medium or heavy greek cavalry

[dabinla]

Any hopes for medium or Heavy Greek cavalry from Warlord? I find light Greek cav next to useless and would like to run medium Greek cavalry, however don't want to pay 24.50US plus 16.00US shipping for 3 horses at Foundry. any suggestions?
thanks
Derek

[wargame_insomniac]

There are quite a few options for the Successors era but few for Alexander apart from Foundry, which are lovely but overpriced.

[phn104]

Hmmm, I have not seen much truly Greek medium cavalry (such as Thessalian cav.) in this scale other than foundry. I am not quite sure which period you are looking for but Aventine Miniatures have nice med/heavy cavalry from period of Pyrrhus of Epirus who operated slightly after Alexander the Great (I think he was tutored by one of Alexander's generals- Ptolemy). If you want cav. with shields they have Tarantine Cav. as well.

[wargame_insomniac]

The Aventine Minatures cavalry are gorgeous- I was trying to avoid mentioning them by name given this is Warlord's own forum but they were what I was thinking of for Successors cavalry. I am definitely looking forward to seeing them on the table at Partizan this coming Sunday.

Pyrrhus first battle vs Romans was Heraclea in 280 BC, so some 50 years after Alexander. So would be stretching things to use their Agema/Heavy Greek Cavalry for Alexandrian era. Similarly the first time that Greeks would have come across shielded cavalry was when Pyrrhus came to "assist" the Tarantines. So Tarantines would be perfect for later Successors- again the Aventine Miniatures Tarantines are quite beautiful.

So it would depend what period the OP wants to cover.

Cheers

James

[Eumerin]

Since I know the individual in question...

He's running a Hoplite list. Long spears only in the phalanxes. We're using the army list book locally. I'm guessing that he noted the option to add a small unit of medium cavalry (found in both the Hoplite and Later Hoplite lists), and is looking for more information on this as well as appropriate figures.

[Cubster]

Mr Sawyer may have been White Dwarf editor, but the forum is a refreshing haven of modelling diversity. I think it shows confidence in their stock that neither 'The Saw' or the Rev John Stallard feel the need to restrain the discussion of other companies.

[phn104]

#Cubster

Yes, I've noticed that also on other topics which is why I didn't really hesitate to name other companies. I would say with their products the Warlord games are pretty safe. Myself I have already a few boxes of hoplites and now I am working on the only (I think) plastic phalangites on the market. So I agree, their stuff is awesome but what ancient/history wargamers like is variety within their armies so mixing up different companies' products will continue.

[Gunfreak]

Mr Sawyer may have been White Dwarf editor, but the forum is a refreshing haven of modelling diversity. I think it shows confidence in their stock that neither 'The Saw' or the Rev John Stallard feel the need to restrain the discussion of other companies.

Yes I agree I've posted lots of pictrues of figres not sold or made by warlord, and never had any problems-

And I can second Aventine figures, they have just released greek heavy cav

[ether_drake]

I've had a similar challenge. There seems to be a lack of visual documentation on what would qualify as medium or heavy greek cavalry in the Classical Hoplite period (as opposed to Macedonian hegemony after), so I took the leap that I had some freedom of interpretation.

I ended up settling on ordering armoured Etruscan cavalry from Gorgon. They're Steve Saleh sculpts. Pretty nice. The helmets are more 'Illyrian' in look, but I'm running a mixed Spartan/mercenary force, so its fine for me.

One practical problem I've found with the otherwise visually accurate Warlord light greek cavalry is that all the riders face to the left. I planned to run my light cavalry on the left flank, but this would mean that they would all be facing to the table edge and probably not at their enemies! I can't find any evidence that cavalry were always on the right in the hoplite era, so maybe some 'neutral' forward-facing sculpts or even right-facing sculpts might be nice.

[Eumerin]

On the topic of Hoplite-era medium cavalry, I was flipping through the scenarios in the first C&C: Ancients expansion the other day, when I happened to glance at the scenarios for Leuctra and Mantinea. Both battles involved the Thebans (under Epaminondas) versus the Spartans, and both scenarios as presented include medium cavalry on both sides (with the Thebans getting notably larger quantities). I don't know the actual details of the battles beyond what's presented, so I don't know whether the units in question were actually better equipped than the typical Greek light cavalry or whether the scenario designer just decided that they'd work better as medium units for some reason. Either way, it's a possible starting point for someone who wants to look into the idea of medium Greek cavalry before the arrival of Alexander.