Review: Warlord Games Macedonian Phalangites

This summer I made a solemn vow to clear out my unpainted boxes of model soldiers and terrain by painting those I want and selling those I don’t. Okay, so that was never going to happen but I have made a bit of an effort.

I have been assembling a Pontic army of around the time of Mithridates VI, The Great, from various bits and pieces. Pontic armies are a wonderful mish mash of Iranian, Hellenistic, Celtic, Nomad and pseudo-Roman troops. Virtually anything goes, including some strange all-purpose second hand buys.

Some years ago, I picked up a box of Warlord plastic phalangites from a show for the princely sum of £17 for 40 28mm models: an inarguably value for money price. There were no bases in the set but it did include transfers. This summer I have started on my first 20 models to build a Pontic ‘Hellenistic’ phalanx.

Inside the box were ten sprues, each with four models. There is very little pose variants but then, there’s only so many ways to handle a pike.

 I opted for the four deep phalanx with the pikes in staggered order from upright at the back to semi-lowered at the front.

Painting a block of troops is quite different from painting individual models. There isn't time to lavish the same care and a certain simplicity actually looks better: too many colours and shades in a block of twenty miniatures can look like a Legoland advert. I chose to use Warlord's Army Painter method and the pigmented varnish did a great job on the nicely indented figures.

A word to the wise about bases.

I use thick plasticard. I have had horrible problems with the bases distorting over time.

The solution seems to be:

• be very sparing with the glue
• use Milliput to round off the base edges and extend it to cover the entire base area. This provides a rigid structure and adds pleasing weight.

My only grouch were the waterslide transfers, which were awful. They come as a single sheet so you have to cut around each one before you wet it and they are flimsy. I salvaged 20 from the 40 provided.

Other than that this box is great value, even at its current price off £22.