Chop and Change

The army from Magister Militum was put together according to the DBA v.1 lists, which are slightly different from the newer v2.2. There are sufficient figures in the pack to make up the v.2.2 army, but there needed to be some adjustment to the figures. Incidentally, I did speak to the guys from Magister Miltum about this, and they are in the process of updating their DBA packs to confom to the v.2.2 list. They did say, understandably, that this is quite a time-consuming task, so I guess it's not going to happen overnight! I look forward to the change to v.2.2 complient army packs because I do feel that Magister Militum's figures are amongst the best on the market, and the out of date army packs were the one fly in the ointment for me.

I decided to put together an Etruscan League army (list I/57b) which contains 4 elements of blades (4Bd) and 4 elements of Spear (4Sp). The army pack contains enough heavy foot to make up 8 elements, but in the wrong proportions. There are eight spear armed hoplite type figures and twenty four pilum armed hoplite types. I figure that the pilum armed guys would do for the blade elements, but I only need sixteen.

I decided therefore, that for the remaining eight I would remove the pilum, drill the hands and add a spear. I have some Xyston wire spears in my bits box, which I decided would be ideal. I also decided that if I was doing that for the eight pilum armed chaps, I would do the same for the eight spear armed ones. The reason for this was that the moulded spears struck me as a little short, and in any case, wire spears are more resilient.


The pic shows a before and after shot of the conversion. Picture 1 shows the pilum and spear figures straight out of the bag. Picture 2 shows one of the pilum armed hoplites with the weapon removed and the flash cleaned off. I used a sharp craft knife for this, and I have to say it went a lot easier than I anticipated. I then used a pin vice with a very thin drill bit (1.5 mm I think) to drill through the hand. Lastly, picture 3 shows the two figures with their new, longer spears added. I used some ready made wire spears from Xyston for this, cut down with a pair of wire clippers to the desired length. The spears are superglued in the holes, and also glued to the figure's base for added strength. Two down, fourteen to go!