Yet Another Unit of Peltasts

 

Mercenary Peltasts with Thureos

I thought I'd better get round to painting up a unit of these chaps - it's the Minifigs PB10 Mercenary Peltast with Thureos from the 1972/73 catalogue range. It's a very generic type of Hellenistic warrior and I'm sure it will fit in with a variety of armies - including my Persians! 

He's a fairly simple model in the Minifigs style and I've gone for a plain paint job with an off-white tunic. This is my 'go to' colour for peltasts and the like - a base of white mixed with British Uniform Khaki (Vallejo), washed over with Army Painter Soft Tone to give the ground colour, then built back up with the original colour plus white. 

The bronze helmets are my standard interpreation of bronze. Base coat with flesh as the same time as painting the face/head, then paint gold, wash with the AP Soft Tone, and work back up with gold and gold plus silver. I generally prefer the Vallejo metallics, if only because I'm familiar with them. 

Here's a few of them on the march - hopefully to victory although with these chaps being mercenary types you can never be too sure. 

The basing is the old Wargames Research Group Ancients standard 20mm frontage for what were then 'light medium infantry'. Geneally speaking, I've stuck to this standard for my 'retro' armies. The bases are mounting card and the green is mixed up to match. 

I do like the pose for this figure. It's purposeful without being fussy and the front view shows the shields nicely. This batch of figures hail from the earlier 'thick spear' era, which does at least make them sturdy! 

The shields are a mixed grey-blue. I tend to go for these de-saturated tones for shields as it makes them nice and bright but not too strongly coloured. I start of by mixing up a light grey and then just add tiny amount of a strong blue until the paint takes on a bluish tint. Paint always dries at least a shade darker, so I always paint up a single example as a tester. Because it's a mixed colour, I always paint the shields at the end, and mix enough to do the whole batch, it being impossible to get an exact match for the unit otherwise. 

And here he is marching off to do whatever he has to do. Good luck little fella. 

The unit has since received a couple of coats of nice shiny varnish. The shields are left plain for now, but might get a transfer if I can find something that suits.