"15mm Early Classical Greek cavalry" Topic

Anyone know who produces early Greek cavalry of the 6th century and early 5th century BC. The time of the Persian wars and before. These are the cavalry of the 'mounted' hoplite without shields. Chariot miniatures make Lydian cavalry, otherwise there seems to be only late Greek cavalry.

Would the Xyston figures work?

Unfortunately Xyston don't make the early Greek hoplite cavalry. Their Greek cavalry is the later period and don't have the Corinthian helmets.

Ah, got it.

Minifigs do one – ZC101 at link – old sculpture, only one pose, but still nice. (There is a matching cavalry command pack ZC112, but I've not seen it.)

Thanks Gurkhan. yes, that it the type. I would have liked to have seen it on a horse and a clearer picture. It is a wonder Minifigs sell anything these days with such poor photos on the website. Pity really.

I would think that a Corinthian helmet would be the last choice for a cavalry man.
It's heavy with extremely limited vision and hearing. It's the ideal helmet for a hoplite who simply charges straight ahead and does the patented VDH rugby scrum.

There's a fair few horsemen on Archaic Greek vases who seem to disagree with you, John.

Have you ever worn one, John? I'd have agreed with you, but when trying a replica I've been surprised to find that they restrict vision and hearing much less than you'd expect.

Perhaps Xyston will make one as they have produced 2 types of the Early Hoplite recently.

How big are the newer Xyston figures? Even bigger than before or have they stabilised?

Cheers,
John

the Xyston figures are no bigger than before. They are all made from the same dollies so have to be the same. Personally, I don't don't see a problem with the 'size' of Xyston. The only thing that makes them appear to be bigger is because some have larger headgear; but if you measure foot to eye they are 15mm. I have mixed the hoplites with war and empire hoplites on the same base and you can't tell the difference.

There are some Xyston figures which are bigger than others but they seem to have stabilised closer to where they started. Most of the Romans, for instance, are considerably bigger than, say, the original Thracians.

I've also mixed Xyston with W&E but in my case it was Gauls. The size difference is noticeable but that is partly because some of the W&E are a bit smaller than others. The most obvious difference, though, was the size of the shields so by using Corvus Belli (another make in the mix) shields on the Xyston figures the variation in figure height is more natural looking.
Note, the Gauls I used were some of their quite early figures but are larger than the original hoplites released soon before.

the war and empire hoplite shield are virtually identical to the xyston ones and I have used the little big man studios shield transfers interchangeably if I needed to. I have the early Hoplites which were made later than the first Hoplies for the later period and there is no difference in size. admittedly I don't have the Xyston Romans but I was told by Xyston that the dollies used for all the ranges are the same so there shouldn't in theory be any size difference. It is strange then if there is a significant size difference for the Romans as you say Swampster