Many of today's garners have probably never experienced the thrill of convertingan existingfigure into something new, differentand otherwise unavailable. What with the variety of figures available today and ready made and painted armies, the ideaof converting little soldiers is probably a dying art. There are still some opportunities, however, for the enteprising gamer to create that unique unit, or at least to customize a unit to achieve more variety and individuality. This is one of the reasons why I really like RAFM 25mm ancient figures. The separate heads, shields and weapons, plus the availability of spare parts, allows one to put some real variety into his units, not to mention coming up with something truly different once in a while. I have phalanxes with several different types of figures (incidentally, Ral Partha phalangites mix in well with RAFM) and several different types of heads as well. My Scythian cavalry has no two figures alike. Likewise, using the mailed phalangite figure, a scutum, pilum, and a variety of helmeted heads, I have a fairly convincing unit of Hannibal's Italian veterans. Another idea I have been toying with is mixing the Arab archer figures along with the different types of Jewish light infantry, several different bearded heads, slings, bows, javelins, and shields, to come up with a realistic body of ancient Arabs (they weren't all archers, you know). The conversion described here came to me while looking qt the picture of the Lykian infantryman in Duncan Head's "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars". This was a unique troop type that would be appropriate for use in several Successor armies. To my knowledge no one made such a figure, at least not in my scale of 25mm figures. I had just been looking at some of the Thracian peltasts orthureophoros (RAFM's AH-121 believe). The body was almost perfect, with a plain tunic and a cloak. Theupper part of the boots could easily be painted as the crimson leggings described in the text. Add to this a round hoplite shield, a helmetless bearded head, and a javelin or short spear, and you are in business. If others out there have some more ideas let me know and I'll print them here for everyone's benefit. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VIII No. 5 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1989 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles covering military history and related topics are available at http://www.magweb.com