Batavian Progress

Here are some progress shots of my second Batavian cohort.  I've finished repainting (below) the 15 minis I bought on eBay; they have come out very nicely, indeed, and the fact they were bought painted probably saved me 4 or 5 nights work.  In the background is the first cohort; I judge that the reinforcements are a little better painted.

Below are 9 other miniatures that will add a little variety; Crusader, Blacktree and Foundry.  They should be finished tonight or, more likely, tomorrow.

Iron Mitten is painting some Batavians, too.  His are perhaps a little earlier in period and, judging from the cartoon, will have oodles of character.  I also aspire to doing an earlier cohort along the lines of these; one day...

Mike's Pikes

Mike on TMP (LEGION 1950) has kindly sent me some photos of a little army he and Mary have knocked together, in Chicago.

Above is a (clickable) collage showing much of the army, which appears to be mostly Foundry.  The army is so large that I couldn't fit all the photos in the frame, and so the photos of the right wing are missing.

The phalanx is extremely imposing!  A total of 12 x 32 man units.  Quite a wall of lead... I like the impact of all the lowered pikes, although all my own will be vertical for storage reasons.

I gather that there are 96 Companion cavalry, alone!

This looks like Alexander, to me.

There must be around 800 miniatures in the army, in total, and from what I can see they are almost all Foundry; by far the largest Macedonian army I've seen.  Very impressive.

Coh. I Raetorum

So here is my latest (clickable) cohort of Auxilia, on patrol in the countryside.   These are Raetians (from the area covered by modern Switzerland/Southern Germany); I've painted them up as Cohors I Raetorum because this unit ended up as part of the British garrison.  They are armed with the gaesum, a barbed spear with a metal shaft, becuase I wanted to paint a unit that looked distinctive compared to my other units.

The miniatures are mostly lightly converted BTDs and Foundry Caesarians (I'm rather proud of their greenstuff  shorts), with a Crusader tribune.   Terrain is by my mate John Smillie.  

Below are the final 6 stages of the painting process.  I'm really pleased that I managed to finish them in 10 sessions, however some of them were quite long sessions!  This is extremely fast work by my standards.

Session 5 - Helmets- paint and highlight
Session 6- Paint spearshafts, scabbards, baldricks, cloaks plus highlight
Session 7- Paint spearheads, highlight, borders on cloaks, silver decorations, swordhilts, crest on tribune.  Wash with Army Painter Softtone
Session 8- Gloss spray varnish minis, selectively matt varnish minis.  Attach shields, glue minis to base
Session 9- Texture base,
Session 10- Paint bases, weathering on shields, stick on Silflor tufts, static grass

Batavian Intermission

This afternoon I'm finishing the basing of the Raetians, who are looking very fine.  However, my enthusiasm for all things Auxiliary continues unabated, and I'm hoping to finish one more unit before my hols.  This will be Cohors II Batavorum Eq., comrades of Cohors I which I painted last year, and my 6th unit of auxiliary infantry.

I bought 15 minis on eBay which are painted to a fair standard.  They will need to be substantially repainted but which will give me a head start.  The other 9 minis are a mix of Black Tree, Foundry and Crusader  to add a little variety.  I also intend to do a little work on Cohors I to help it to better match some of the succeeding units.

Raetian Auxilia III

My Raetians are coming on...

I'm 4 painting sessions in, on the 24 miniatures.

• Session 1 paint/transfers on shields
• Session 2 base coat on mail (a 50/50 mix of black and Boltgun Metal)
• Session 3 tunics, base and highlight, shorts, base and highlight
• Session 4 flesh, base and highlight

I probably have another 3-4 sessions to go, plus a couple for basing.