Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Auxiliary Ala WIP shot

A terrible WIP photo but you get the drift.  Black Tree figures from Dr. Simon's Mystery Painter, with a little highlighting and such forth.  Basing tomorrow!


They are going to be Ala Siliana, from North Africa, who fought in the 69AD Civil War.

Monday, 18 June 2012

300!


A quick post to welcome Brent, who is my 300th follower, and to thank everyone else for popping by so regularly.  I am very much enjoying the blog at the moment, and there should be lots more posting in the months to come!

Cheers!  Simon

Saturday, 16 June 2012

Gordon Bennett!

This week people keep sending me pictures of their minis, which are invariably far better painted than my own;  it's becoming a positive curse.  ;-)

Today's minis are beautifully painted by Gordon Smith, and are from the new Aventine EIR Range for the Marcomannic wars.   Gordon took the pictures, too.  The shield designs are LBMS (specially re-sized by Steve from the ones for the A&A range).  All pictures are clickable.


Below is the full unit.  Gordon has wisely gone for 60mm deep bases as the Aventine's are in particularly animated poses.


I love the mini below with the crested helmet.  There are a very large number of helmet variations in this range.


Gordon deliberately went with a very grubby "or campaign" style, a good call!


The below pic shows how animated the minis are.  I usually go with very static poses, but the below looks brilliant!


And now, all together.


I also have bought enough minis for a couple of units of these, but they are resting in a box whlst I finish up basing all the BTD minis that have been painted, and rest in storage.  And yet, these minis are several orders of magnitude better sculpted than the BTDs; I really should get on with them! 

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Coh. I et II Gallorum Eq.

I've finished Cohort I Gallorum, and the repaint/rebase of Cohort II and the Equites (mounted contingents) of both cohorts.  I scruffed the shields up a bit, too.  All pics clickable!


Below is a view of the cohorts from the rear.  These are cohorts of Gauls, and accordingly I've tried to give each a mild gallic flavour with boar and cockerel standards, and chequered cloaks.


Below is a closeup of the cloaks, I gave around 1/3 chequers.  I also went with different shades of metal in the helmets and muddy cloaks.


All the minis at Black Tree, and are not too shabby, given a little careful painting.

These are part of my continuing auxilia project- I'm now up to 10 auxiliary cohorts, more than half of what I need to re-fight some of the larger battles of 69/70AD.  Hopefully I'll have these and a few more cohorts to parade on Bastille Day (for Greg's Big Parade).  I'm currently working on an ala of cavalry.

Not my Middle Imperial Romans

These figures were splendidly painted by Richard Tartt, who has kindly sent me photos that I could post on t'Blog.  They are of some of the beautiful A&A Miniatures range sculpted by Adam Smith (now of Aventine Miniatures).  


 The armoured archers have bags of character, and are beautifully painted, with added bowstrings.



I think these are from the A&A 4th Century Range.  I do love the scale armour.


Finally some archers supporting some more legionaries.  I like the red-painted rawhide edging on these shields, an idea to nick!   ;-)   Richard's basing style is very effective.


Thanks for the lovely photos, Richard!

If anyone else who doesn't run their own blog, would like me to host pictures of their ancients minis, please do drop me an email at the address above.  Cheers, Simon

Monday, 4 June 2012

Gallic Auxiliary II- Operation "Silk Purse"

Just a quick WIP shot, the new 24 are coming along nicely, and I've substantially retouched the other 24.  Hopefully basing tomorrow.


Wednesday, 30 May 2012

The Roman Empire Order of Battle for the Civil Wars 68AD to 70AD



The Roman Empire Order of Battle for the Civil Wars 68AD to 70AD is a Society of Ancients publication, written by Michael Lane. I lost my much-thumbed paper copy of this 86 A4-page booklet, around 6 months ago, and Dug Page-Croft recently and very generously bought me a replacement copy, on a disc, from the Society of Ancients.

This booklet is a fantastic source of information about the pay rates, organisation and the deployment of the Roman Legions, Praetorians and Auxiliaries from Augustus to Trajan.   It is also a valuable source regarding the names of the legions and auxiliary cohorts (all mine are named from it), and can often provide information on where they were based, and when, and in the case of the legions, the commander's name when known.  Finally it has orders of battles, diagrams and accounts of all the major battles in the 68-70AD Civil War, some illustrations and a timeline of events. 

This is a must have for those interested in wargaming the period, I can’t recommend it highly enough!  When my campaign eventually gets running, it’ll be based on this.