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.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Sunday, 8 August 2010
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
Saturday, 7 August 2010
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.
Monday, 2 August 2010
Raetian Auxilia III
My Raetians are coming on...
I'm 4 painting sessions in, on the 24 miniatures.
I probably have another 3-4 sessions to go, plus a couple for basing.
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.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Coh. II Brittanorum Eq.
The I and II Brittanorum were Roman auxiliary cohorts, raised in Britannia some time after 43AD. They probably fought with Vitellius in the 69 AD Civil War (most of the auxiliary units I've modelled so far are from the garrison of Britannia).
Above, I have finished 16 additional Auxilia to match the 8 spare from May, which has enabled me to form a Cohort II Brittanorum. I intend that both British cohorts will ultimately become Equitata, so each will need a contingent of 6 cavalry. If anyone has any spare Foundry Caesarian Gallic cavalry, I'm in the market for a swap!
The figures are all Foundry Saleh's except for the command stand which has a Crusader centurion and cornicen (I am sometimes somewhat disparaging about Crusader, but these are very nice minis) and Foundry Copplestone signifer and imagifer. This time I remembered to sculpt knee breetches on the latter three, so that they match their comrades.
Here is the original cohort, the I Brittanorum:-
The next cohort will be the Raetians (see previous post). I've also decided that I'll also need to paint, down the line, another cohort each of Gauls and Batavians along with their integral cavalry contingents.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Raetian Auxilia II
Here are the Raetians, again, primed and ready to go. I hope to be able to paint them in around 7 sessions, as they should be the amongst the simplest Roman figures to paint because of the whopping great cloaks. But I still have 2 or 3 sessions basing sessions remaining to complete the British Auxiliaries, so I hope that they will be finished in around 2 weeks time.
On the subject of primer, I used a can of Army Painter and an not at all pleased- despite my best shaking, the minis have an unfortunate gritty texture. I actually had to wash them to get surplus powder off them! I'm going to do some careful testing to establish whether is the product, or the heat.
I'll be using the excellent LBMS transfers and have some here, left over from an earlier project.
Saturday, 24 July 2010
More Auxilia...
While I'm putting the finishing touches to my second cohort of British Auxiliaries (photo in 3-4 days), here's a shot of the next unit. I prepped these around 2 years ago and they have been waiting on the sidelines. I really should be painting pikes but instead I intend to speed-paint these... possibly next week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)






