Monday 9 November 2009

Not my Numidians!


These photos are are of a Numidian army painted by Gordon Smith, whose photos I'm helping to put up on the Web.  Most of the minis are Crusader, although some of the cavalry must be Foundry.

The above/below elephant is an Empire Models African painted by Tim (AKA Aargh) from the WAB Forum, and now owned my Gordon, I believe.  It is rather fanciful IMHO, what with the armour and it's heavy build, but what a lovely modelling job!  Tim owns a similar-sized Numidian army, which is also a fine sight.



Some of many Numidian skirmishers...


More...


Even more...


Big units!


Trained Infantry...


Imitation Legionaries and more trained infantry...


More Numidian light cavalry than I have at the moment...


What a nice army!   It has struck me that these two armies, together, would sort most of the Carthaginian and Roman Numidian allied minis required for Zama.  If they could tie up with a gamer with a big Roman army, they could put on a most impressive game.

8 comments:

The Extraordinarii said...

WOW ! this is most impressive, what a great lookin army and even elephants !! who is the maker of these minis ?

BigRedBat said...

Hi, they are almost all Crusader minis. I like the Crusaders (and have best part of 200 of them), although I think that the Foundry minis (whilst not a complete range) are even better.

ZeroTwentythree said...

That's especially impressive seeing that full army shot at the end! I also admire the entire idea of fielding a Numidian army. :)

I'm also a (big) fan of the Crusader figures.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Z23, I really like the Crusader Numids in standing erect poses for the trained units; however I think the Foundry Copplestones are more animated, and have nicer faces, for the skirmishers. I also prefer the Foundry horses to the Crusader eBob ones, which I find just a bit too leggy.

Vojvoda said...

Yeap Great army but I hope Allen does not have a fit over the elephants, towers, and all that Armour! Are you sure the elephants are Crusader? I especially admire his skin tone of the figures.
VR
James Mattes

BigRedBat said...

Hi James, the elephants are OOP and from Empire Models. They are "African" elephants. Not very realistic, but they do have character, and a nice paint job! The crewmen in the towers are Crusader.

ZeroTwentythree said...

"I also prefer the Foundry horses to the Crusader eBob ones, which I find just a bit too leggy."

I think we've had this (electronic) discussion before. ;) They are a bit tall, especially for ancient horses, but I don't mind that so much.

The Foundry figure do look nice. But I can get approximately 3 Crusader figures for ever 1 Foundry figure based on the pricing structures. So that affects my buying drastically.

I am actually a huge Copplestone fan. If I could afford armies entirely of his ancient Germans, Ceasarians, etc. I would do it in a heartbeat. But Mark Sims is very close to Copplestone in style (IMHO), which is why I've started buying a lot of his figures.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Z23, yes I think we have.

I got some samples of the new Vendel Parthians, recently. They use Ebob horses, but in a smaller size. I'm very impressed with them!

Here, I actually find that I can get Foundry miniatures cheaper than Crusader. This is because people binge on Foundry in the sales and offload them on eBay a year later!

One minor gripe I have with Crusader is that they need more cleaning because of the tiny sharp vent flash. But I do use them; I must have a couple of hundred painted. They often make figures that Foundry don't; their EIR Roman Centurion is a godsend for me, for example. The greek trumpeter and standard bearers with vexilla are also invaluable.