Galatian Progress

A quick update on my regiment of naturist Galatians; flesh tones completed, I'm starting to work through the cloaks, spearshafts and hair colours. They are moving along at a fair pace (by my standards at least!).

Celtic Reinforcements!

Attracted by reports of plunder, two more celtic tribes have migrated into Northern Italy.


I have decided to imaginatevely name them "Warband 9" and "Warband 10". They differ from their Warband 1-8 relatives in 3 ways; they are more widely spaced on the bases (20mm frontage rather than 15mm), they have smaller shields and are mostly armed with javelins. This is because I intend to use them as "Auxilia" in C&C terms, rather than Warband per se; they are faster moving, happier in bad terrain, but lack the deadly charge of their fiercer neighbours. I hope to eventually have 4 units of these.


These were more than ably painted by my mate Nick S, who did a very fine job on the plaid and shields. I based; you may notice I'm starting to use the Silflor tufts alongside the clumps I make, myself.

Getting ahead in the Thracian Army

Teres, King of Odrysia is waiting for his army of Thracian tribesment to muster... his mate Acarnas says he should have a couple of bevvies and chill out a bit.

Teres marks a new low for me. I suffer from a terrible lack of focus, and often will buy or paint a unit from an army that is no use whatsoever on its own. This, however, is the first time that I've painted a general who has no troops to command. I do want to raise a small Thracian army, but it is quite a way down my list.

I painted Teres on the left, but bought the extremely nicely painted Acarnas on the right, on eBay- I can't recall who from, if you painted him, please drop me a line!

Desperate Times...

...call for desperate measures; and to a Roman, few measures are more desperate than arming a bunch of slaves! Still, with a horde of Germans ravaging the Po valley it is time to offer these chaps the chance to earn their freedom in exchange for dangerous military service.


These desperate heroes were painted for me by the highly talented and extremely prolific Greg Privat; I then did some highlighting and basing. They actually depict later, EIR gladiators from the 69AD Civil War. The figures are a mix of Foundry and Crusader.


This is a progress shot of my Galatian unit. There is not a great deal of progress, because I have been struggling with The Mother of All Essays; now happily vanquished, but around half have a basecoat, and all have a thin coat of Ronseal.

Ruddy Galatians

I need units to round out half a dozen different armies, so I've chosen to paint a unit for an army I've not even started yet!


These will be a unit of Galatian mercenaries, serving in a Ptolemaic army. Apart from the fact I've always fancied a unit of these, I have accumulated a lot of nekkid figures I couldn't think of any other way of using. These are a mix of Celts and Greeks from A&A, BTD and Foundry, with Crusader, A&A and Essex shields, a lot of headswaps and some dodgy greenstuff cloaks. Apart from the bare heads, there are half a dozen each celtic and attic greek helmets; I'm assuming that some of the troops have re-equipped themselves in the markets of Alexandria.

I've decided to try to paint these quickly, and as a unit. My version of "speed painting" will probably take around a month... :-( so not that speedy. Here they are again primed rust red (part of my cunning plan):-


I'll try to snap a few pics of them during the process...

On other fronts, I finished basing Greg's gladiators and some large desert hills I've made, and hope to have time to take some nice photos in the next few days. Unfortunately I'm writing a big essay against a tight deadline, which is most tiresome and is cutting into my painting and modelling time...

It Didn't Snow, Storm or Flood Today...

...for the first time in what seems like a month! So naturally I dashed out for an orgy of spray varnishing and priming.

I did very nearly "varnish" Greg's gladiators with a can of Halfords Grey Primer, which would have been doubly unfortunate after Greg's recent Conquistador White Varnish Disaster (at glorarmy, some way down). Happily, I am in the habit of trying every spray out on the corner of the mat, and caught myself just in time...

So tomorrow I will be able to press on with some basing... they are looking very fine!

EIR Eastern Archer Cohort

This is my cohort of Eastern archers. I planned them years ago, and only finished them recently... a happy mix of Foundry and BTD figures.

Here's the Centurion (Crusader) in a closeup. To celebrate the Eastern connection, I gave him an LBMS shield depicting Mithras.

I have lots more figures to base; I'm waiting for a warmer, snow free day to get on with the varnishing!

Confessions of a Basing Nazi Part 3

The next step is to paint the bases. I use a pot of paint I mix up from cheap tubes of acrylic- lots of Raw Umber, and some tan colour and a little Buff Titanium. I roughly drybrush this over the brown of the base, and then drybrush successive coats with the mix diluted with more Buff Titanium until I achieve a fairly light colour.

Here we have a comparison shot that shows that the base colour is much lighter than when I started (bottom left base). The bottom right base is one of the templates from earlier, that I've used to check that the colour is roughly correct.


After this I seal with Testors Lacquer, into which I mix a tiny bit of brown oil paint, which helps tie the colours of the base together, seal it against water damage, and above all make it very matt.


So here is my discovery of the month; Silflor tufts. These come ready made and one can quickly stick them into place. They will replace the tufts you can see on the archers (below) which I laboriously cut and trim from hair, dyed green, and which can take a whole evening to do for a couple of units.


The archers above have been "dressed" with some Silflor, static grass, a twig and some of the hair tufts (which still need to be trimmed).


Finally, here are the BTD legionaries, which I am really pleased with, because they will bring a little variety to my Saleh EIR army. I've replaced all the legionaries' shields with Foundry shields. I'm especially pleased with the Optio who is lightly converted from a Praetorian...