Monday 4 March 2013

Soldat Lagide


I received this book by Stephane Thion, on the various Egyptian Macedonian armies, in the post at the weekend.  Stephane is a French author and gamer, with whom I've occasionally corresponded; he seems like a very nice chap.  The book has 64 pages and is and packed with simple but beautiful colour reconstructions of Ptolemaic uniforms, from the founding of the kingdom to the arrival of Caesar.  Many of these illustrations are taken from grave stelae (handily naming the deceased under each drawing), and others are hypothetical.  I found the colours very useful, in particular there's one chart showing the colours from the grave stelae, all together.

Everything is there, from the agema, through the phalanx, to the exotic Galatians and Sudanese.  There are even some cavalrymen with horses and riders fully covered in textile armour... which I recall described in an old Slingshot.

There is a good deal of text, in French.  My reading French is poor and it will take me quite a while to work through this, but I'd recommend the book on the strength of the colour illustrations, alone. They are beautiful, and so very useful to a gamer/painter.  I bought my copy on Amazon.

6 comments:

Cyrus said...

Thanks for the review Simon. I've ordered this book as well, looking forward to getting it.

Simon MacDowall said...

Thanks for reminding me about this book Simon, I had been meaning to pick up a copy. Fortunately my French is not too bad.
Simon

BigRedBat said...

Hi Simon, I can read French reasonably well, just very, very slowly. Its arrival is fortuitous as my pike painting programme was flagging; I'm now flushed with enthusiasm, again...

Corporal_Trim said...

Simon, glad to hear you got the book and that it's proved useful. I'll probably get it myself on of these days, at least when Stephane offers a digital version.

It's good how the enthusiasm can be reinforced back and forth between books and figures.

Regards,
Steve

BigRedBat said...

Hi Steve, it's very useful. I'm sat here, typing with a brush clenched between my teeth, midway through inking a battalion of peltastoi!

Stephane clearly knows his stuff. But a translation would be useful...

Cheers, Simon

legatus hedlius said...

I mustn't start Macedonians. I mustn't start Macedonians!