Slitherine

I have my Greeks (Persian War) all based and undercoated and am ready to start painting, but I am wondering how to differentiate between the various units (spartans, athenians, corinthians, etc). was there different colored clothing or shields or plumes?

Thanks for any input.

Osprey books, or Duncan Head's book if you can find it (although the period is later). Also Luke Ueda-Sarson's page:

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/se/~luv20009/ ... rns_1.html

checked my local store for the osprey book, unfortunately they didnt have the ones i was looking for so i thought i would check here for resources before ordering online.



Thanks,
Doug

I would do the spartans in red clothes and cloaks. Then perhaps white for Athenians and Thebans, with some snake sheilds in the mix for only Theban contingents and the three circle designs for the Athenians. Other poorer contingents could have unarmouured hoplites in different earhty coloured clothing. Here is a good article on shield devices which may give some more ideas http://www.ospreypublishing.com/content2.php/cid=203

If you want to be historically acurate, for that time, except some reference to the traditional rogue cloak of the Spartans, we do not know too much. Some Spartans may have had the lambda (Tebans a clue and an A for Athens) in their shields although city distinctions were not generalised until 4th century before Christ. Every man was equipped as he wanted to.

What you can do to distinguish contingents is to use the some markers recommended above by other people. For example, Boeothian clues concentrated in some bases, lambdas for Spartans, owls for Athenians. Italiot hoplites used plumes, that's what made them very different from other Greeks. They also used more commonly geometric depictions in the shields. Another way to distinguish them could be the helmets (higher proportions of Boeothian helmets for Thebans, etc.).