Showing posts with label Caesarian Romans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caesarian Romans. Show all posts

Saturday, 13 November 2010

The Unvarnished Troops


This time next week these troops will need to be "on the table", but they were delayed when I unexpectedly ran out of Dullcote.  Happily Antenociti came up with the goods, very quickly indeed; they provide a great service.  I plan to have them all on their bases with the grout in place by the end of today.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Varnishing Miniatures at Night in Winter


This is not exactly varnishing "Best Practice", but when I have a tight deadline to meet I find I can usually get away with gloss varnishing even at night. NEVER try this with a matt varnish!  

They are the last 32 minis for my recruit legion, fresh from the brush of Nick Speller, and I need them finished and based by the 20th for a game...

Sunday, 7 November 2010

'Arfur Legion III

 
Here's the (slowish) progress on my second legion; 5 cohorts fully based, 2.5 partially based and the remaining minis awaiting reinforcements from Nick.  I'm planning to use them all in a game in less than 2 weeks, so I shall need to get my skates on!  When all 10 cohorts are finished I shall take a proper pic.

Sunday, 24 October 2010

'Arfur Legion II

I've made good, if slow, progress with this project.  The first half of the legion (below, clickable) is painted and based.  I still need to add tufts, tonight, and do a little snagging work; then they will be finished.
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Around half of the second half (not shown) are also stuck onto their bases.  Nick is furiously painting away on a draft of reinforcements, in Essex, which will complete the legion (at 1:20 scale).  

In other news, I have been inspired by these stunning photos to dig out a project I last worked on around 20 years ago... more anon.

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

'Arfur Legion

I mentioned last week that I'd worked out that, with a bit of judicious juggling and outsourced painting, I could knock a legion of 240 recruits together.  My rationale is that the cohorts have been recently raised in a time of crisis.  The armouries have run out of mail, and are issuing shields in whatever colour and condition they have available, and many of the soldiers are in unmilitary whites and other colours.  I rather suspect that a lot of Civil War legions may have looked like this, especially when Pompey "stamped his foot".

I'm making good progress.  Below are the first 5 cohorts, less c 24 figures that are painted (by Nick) and almost ready to add into the gaps on the bases.  I'm freely mixing armoured and unarmoured Foundry minis, with a whole spread of helmet types, and even some Aventines.

Below are the first batch of 48 minis that Nick painted, together with some shields that I've painted them to match shields on some of the recruits I finished last year. 

My plan is to polish off these 5 cohorts over the next 2 weeks, and then complete the second batch of 5 cohorts in a similar manner.

Saturday, 2 October 2010

Cunning Plan I

A few weeks ago Nick Speller sent me back 48 Caesarian Romans I'd posted to him back in the summer; he's done a lovely job on them.  I mix unarmoured and armoured minis, mount them irregularly on 60x30 bases, and use them as poorer quality legionaries, such as the Pompeians raised.   Here are some I prepared earlier.  

I've temporarily mounted these so that I can paint the bases, varnish and add shields.


I was planning to mix these with some figures Nick has painted before, to build 6 24-man cohorts.  However, I found myself going through my other units, and have worked out that if I cannibalise four smaller existing units and ask Nick to paint another 32 figures, I could put together an entire 240-man legion.  So this will need to be done... a package is winging its way to Essex and I've started retouching 16 figures in the background.

Saturday, 6 June 2009

Ancient Spanish Cavalry

These are some Foundry Spanish figures that I bought off fellow Muswell Militiaman George and did a rough and ready repaint job on.

I show them here because they illustrate my new policy on basing light cavalry. I don't like the look of LC units where all the riders are two to a base and facing forwards, parallel to each other. Mine are now depicted riding across the front of the enemy unit, with their shielded towards them, and wheeling away. The extra wide base really helps with this. When I find another 6 cheap Spanish, I'll turn the unit into a Cantabrian circle.

This look also works well with horse archers, I'll dig some out next week.

Friday, 5 June 2009

Newly Raised Legions


I've finally managed to finish basing the new legion, which is of newly recruited legionaries. It'll do service either as one of the Gallic legions, or a newly raised legion in one of the civil wars.

Around half of the figures were painted by PoolofPaint but partially repainted by me, and I painted the balance from scratch. My concept was to paint and base them in a more irregular way than the bulk of the legionaries, and I think they look better for it; so I'm hoping to find time to do at least one, and preferably two more units the same (in the summer). The images are clickable.

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Romans wot I am basing this week

This is my latest Caesarian recently-recruited legion; I'll write them up properly when the basing is finished on Friday or Saturday.

Two days ago I though varnishing was definitely the most boring modelling-related activity; I have to say, though, that applying base texture to 54 figures (as I did last night after this photo was taken) is right up there alongside it.

The seven primed figures at the back are fated to become Tegeans.

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

On the painting table...

These are the 2 units of recruit legionaries I've been working on over the last month; not far from completion, now. Just shields, varnishing and basing... more anon.

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

King Juba

Juba commands one wing of my Numidian horse. He's a GB casting on an A&A horse, and his drummer is from Crusader. I painted this one, Greg! ;-)

I'm not entirely satisfied with the model, as I picture him in Roman/Greek generals gear, and the blue tunic didn't quite work. But I like his beard.

Monday, 11 May 2009

Aquila and Vexilla Stands

These are my Legion Command stands; 4 have aquila and the other two vexilla. I'm going to need another 4 or 5 to meet my new 10-legion plan. Most figures painted by Nick; some by myself A grim looking bunch...

Sunday, 10 May 2009

Titus Labienus

Fought with Caesar; fought against Caesar (no less than 4 times, came close to defeating him at Ruspina). Gripping Beast riders on A&A horses; more sterling paintwork from Nick Speller.

Friday, 8 May 2009

Boduognatus of the Nervii


Whilst I'm painting my newly-levied Roman Legion (which is going to take a few weeks), I'll display a series of photos of command stands from my armies.

Thia first depicts Boduognatus, King of the Nervii. I converted the mini from a Foundry German, giving him a Renegade head and making his horse rear slightly. Nick Speller painted him beautifully, and I based him. He usually commands my Gallic cavalry wing.

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Legions of the Planned...

Last year I settled on a structure of 24 minis to the Cohort (1:20 representational scale). However, it has been becoming clear to me that I also want a structure that will enable me to field battles with up to ten Legions to a side. With ten Cohorts, and 240 minis to each Legion, I’m clearly never going to have ten of them!

So I’ve decided to create a parallel structure, with smaller Legions of 51 minis; a 3 mini command stand and 2 x 24s.

This should be fairly straightforward to do. The main implication is that I’ll need to paint 3 extra Cohorts to match “odd” cohorts, like the blue Caesarians I posted recently. I'll also need an additional half a dozen command stands, with shield designs matching the legions. Then I should be able to field 10 of the smaller "legions"... which would mean that I could field the OOB for Caesar's larger Gallic War battles (or one side of a big Civil War battles). I think it’s do-able…

Thursday, 23 April 2009

17th Caesarian Cohort


This is my 17th Caesarian Cohort. I bought 20 of the figures on Ebay from "Pool of Paint" who also kindly supplied the transfers I needed to finish the unit, and painted 7 more myself, to match. I'm really pleased with the overall effect; these are my first Caesarians to have shield transfers.

Because they have unfeasibly expensive imported blue paint on their shields, I shall consider them to be one of the Praetorian Cohorts that served in the Civil War that occured after the death of Caesar.