Hoplites

Spartan Hoplites

I love the price on those old boxes.

At the time, injection moulded 28mm figures for wargaming (beyond Games Workshop) was very new (that is my only excuse for the Perry's SOTR boxes I bought). So I bought all three (possibly over a couple of Salutes). And then they languished in my plastic figures pile for ten years.

Warlord Games purchased the range and they are still available. Wargames Illustrated number 398 (February 2021) had an Ancient Greek Hoplite sprue on the cover.

Next - Ancient Greek Hoplites.