Aristeia

  My current project is an Ancient Greek Epic/Mythological wargame named Aristeia. It focuses on small bands of warriors and heroes with mythological components, much like the Ancient Greek Epics. I envisage the game as a mix of Muskets and Tomahawks/Dux Britanorum/Saga with an emphasis on customisability and narrative campaign play. The idea is for the game to be very much ‘your dudes’ and the evolving story of your group.  A core element is the fact that your warband is dedicated to an Ancient god that grants various abilities and bonuses. It is currently early days for the project but work is progressing swiftly, I hope to have a playtest ruleset available relatively shortly.
 

Enough about that, let us focus on the miniatures! There are currently two work in progress warbands, one ‘generic’ Greek dedicated to Athene and another of ‘Spartans’ dedicated to Ares (I am well aware that the patron deity of Sparta was also Athene but having two warbands dedicated to same god would make for rather less interesting games!). The figures are all Victrix, with the heroes mildly converted/kit bashed for interests sake. Some wargames foundry figures should also be on their way very soon for a few of the other test warbands. The figures will/have a level of uniformity not seen in early Classical Greek forces, this is purely a stylistic choice to separate different warbands and give a sense of ‘flavour’ or identity to each force.

The game is also designed to be used with Mycenean-era figures, capturing the ‘true’ nature of the Epics rather than the more classical or ‘ceramic’ depictions. For my own use however is vastly prefer the late archaic/early classical material culture and have gone with that.

Below you'll find a selection of rather work in progress images. These are the most complete miniatures althought they are still far from done.

The Hero of the Athenian Band. Name as of yet undecided, answers on a post card please.

The First Champion

The Second Champion.