Can you make somethink like this?

[Kindred]

http://www.hoplites.co.uk/images/equip_1/equip_2.jpg

I think that it would be great if you could add a unit like this for the greek cities roster;it depicts a Hellinistic Athenian phalanxist...please!!!!

[Sidus Preclarum]

iirc, Prometheus did one...
yeah, here it is...
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...henian+hoplite
dunno if he ever released them.

[Zarax]

It looks like an early iphicatrean hoplite to me, with slightly less armour than classical ones and a longish spear...

[Sidus Preclarum]

muscle cuirasse = less armour than a classical hoplite ?!

[Zarax]

Well, muscle cuirasse = less armour than leather + bronze breastplate at least to me...

[DimeBagHo]

The armour is heavy by hoplite standards, except for the lack of greaves. IMHO I think it is highly unlikely that a Hoplite wearing such heavy body armour would not have worn greaves. If you take a look at this pic that Prometheus posted you can see why.



From the front the Thracian helmet provides excellent protection for the face. The torso is doubly protected by the large shield and heavy armour. Then the legs are a huge unprotected target, making all that heavy armour useless.

[Locky]

http://www.hoplites.co.uk/images/equip_1/equip_2.jpg

I think that it would be great if you could add a unit like this for the greek cities roster;it depicts a Hellinistic Athenian phalanxist...please!!!!

That Pic's in the Osprey Hoplite book. That pic infact would reflect a Hoplite in that era full stop. As by this stage most Greek City States maintned a small professional core of soldeirs/hoplites, men who were exempt from all other public duties so they could train and were paid by the City, the rest of the army was mercanaries, this was the trend of the period, even Sparta was doing it. Of course the tradiontal hoplites were still used, highly prized mercs, and they were still effective and had thier own advantages over the Macedon Phalanx.

That style is indeed true of the hoplites attire into 350BCE and onwards.

Dime, they didn't wear greaves, because most hoplites adapted the 3 meter long sarissa, although some of them probably did wear them, came down to personal preference of the hoplite im guessing. The Phrygian helmet, offered excellent defense, and was in populer use in Greece, as well as the Chalapikdian helmet(modern Corinth helmet, the ones all the Greek phalangites wear in XGM), They were the two loved styles, as well as the Boetonian helmet, and a few others, and to hell with the Pylos helmet. The bronze msucled cuirass was back in full swing, heaveir, but offered defense, that could deflect a ballister bolt at a 100 feet away, scarily affective. It'd be cool, if you renamed all the Greek phalangite units back to Hoplites, as they were still called hoplties even when they used the smaller sarissas, give the Macedons etc the long pikes, the Greeks used the shorter ones.

I've always been a big fan of the Phyrgian helmet, with face mask and the musceld cuirass, there's a nice model in RTR.

It'd be nice if you reskined the armoured phalangites to look like that. Of coruse when you have the time,

[DimeBagHo]

Locky: The term 'hoplite' meant something like "man at arms" so it may well have been used to refer both to men who fought in the tradtional single handed style, and men who fought in the Macedonian two handed style. Still I think it makes life easier for modern players to use distinct terms for the two different types of unit.

If that skin were used to represent a phalangite armed with a pike, then leaving out the greaves would be fine. But for a hoplite, fighting in the more traditional style, it just wouldn't make sense to wear so much body armour and leave the legs unprotected.

Something like that would make a nice replacement for the current armoured phalangite model and skin though.

[Locky]

Locky: The term 'hoplite' meant something like "man at arms" so it may well have been used to refer both to men who fought in the tradtional single handed style, and men who fought in the Macedonian two handed style. Still I think it makes life easier for modern players to use distinct terms for the two different types of unit.

If that skin were used to represent a phalangite armed with a pike, then leaving out the greaves would be fine. But for a hoplite, fighting in the more traditional style, it just wouldn't make sense to wear so much body armour and leave the legs unprotected.

Something like that would make a nice replacement for the current armoured phalangite model and skin though.

Hehe, understandable. After all, the purpose of this mod is not to confuse players to hell and back, trying to interpert the difference between a phalangite adn hoplite.

As for the Thracian helmet with face mask, just nick the one off the Thracian peltast model, stick the head on your present armoured phalangite, and there you have a new armoured phalangite. Just change the skin colour to bronze instead of that iron colour. And might i suggest giving the bronze shield, silver shield, and companions that helmet too, and maybe give the other two greaves, and maybe a bronze muscled cuirass? Only a suggestion of course. It's just that the CA models, are somewhat bland and look like the normal phalangite troops. when they are elite after all.

