Achilles and his Myrmidons for Ilium: A Game of Heroes

Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, the accursed anger which brought uncounted anguish on the Achaeans and hurled down to Hades many mighty souls of heroes, making their bodies the prey to dogs and the birds’ feasting …

Homer, The Iliad 1.1-4

The final - and arguably most famous - contingent that I'll be painting up before the release of Ilium: A Game of Heroes hails from Phthia in southern Thessaly. Led by Achilles, the only son of King Peleus, here are the Myrmidons. All are splendid 28mm sculpts from Lucid Eye Miniatures.

The sculpt chosen to be Achilles is actually one of the regular Myrmidons from the Myrmidon 2 pack from Lucid Eye. However, all the Lucid Eye models are sculpted to the same high quality and he utilises the fancier armour and kilt body that was originally sculpted to be Achilles anyway, but with what I felt to be a more commanding presence.

I used the figure named as Achilles (on the left) to be my Patroklos. He too has fancy armour, and his bare head sets him apart from the rest of the contingent. The Myrmidons themselves have a black theme inspired by three different (and equally superficial) lines of thought.

1. The Myrmidons were created by Zeus out of ants. Now, perhaps not all ants are black, but it is the colour that comes to my mind when thinking about ants.
2. The solid black marks the Myrmidons as distinct from all the other contingents on the board.
3. The 2004 Wolfgang Petersen movie, Troy, for all of its many, many, faults, is still influential and Brad Pitt's Myrmidons in the movie all dress in black.