The Plan
Agon is an action-packed role playing game about ancient Greek heroes who face brutal tests from the gods. With bravery, cunning, honor, and strength, one hero will prove to be the greatest and secure immortality in legend. This is a game I want to run for my friends. The combat is quite abstract and the game doesn't really require figures but I feel like painting some Greek heroes and mythical creatures and I'll possibly expand it into a tabletop skirmish game at a later date. You can get hold of your own copy of Agon or download a taster document from here Figures
After looking around a bit I decided to get my heroes from Bronze Age Miniatures. The Bronze Age figures are suitably large and the range is small so I don't feel compelled to buy hundreds of them which would just add to the lead pile. I chose six male heroes and three Amazons to begin with and a set of five skeletons as opponents. David at Bronze Age added a freebie figure to round it up to ten heroes. A previous order netted me an evil sorcerer with his sacrificial altar and a Conan figure who'll get painted at the same time. I grabbed an old Das Shcwarze Auge Cyclops off E-bay and I'm currently looking around for other suitable monsters. More skeletons are on the way too. As you can see, I've swapped the cast spears for some brass ones and based the human sized figures on 30mm circles.
I painted up the first batch of skeletons and five of the Greeks for the final round of the Lead Painters League.
Here they are standing in for Jason and the Argonauts. The Golden Fleece is from Steve Barber.
I also painted up a plastic 1/16th Hoplite kit to make a figure of Talos the Bronze Giant while I was at it.
Here are some Gamezone Miniatures Harpies.
Here are the second set of skeletons, armed with swords this time.
And for some real heavy hitters, the Cyclops and a pair of Minotaurs. The pointing Minotaur is from Spartan Games and the other is from Rebel minis.
Next up are some little guys, satyrs from Eureka Miniatures which I got here in the UK from Fighting 15s. They are led by the God Pan who is a Doctor Who monster from Black Tree Design.
The goat statue is a broken wooden ornament I found in a charity shop. This is a cast iron bull I bought from a junk shop years ago intending to turn it into a Bronze Bull for Jason and his Argonauts to overcome in a role playing game. It's taken me about ten years to actually paint it but that's how it goes sometimes. Shown here with a Bronze Age Greek for scale.
Here's a nice little (well actually quite large) resin olive press I got from Grand Manner. Oddly, it's a single piece resin casting, I was expecting a kit. It's very reasonably priced at £8.50.
I've rebased some old miniatures to use in my AGON project. I haven't touched the paint on the miniatures, I'm still very happy with them. The cockatrice won best painted fantasy model at Salute in 2000.
The troll, Manticore and Cockatrice are from Grenadier and the Chimera is a Ral Partha model. They're all based on 80mm bases from Warbases. My Erymanthian Boar. This is an Archive miniature from my earliest days of buying metal miniatures. He was originally painted in enamels in about 1979, repainted in acrylics in 1991 and today he got re-based so he can once again venture onto the tabletop to terrorise players.
Some shades from Foundry.
The nice bits of rubble are from Dreamholme Scenics (their website has nothing on it so no link) who also made the arch I posted before. I have plans for these rubble pieces, stay tuned.
Keeping with the Underworld theme, here's a re-based Ral Partha Cerberus. A pair of two-headed dogs, also from Ral Partha and re-based for the occasion. I suppose these could be Orthros and a twin.
An old Grenadier giant or titan, again re-based (and posed with a shade for scale),one of the metal men made by Hephaistos.
These are Crusader Miniatures hoplites that will represent city guards.
Crooked Dice Bronze Men.
A green Titan. this is another older miniature re-based for AGON, a Grenadier giant originally.
This week's new miniatures are these Nymphs. They're Foundry elves I think.
These are Black Tree Design hoplites. These will represent bandits as well as armed villagers and the like, basically they're a step down from the city guard.
This is a Ral Partha giant. I bought it off eBay for a couple of pounds because of its Greek styling. It's actually a horrible miniature to paint. The detail is incredibly soft and the pose is both silly and awkward to hold. I hated painting it but at least it's done.
I realised after I'd dismantled my photography area and background that I hadn't take any shots of him with a normal 28mm miniature to show the scale. Oh well. He's on a 50mm base if that helps. I looked around for some giant scorpions but they're very hard to get unless you're willing to pay lots of money for metal ones. I wasn't and the fact they all come with awkward separate legs that would need pinning added to my disinclination to buy any. I was hoping for a Reaper Bones version but no luck.
Eventually I found these excellent plastic toy scorpions. Almost 13cm long and only £3.00 each (and they come painted) perfect! These are the last of my hoplites that will act as general human adversaries for the player characters. All are from Black Tree Design .
These slingers will add a ranged aspect to the combats.
These are Lucid Eye Neanderthals to represent primitive hill men and other uncivilised types.
Finally for this batch, a Medusa from Reaper Miniatures.
Some big Beasties now. These are all Reaper Bones Miniatures. The Bones material makes them light and cheap which is just fantastic and the miniatures keep the level of detail of the metal versions as well.
A Gryphon. A Hydra.
Argus of the hundred eyes, Hera's watchdog. (It's a Beholder actually).
This is an odd miniature. I have no idea who makes it, I found it on eBay. It was cheap and I couldn't resist. It's a sort of Mesopotamian bull man or lamassu cast in resin.