I was thinking a armoured hoplite similier to the armoured phalangite, might make an intersting post Marius unit to replace the normal hoplite, because hoplites manged to stay into use well into 200BC, kind've(yes i know it's pushing it ), it might be interesting, because armorued hoplties look cool.

[Watchman]

If that skin were used to represent a phalangite armed with a pike, then leaving out the greaves would be fine. But for a hoplite, fighting in the more traditional style, it just wouldn't make sense to wear so much body armour and leave the legs unprotected.

AFAIK usually in history whenever armoured heavy infantry left off the leg defenses (assuming those would normally have been in use to begin with) that was done in the interests of mobility. Quite literally less weight on the step, you know ? The vulnerability of the lower legs to enemy attacks was of course an issue, but apparently considered worth the tradeoff and probably not an excessively pressing issue to a well-trained combatant with a shield.

For comparision late-Medieval professional "light" infantry tended to be armoured up the wazoo in body and arms, but differed from otherwise similarly equipped "heavy" infantry in leaving the legs unarmoured (at least comparatively, ie. no metal) to preserve mobility. IIRC those fellows actually quite often also used a weapon set not much unlike that of the ancient hoplites - a long spear or other staff weapon as the initial primary weapon backed up by a sword, and a large round shield.

[DimeBagHo]

Head swapping is a little beyond my skill level, but I might still be able to do something about adding face masks to the elite phalangites.

I was thinking about converting the GCS hypaspists into a hoplite style unit - something in between the AOR Hoplites and the Greek Sacred Band. That would have the advantage of making the GCs unit roster a little more distinct from the Macedonians and Seleucids.

[Locky]

Head swapping is a little beyond my skill level, but I might still be able to do something about adding face masks to the elite phalangites.

I was thinking about converting the GCS hypaspists into a hoplite style unit - something in between the AOR Hoplites and the Greek Sacred Band. That would have the advantage of making the GCs unit roster a little more distinct from the Macedonians and Seleucids.

Ok, agreed.

[Zarax]

Head swapping is a little beyond my skill level, but I might still be able to do something about adding face masks to the elite phalangites.

I was thinking about converting the GCS hypaspists into a hoplite style unit - something in between the AOR Hoplites and the Greek Sacred Band. That would have the advantage of making the GCs unit roster a little more distinct from the Macedonians and Seleucids.

If you want to change GCS Hypaspists then you should base them on the thorakitai, you can use the standard hypaspist body with a thureos, javelins and spear.
This way GCS will be without a decent sword unit so you might want to think about some replacement (maybe not as powerful but still useful)

[Balikedes]

I love you guys...

[DimeBagHo]

With some types of equipment dropping leg protection makes sense. Men equiped with long shields like the thureos or scutum would have less need for leg protection. It also makes more sense for infantry that depend more on mobility, like legionaries. But for hoplites, fighting in a phalanx, it makes much less sense. The large round shield and phalanx formation left only two targets - the face and the legs. When the Greeks wanted more mobility they tended to go in two directions - less body armour, or a different style of fighting entirely.

[Agathon]

The Western European Medieval light infantry that I've seen in most illuminated manuscripts that were meant to portray "contemporary" history show not just ordinary archers and pikement in quilted tabards and leather jackets, but also many knights. The minumum protection in plate for even the lightest armed foot companies seemed to show protection for the elbow and knee joints.

The minimum head protection usually encountered in the illuminations was the "knightly" bascinet or the more plebian kettle helmet. The Bascinet, which seemed to be a late medieval descendant of the pylos design, was so widespread in use by 1400 that writers and record keepers began to call soldiers "bascinets" since that was what officers and rulers were usually counting entering into the pay rolls as items at musters and military reviews. The more German styled sallet eventually replaced the bascinet in popular appeal by the mid 15th century.

I think you'll encounter a massive amount of "fantasy" armour in devotional manuscripts like historical bibles and books of hours though. "Princely" painters seemed to have fanciful ideas of the kind of plate and mail that classical romans and greeks wore, with a few interesting accuracies thrown in (like a Roman guard's bronze hoplite style shield with a giant's mouthed face shown in relief over the surface).

The sad thing is that by the closing years of the 15th century, many illuminators were portraying recent historical battles with soldiers wearing near-fantasy armour. Not a surprising development, since many quattro-centro princes like the Medici and Sforza were already (by 1470) commissioning suits of parade armour to resemble the imaginings of their court artists.