My thoughts pretty much paullus. We are going to err, of course, in our depiction. Too many variables to account for especially given the restrictions of our game engine. But I'm willing to err a little more on the side of having more elaborate gear than erring too much on the other side (plus, I like countering the general idea most folks have of the artistically-deprived Spartans, which isn't the case).

I would note that any elaborate metalwork would probably have come from outside of Lakonia at this time though. I haven't mentioned this internally yet, but today I've been reading a little more about "Lakonian artistic production and the problem of spartan austerity". Lakonian metalwork itself really did suffer at this point in their history (especially as compared to the boom in the sixth century), but as these men have mostly served as mercs, much of their armor was acquired outside of Lakonia.