Keeping with the bull motif this is a Reaper Bones miniature that I've wanted for a long time. I painted it as a more coppery bull as I have a bronze one already.
Here are some Westwind Yetis doubling up as wild men.
These Games Workshop giant eagles got rebased and will make good adversaries for AGON.
Binah
The Triple Goddess in her Moon barge. I originally made this back in 1999/2000 for my Ars Magica campaign to represent Binah. The barge is a cast iron or brass affair that I found in a junk shop. I added the Moon at the back out of cardboard and putty. The miniatures are from Prince August/Mithril and show the Goddess in her three forms of Maiden, Mother and Crone. The Crone is from Garrison Miniatures I think. The base is plasticard with glue-soaked tissue for the water effect. 2019
Having started playing AGON again in a modified version (AGON D6) I've returned to finish off the last remaining miniatures. These are a quartet of Bronze Age female warriors and a Reaper Socrates. The boat for the heroes to travel in is from Sarissa Precision and is a Roman trade vessel. The only Greek boats I could find anywhere were stupidly expensive so it will have to do. OOP Confrontation centaurs.
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Scenery
Here is an old Ian Weekley Battleground Roman temple that I've had for years. It was painted but I gave it a facelift for AGON. This piece is available from Magister Militum. It's actually meant for 15mm figures. This is a resin model from Scotia Grendel, their ruined Acropolis. I added a base stone layer with a thick cork tile (like I did for the Ian Weekley building above) and made an interior floor with some small plastic squares from a toy mosaic kit that I bought 12 years ago intending to use it for just this purpose. I take my time but I get there in the end.
![]() Here is another Grendel piece, a small ruined shrine that isn't currently available but no doubt will be soon.
![]() This is a resin arch from a manufacturer I've forgotten (sorry).
This horse shrine will be accompanied by my centaurs when they're done. It's made from a brass horse ornament I found in a charity shop.
Playing AGON
For combat AGON uses an abstract range ladder to show the relative positions of the combatants. The one provided with the game is shown below. Counters representing the player characters and their opponents are placed on this track and moved around as the dice rolls and player choices dictate.
Because I'm using miniatures for my games I wanted something a little more atmospheric so I made a battle board. Here's the plan I came up with: Each half of the board is a 300mm square cork tile which I've terrained in strips to delineate the range bands. I also prepared four small pieces of rubble which can be added randomly if required to add a little more 3D to the proceedings.
The two halves can be arranged in a number of ways to add variety.
I've added lines to the photo below to show where the range bands are. Each area is either earth, grass or paving and where two of the same types meet in the centre the edges of the tiles provide a clear division marker.
Charon's barge
There were several occasions in my Ars Magica campaign when the characters made journeys to the Underworld and used the facilities offered by Charon, the boatman of the River Styx. One day, and I can't remember why, I decided it would be a really good idea to build his barge. It only took a day to make and paint it. The main body is made from balsa wood and the rest is plasticard and things from my bits box. I had a load of ship parts that I'd collected for a big pirate ship that never got finished so these were the first things to be pressed into service. The lanterns fore and aft are brass ship fittings and the rails down the side are plasticard mounted on wooden ships railings. The little standing lights by the steps are made from mapping pins and a clear bead. the big skulls on the side are a metal badge, there's a different one on the other side. The hanging skeletons were bought from the same shop and are ear rings. There are a lot of skulls and bones which are shield devices from the Games Workshop skeleton box set, easy to use because they're flat on the back so you can just stick them down where you want them. This box set was a very worthwhile purchase as it provided full skeletons and separate skulls as well for other parts of the barge.
Charon himself is a 54mm figure from a company called Sanderson (I think). They made figures, several based on Frank Frazetta pictures, around the end of the 70s. I don't think they're still going. This figure was originally an executioner and had an axe. I removed the axe head and extended the pole in both directions with brass rod. You can see the join in this picture. I made this in 1998 and wasn't as skillful as I am now. I topped his pole with a GW skeleton head.
The figure was on an integral base which I didn't want to bother removing (I didn't have the tools to do it either) so I added a strip of plasticard to make a ledge across the width of the barge and disguise the base. The centre structure was made from plasticard, four plastic cylinders from till rolls and many GW skeleton bits. The coffin is from Rafm and is on a plinth made from GW bases. The roof ornament is from Grenadier and was the original figure I used for Charon in my games.
The ends of the centre structure are filled with an archway that a Rafm litch used to stand in and a Mithril Miniatures palantier. There is another set of these at the other end. The big hands that I used to cap the railings are from an Airfix skeleton kit.
The front skeletons are metal and come from Ellerburn Armies. The seated ones are on mapping pins again and the crucified one is held in place by brass rod. the front and back of the barge, where the wood grain was exposed by cutting have been capped with plasticard to give a smooth finish.
Everything was painted black and drybrushed with a couple of greys. Charon was painted in black and grey with pallid grey-green skin. Tiny bits of brass were added in places and that was that. A suitably gloomy and creepy conveyance for the River Styx. The barge is 100mm wide and 400mm long. The last of my Bronze Age miniatures adventurers and a Ral Partha goat centaur.
A re-based miniature from my old fantasy set. A 54mm Phoenix satyr and some Gripping Beast goats to represent Pan and his flocks.
All but one of my female Greek warriors.
A Ral Partha Minotaur, resued from the 'old fantasy' drawers and re-based. I originally used this miniature in my Ars Magica role-playing campaign.
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