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I've already posted a few articles on my blog about my (of course over ambitious) project to create a generic Hellenistic/Successor army in 28mm, which started with the lighter troops and peltasts, and then added some Galatians and some cavalry... all of which was really a rather folorn effort to put off tacking the Phalanx for as long as possible!

The dread of the Phalanx is twofold.

First up, it's a lot of near-identical, uniform figures, which always makes painting a bit of a chore. But more importantly I had decided that the Victrix spears were simply too flimsy to use as-is, and instead that I would drill out the pikemen's hands and add in metal pikes instead.



If this wasn't too easy, I also decided to go a little off-piste on the headswap front, throwing in all sorts of plastic heads from the spares box (which has all sorts in it!) as well as mixing it up with the rather good range of heads that come on the Victrix sprues.



Oh, and as if that's not enough, I also got a pack of Successor metal heads from Aventine to shake things up even more, as I do really like my troops to look like battle-worn veterans and the whole "I'm not using standad kit!" thing is a big part of that.

And, to make things even harder I tried to create that "might not be a real thing" joining-type-bit that wraps around the middle of each pike by using tiny strips of normal paper soaked in quite a lot of PVA glue.



Oh, and did I mention that I then bought two sets of Victrix Argyaspids on the mistaken assumption that they would be pikemen? They are in fact armed with spears, so the decision to drill out their hands and add metal pikes wasn't even one I had anychoice over in the end - I simply had to do it once I started.

And after much blood, sweat, swearing and tears this is the end result:









The whole process, and more pics of the end result are now posted on my site at: https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2024/01/victrix-successor-pikemen-in-28mm.html

Well, you went all out in trying to make them look distinctive.

I hear a lot of people complain about the Victrix pikes, but have never had an issue. However, the Hypaspists spears are another matter.

Fantastic job. Which system are these for?

Not to speak for the MadAxeMan but he usually plays L'Arte De Guerre and other DBA derivatives. I am sure he will be along to correct me if I am wrong soon.