Camillian Romans - Leves and Equites (Redone)

Hello everyone! I've happy to finally provide an update on my Camillian Roman project. 

 

To begin, I decided to redo the Equites for a couple of reasons.

a. I found out that the 4-horn saddle did not exist until the very end of the 2nd century BC at the earliest. Therefore, I swapped out the horses with Victrix's Light Greek cavalry and Wargames Atlantic's Horses. One of the horses( the grey spotted one) is a Victrix Roman horse, but I sculpted it into having a plain saddle.

b. I got better at painting with speedpaints and I liked the outcome better than my previous painting projects.

c. I found out that I can finally do eyes with the help of a black micron pen

I also decided to swap out the head of the banner carrier as I wasn't a fan of the older sculpt.

 That said, I'm not too happy with how the consul turned out (his face came out too dark). My go to method for tanned central Italian skin now is a basecoat of light beige and then going over it with Army Painter's Crusader Skin. It was fine for the other models, but I put it on too thick for the leader.

 

Next up is a unit of Roman leves, made up of Wargames Atlantic Gangs of Rome and Victrix velites. I'm pretty happy how the two manufacturers mesh with eachother once painted up.

I always like to add an "officer model" in every unit, so I thought I would add a slightly better off Leves with a kopis sword on loan. His head is a kitbash of two different head parts (the hat is the Victrix Light Greek cavalry again)

 

Camillian Romans - Equites

This time, I have a unit of Roman Equites as they would have looked during the so called "Camillian Reforms" following the sack of Rome in 390BC until the outbreak of the Second Punic War in 218BC.

They will be classified under the Lion Rampant rules as light cavalry, as my own research points to the Roman cavalry of this time having little to no armor in contrast to the Equites of the Second Punic War onward. Given the amount of tunic showing, I made sure each cavalryman has a noticeable angusticlavia, the two vertical tyrian purple stripes on the tunic denoting their equestrian rank. I also made sure that the leader of the unit in silvered armor is wearing red senatorial boots, as I intend this unit to double as the Counsul's voluntarii. I primarily used Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars by Duncan Head plus their depiction in the Medieval II: Total War mod Europa Barbarorum II (seen below).

I used a combination of different Victrix sets (I bought a bunch of them out of boredom while waiting for my eyes to recover from surgery). The horses are all Republican Roman cavalry, the riders are a mix of Greek light cavalry, one Republican Roman, and mildly converted Iberian cavalry. For the shields I used the small ones from the Greek slingers, as the shields used at this time were considerably smaller.

7th-8th Century Anglo Saxons - Lesser Fyrd

 Its been awhile! Lots of losing interest in certain settings and gaining interest in others.

My current project that I've been working on recently is an Anglo-Saxon army geared towards the days of the Heptarchy in the 7th-8th century. In this case, below is a unit of lesser fyrd/kotsetlas (light infantry); single based for the Lion Rampant ruleset.

                                    

 A major appeal is that by switching out and adding different models, I can use these in a variety of different armies. Arthurian Saxons, Viking Age Saxons, Visigoths, you name it! I plan on (eventually) building two 24 point Anglo Saxon armies that can fight each other for 7th and 8th centuries battles (with unique command bases for kings Penda, Raedwald, Oswiu, Cynegils, etc) that can be combined for larger battles against a 48 point Viking army.

Another reason for picking the 7th century Anglo Saxons over the more popular eras is that I fell in love with the time period years ago ever since I played the video game mod for Mount and Blade: Warband: Brytenwalda. A "mod" in this case is kinda like a "homebrew" ruleset for a computer game: making changes in code, artwork, mechanics and turning the original game into something new.

In the mod, after creating your character and his or her background (religion, ethnicity, combat proficiencies), you're thrust onto the unforgiving environment that is 7th century Britain. Raid villages and enslave the inhabitants, enter tournaments, swear fealty to various petty kings, explore abandoned Roman ruins, and partake in hillfort sieges involving hundreds of warriors. Fight javelin armed fiannas of Ui Neil, mounted Teulu charges from Dyfed, and even elite Dena pirates wearing unique Vendel armors.

A video by Moscatube that shows an in game battle

Polybian Romans: Triarii (220 BC - 107 BC)

 To begin, here's my first batch of miniatures completed ever: Polybian era Roman triarii.

 The unit is made from a variety of manufacturers: Aventine Miniatures, Gripping Beast, and the newly released units from Lucid Eye. I have them based in order to use for the Hail Caesar ruleset.

To differentiate different classes of infantry on the tabletop, I decided to use shield and tunic color to denote wealth. For example, my triarii will wear bright bleached whites, crimson, scarlets, and indigo. It felt appropriate to use two different shades of red given its Mars' color and I imagine that middle aged veteran soldiers would be more reverent to Mars for letting them be victorious in battle (or at least survive it) From my research, there is no evidence that Polybian Romans decorated their shields as part of a unit, so the only units with shield transfers will be officers.

So here are some things that I've learned at the end of my first project:

*Obviously I need to learn how to paint faster if I hope to finish my army this century. I noticed that I tried fixing painting mistakes even before the model was fully base coated, which resulted in more mistakes and more touching up. I need to stop that.

*Basing is a massive pain when you have multiple models on a single base, especially when they are chunky Aventines. I first tried spackle as a basing medium, but with the models so closely packed together, it was nigh impossible to not get some on the models (which thankfully is mostly hidden by the grass). I ended up going with watered down tacky glue and sand, but I wasn't entirely happy with the coverage (lots of gaps showing wood ) and it doesn't exactly look like dirt. I think I'm going to experiment with technical paints from Vallejo alongside a tiny bit of spackle to hide the "pitcher mound" bases next.

*I used Vallejo medium skintone for the Romans' skin, which worked nice and will probably use for central and southern Italians and various Hellenic people, but became a bit too dark when I used Reikland Fleshshade. Maybe I need to water it down first?

Introductions

 Greetings!

I am quite new to miniature painting and wargaming in general, but I've had a passion for toy soldiers and military history for decades; ever since I saw a diorama of the Battle of Rourke's Drift at my favorite toy store  (alas, $200 was too expensive for an 8 year old and I never did get to reenact the heroic defense against my cat on the living room floor)

Generally, I am only interested in wargaming and learning about pre-WWI conflicts with some small exceptions.

My current projects (in varying states of planning) include:

Polybian Roman consular army

The Niagara Campaign of the War of 1812

Vendean Royalist army

1980s Soviet Mechanized Platoon

Anglo-American War of 1862 (skirmish level)

World War of 1876 (skirmish level)

Future projects I would be interested in:

*Camilian Romans and their enemies (skirmish level)

*Biblical wargaming in the ancient Near East

*100 Years War (Edwardian Phase)

*French army of the early years of Louis XIV

*War of Austrian Succession

*French and Indian War

* Invasion of France 1940 (skirmish level)

So if any of this interests you in seeing my stumble through this hobby, feel free to follow!