Warlord/Immortal Hoplites

This box set is an interesting one because it was originally produced by Immortal Miniatures which, sadly, went under and sold the molds for all of its range to Warlord Games. This is why they are often referred to as the "Warlord/Immortal" hoplites. I picked up the Spartan Hoplites set for use as Allied/League Hoplites in an Alexandrian army, and mercenaries in other armies.

However, I did not fully understand the way in which the Immortal Hoplites sets are laid out, and I've seen a lot of confusion online about this. The situation isn't helped by the fact that the Warlord Games website did not have very good pictures of the sprues in the Immortal Hoplites sets at the time that I purchased them, though they have better ones now.

The confusion arises from the fact that Immortal Miniatures designed one main sprue containing helmets and crests suitable for their "Ancient" set, intended to depict hoplites of the pre-Peloponnesian War eras (Perhaps "Archaic" would be more accurate than "Ancient"?). The heads provided here are Illyrian and Corinthian helmets, and both the typical horsehair crest and the "tall" crest. However, although the store page states that the set can depict hoplites into the early 4th century BC, strictly speaking the Illyrian helmet was mostly obsolete outside of Illyria by the early 5th century, and the tall crest also went out of style by at least the 4th century if not earlier (certainly I have seen no evidence that it was worn in the time of Alexander).

So, in the Ancient set is provided the base sprue (with "Ancient" helmets) and a command sprue, with more Ancient-style crests and conversion pieces, as well as a commander and flutist. The Spartan set has the same base sprue with the addition of a Spartan "upgrade" sprue, containing two hoplite bodies and nine heads wearing pilos helmets and with the characteristic Spartan beards-sans-mustache. The Classical set, however, contains an upgrade sprue with helmets much more suitable to the mid-to-late 4th century (pilos, Phrygian, and some more interesting and exotic types) and, possibly, even the early-to-mid 3rd century BC. This was the kit that I ought to have bought for my purposes, but live and learn!

Four of these come in the box, along with four command sprues

So, to review the Spartan set I'll start with the base sprue. It has eight figures, of which two are wearing bronze "muscle" cuirass, two unarmoured, and the rest in linothorax, which is an excellent proportion for representing a unit, for the most part (it should be noted that one of the bronze cuirasses is of a decidedly Archaic type). One might quibble that most hoplites are thought to have eschewed all armour after a certain point (around the time of Iphikrates, if I recall correctly), but this is an acceptable compromise.

Sheathed swords are either xiphos or kopis/makhaira, judging by their shape, the aspis shields are quite large (some have suggested too large, though I like their excessive size, personally) and fully detailed on the inside with antilabe (the rope handle around the rim) and porpax (the leather or bronze strap in the center) both depicted in excellent detail. The left arm being molded attached to the shield is a downside for kitbashing, however, as it makes shield swaps essentially impossible unless a new left arm of the same scale can be found.

The doru spear is depicted well, at an appropriate length and in both over-arm and under-arm grips, to suit individual preference. Shield aprons and some kind of extra abdominal armour provide even more bits to play with.

My picture of the upgrade sprue didn't come out well, so I'm using the one from the Warlord Games Store

The upgrade sprue includes an unarmoured body wearing exomis and another sporting a "bell" cuirass (like the "muscle" but more flared around the belly to enable freedom of movement), in addition to eight heads in pilos helmet (Spartan standard-issue beginning toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, and continuing throughout the Hellenistic era) and one in what appears to be the soft felt pilos cap (a nice touch), as well as eight scabbarded xiphos swords of the extra-short Spartan variety (again a nice touch of historicity).

I was initially puzzled by the three headless helmets and petasos hat, thinking perhaps they were meant for the helmet-less bearded head on the main sprue, but it turns out they are a holdover from the Classical kit, which includes several "bald" heads to which this headgear may be affixed. It seems that the Spartan "upgrade" sprue is actually identical to the Classical upgrade sprue, above the section with the row of heads. For whatever reason, Warlord do not have a picture of the Classical Phalanx upgrade sprue at their website.

A final note, the Spartan set includes 40 metal aspis shields of uniform size, to represent accurately the fact that Spartan shields were mass-manufactured and issued by the state, and notoriously constructed to a standard size. The plastic shields on the main sprue are varying sizes, so again this is a nice touch of historical accuracy. The hoplite sets all come with sheets of decals, thus the shields (metal or plastic) are smooth, allowing hand-painting of designs if desired.

Test Figure I painted up

So, concluding remarks: these Immortal hoplites sets are just shy of excellence. The detail is mostly fantastic, especially the musculature on the exomis-clad body, the detail of the linothorakes and cuirasses, folds of the cloth tunics, and interiors of the aspis shields.

One of the weak points of sculpting are the faces, which are quite hit or miss, in part due to the fact that these miniatures are on the small and slender end of the sculpting scale, making it difficult to depict much face detail. Another is wrists, which tend to blend seamlessly into the backs of hands, creating a blocky impression, and greaves tend to be a little too chunky as well—perhaps both design choices were made for structural integrity, as they might be prone to snapping if realistically slender.

Overall, the details paint up well (see test figure) but due to their fineness can be obscured very easily by a botched priming or paint that is not thinned properly.

The historical authenticity is a huge plus, perhaps the first and foremost reason to buy this set, but it is undermined by the somewhat sloppy lay-out of the sprues and box-sets as a whole. One has to do a significant bit of groundwork to puzzle out which kit to buy and which components to use in order to actually take advantage of the historicity.

The size of the figures can be a downside or an upside, as they rank up well with some ranges (Relic Miniatures in particular, from what I've seen online) but not well with taller ranges (such as Victrix). I will do a scale comparison of all the figures I have so far at a later date, but for now suffice it to say that Immortal heads can be swapped with the Warlord Phalangites and vice versa. I wouldn't mix them in the same unit, but in their own units they look fine in the same army on the tabletop.

Victrix's competing set is one of their oldest kits, and it shows; they have advanced greatly since this release

In closing, for $32 USD (£20) for 40 miniatures, the Immortal range of hoplites are a fantastic value for money, in my opinion they look far, far more aesthetically pleasing than Victrix's Spartan Hoplites (indeed, their whole early Hoplite range leaves a lot to be desired), and I'm not aware of any other options in plastic for 28mm Spartans. They are also quite easy to find discounted online for 20% off or more, which makes them one of the cheapest plastic infantry sets in the entire world of 28mm Ancients miniatures. 

In the next few posts, I will be demonstrating what these kits can do as I construct and paint them.