Since releasing my game Bronze Shield, Silver Coin, I've received several questions on where to get fitting miniatures to represent your mercenary warband, including your Captain and Second-in-Command.

Bronze Shield, Silver Coin is an Ancient Greek mercenary skirmish wargame playable with between 8-12 figures a side. It is miniatures agnostic and the rules are flexible enough to accommodate almost any Ancients figures you'd like, including those from other parts of the Mediterranean and beyond. All the basic weapon types are represented, including hand weapons (swords and axes), two handed clubs and falx, and the ubiquitous spear.

A serious consideration when equipping your troops is whether to equip them with light or heavy shields. In ancient combat, a soldier's role was defined by the type of shield they carried so I placed great emphasis on shields in the rules. Light shields (such as animal skin or wicker shields) were used by low status skirmishers. These troops are cheaper to hire to your warband but the shield only gives them an edge when defending against missile weapons. On the other hand, the famous bronze-plated hoplon (the round shield that gave hoplites their name) provides great protection both from missile as well as melee attacks, at an extra cost.

Bringing a Captain or a Second to a fight with no shield is an option (you will see an example from my Phoenician warband in the pic above) but you'll need to carefully allocate the special abilities of the character to make it work. In this case I've given the Second the bodyguard ability to protect the shield-less captain. Good for role-playing a leader who is less of a front line fighter but bringing a shield is always the more optimal choice.

With shields out of the way, let's talk manufacturers. There are a ton of figure companies that have lines for ancient Greece (and surrounding regions). I'm just going to talk about companies that I have used for my own collection.

For your money, Victrix multipart plastic kits are absolutely the best way to fill out your mercenary warband. These kits are great value and there are a variety of kits to build every kind of soldier you can hire in Bronze Shield, Silver Coin. Victrix has been producing kits for many years so they have some different options.

Now for the purpose of a warband-sized game like Bronze Shield, Silver Coin, Victrix kits are huge! The kits I'm talking about here contain between 48 and 56 figures which is enough to build at least four warbands! There is an alternative to buying the full kits though, and I'll talk about that after I go through some options.

Victrix's latest Greek kit, their updated hoplites, seems tailor made for skirmish games. They are dynamic and full of character. If I had to recommend just one kit to get into Bronze Shield, Silver Coin, this would be a good one. You could put together four full teams, although your weapon choices would be limited to swords and spears.

 Victrix has a variety of older hoplite boxes (Theban, mercenary, Spartan, Athenian) and these kits are a little less dynamic in the poses but still great. I mix them (and their bits) with the newer kit with no issue. Each of these kits have basically the same weapon and armor options, but there are different helmets and some special command bits (like the Spartans get some cloaks). So there's no reason to go crazy buying a bunch of different sprues from this series just for Bronze Shield.

The unarmoured hoplites sprue (or full kit) on the other hand is a great option for getting some variety in your warbands. I decided not to distinguish between levels of armor in the Bronze Shield rules but it's fun to mix and match armored and unarmored hoplites for a more "rag-tag" appearance. If you buy the full kit, you also get archers which makes this a pretty good "one box" Bronze Shield, Silver Coin option.

I could go on about Victrix options forever but I'll limit myself to just one more kit, the peltasts, javelin men, and slingers. This opens up your warband options to peltasts, whose javelins allow them to move and then immediately shoot. Peltasts can also be flexibly equipped with either light or heavy shields which further increases their flexibility. Speaking of light shields, this kit is a great source that you can use on either peltasts or to create lightly-armored spearmen or swordsmen.

If you're just starting out with ancient Greek miniatures and not sure you'll be doing army-size games in the future, buying individual sprues can be a great way to save money (and space in your "pile of opportunity"). It also lets you better understand what's in each kit before you order a big bag of 56 models!

I've bought individual sprues from the US-based SprueDude in the past and been impressed with the customer service. His inventory sells out sometimes but he stocks all the kits I've mentioned so check back often.
https://spruedude.com/collections/victrix

WGA's Persians box is a great buy for building a Persian warband. You get a huge variety of weapons (spears, swords, bows, and warpicks). There are light and heavy armors and light and heavy shields to mix and match.

Footsore do an amazing range of Greek characters to go with their Mortal Gods game. They make excellent Captains and Seconds with their commanding poses and interesting weapon loadouts. These are metal miniatures so might take some getting used to if you're used to plastic. The only reservation  I have about these minis is that they have separate hands. I'm not a fan of multi-part metal models and I've already had hands pop off during games.

Bronze Age Miniatures is a one-man operation from the US who produces characterful metal miniatures perfect for Captains and Seconds in Bronze Shield, Silver Coin. He even has a selection of women characters in his "Amazons" line! They are 32mm so some of them are tall, but hey--they are heroes!

There are more options than these when it comes to 28mm ancient Mediterranean warriors. One of my goals with Bronze Shield, Silver Coin was for each player to find their own unique place in ancient history, so be creative, go forth, and build your warband!

Buy Bronze Shield, Silver Coin on Wargame Vault

I'm happy to announce my first published wargame, Bronze Shield, Silver Coin, is now available for purchase on Wargame Vault in PDF or Paperback.

Bronze Shield, Silver Coin was started in 2023 when I was searching for an Ancients skirmish game to scratch a certain itch and couldn't find it. There aren't many games set in Ancient times that only utilize a couple sprues of models (most in fact are large army games) and I was also looking for a game that would let me use my imagination, let me carve out space for a couple characters and a warband that could adventure in the Ancient Mediterranean.

My main influences were the video game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (still the most fleshed-out Ancient Greek video game experience ever made) and tabletop games like Frostgrave and Pulp Alley,  where the focus is on customizable characters.

I read a number of history books to gather information, the most impressive being the excellent Ghost on the Throne by James Romm, which covers the details of Alexander the Great's death and the start of the Successor period. This is one of my favorite periods in history for the rich characters, sudden betrayals, and shaky alliances. Historical persons like the Illyrian warrior woman Cynane and the ruthless bounty hunter Archias only confirmed that I wanted to make a game that focused not on the huge battles, but on the small campaigns and dirty deeds of the mercenary forces during the period.

The more I learned about the period, it was the frequent betrayals (such as when an entire army changed sides due to loyalty to Alexander's mother Olympias) that inspired the Intrigue system, which uses a deck of cards to represent bribery, shaken troops, and the fickle nature of the gods. This quickly became the "killer feature" of the game, setting it apart from other warband level skirmish games. The combination of the Intrigue system and the deep focus on maneuvering let me know that I was headed in the right direction. Games of Bronze Shield, Silver Coin are short, 6 turns, and each turn becomes a rich puzzle that both players are trying to solve. Should I bid for initiative? Which of the opponent's characters can I attempt to corrupt with the Intrigue cards? Where do I consolidate my power? When do I go for the objective?

I hope you will check out Bronze Shield, Silver Coin and enjoy it. The historical "fog" that separates us from the Ancient world gives us a great excuse to create characters and stories to inhabit it. I certainly already have ideas for places to take Bronze Shield next. A solo campaign based on Xenophon's Anabasis was pulled from the rulebook to continue development. I also have ideas for geographical expansions (such as 4th century BC Italy) or new eras (Trojan War anybody?).