I recently bought the new Artizan Spartan musicians and high command set. The two musicians included are a pipe and a trumpet player. I painted the pipe player and he can be used in any period Spartan army.
This sort of Greek Pipe is called an Aulos and is not a double ended instrument but rather two auloi played at the same time. It was a simple double reed instrument (like an oboe) and had only five holes. It came in a variety of sizes from quite small (parthenios-maiden type) to large (hyperteleios -extra complete). Auloi players (and certainly the Artizan one) are often depicted wearing a phorbeia, a cloth or leather bandage worn around the mouth which contained two holes to help keep the instruments in place. It was Thucydides who noted that the Spartans marched into battle to the tune of the aulos. It is theorised, not unreasonably, that the aulos players formed a separate unit behind the Hoplite phalanxes but the Warhammer rules require you to put your musician in the unit so in he will go.
I also finished another two later Spartans to go with the General and other hoplite I painted some time ago. With their pilos helmets and lambda devices on their shields they are from a later period than the Artizan Spartans.
There has been much argument over the level of armour that hoplites wore in the Peloponnesian Wars. In the Nicolas Sekunda Osprey he argued (and the illustrations reflect) that by this period, and the later Xenophon period of the 10,000, armour had fallen from use. Others do not agree, however. For my armies I have to take a view on this. It was interesting to hear Phil Sabin say, at last years SOA battle day, that wargamers often had to think about things like this and make choices in a way historians don't. My feeling is that although the nature of Hoplite fighting changed, with looser and more flexible formations needed because of the increase in importance of lighter troops on the battlefield, people would still wear armour. Maybe too, armour would not be worn in battle if the terrain was unsuitable. Classical Greek battles tended to take place on pre-agreed flat terrain. However, if you were up in the mountains of Thrace trying to beat off ambushing tribesemen with one of Xenophon's mercenary units you might discard your armour in favour of better manoeuvreability. I am going to go for a mix of armoured and unarmoured units for the later period, therefore.
The figures from this particular Foundry pack are odd in a number of ways:
Firstly, unlike the Artizan figures, they are fully bearded but with mustaches. Under the laws of Lykurgus Spartans were banned from having mustaches. On the latter two figures a bit of judicious filing has dealt with this problem (oddly the Foundry general is correctly bearded and with no mustache).
Secondly, the Foundry shields are a bit small, certainly smaller than the Artizan ones. Although I am using bigger shields for the Foundry non-Spartan Greeks (taken from an Argonauts deal I bought a few years ago with the sheep's head filed off) I decided to leave these as some of the chracters have non-separate shields.
Thirdly, the hand positions mean that when you glue the spears on the spear is, oddly, always in contact with the head. Maybe this is designed to offer another attachment point.
Finally, the figures' breastplates appear to be for bronze armour, they are not the squared off linothorox form you find on the Artizan figures. I suspect that bronze breastplates with pilos helmets really would have been anachronistic (although I painted my first figure in this way as that is the way the figures on the Foundry website are painted). For the most recent two I simply painted on the lines of a linothorax. I didn't bother to fill the line on the casting meant to represent the join between the front and back of the bronze breastplate but maybe I will on future figures.
Anyway, now I have a front rank for my later Spartan force and can finish my first unit of Classical Thermopylae period Spartans (the final figures are underway).
I've just finished another three Artizan Spartans. These are the four from pack SPA002: spearmen underarm. They work well as ranks behind the overarm poses. I have carried on painting the shield blazons but switched to red for what's supposed to be a boar, a crab and a galley. Quite tempted to do the man who had a life sized fly painted on his shield!
I don't know if Steve Saleh is planning to do any Persians for Artizan (there have been comments to that effect). Otherwise, I bought some Vendel figures and they seem pretty compatible. Perhaps I will paint one or two to see how they come out. 
I have painted an officer to go with the first four hoplites. He is armed with a sword rather than a spear as he would have been in the phalanx but it's as good a way to distinguish officers as any. The sword is rather over-large and even after some filing is still out of scale but I suppose it will look alright in a unit. 
The comparison photos show that they match with the Foundry Spartans perfectly and hence with their other Greeks (I'm sure I have a part completed Athenian hoplite somewhere!). Nearly finished an officer so hope to have him up in a day or too.
..re out! 
