"The Green Legion" --Polybian Romans II/33

When I first started painting, I decided that I would never do Romans.  There's nothing particularly wrong with them, but they seemed so...generic, like everyone had them (not that I actually knew many people with Roman armies, it just seemed that way).  And yet, when I saw a fantastic deal on several packs of Old Glory Republican Roman infantry, I couldn't help myself.  At least it wasn't Imperial Roman, I told myself.  

Anyway, they languished on my lead pile for a couple of years, lacking cavalry and light infantry.   Until this spring, that is, when they were just the excuse I needed to order some more Napoleonic Spanish guerrillas from Warmodelling.com (nee Fantassin Figures).  The fine folks there were even willing to break up packs so I could get the command figures I needed without buying unneeded lead, and make sure a certain female guerrilla figure that I wanted was in the assortment they sent.  This was my second order with them, and went smoothly.   As a result, the heavy infantry in this army are Old Glory 15s, and the other figures are Fantassin.

This is the first of two legions that I finished this spring; I'll post the "blue legion" later.  In total, there is 40 infantry and 6 cav (1x3Cav general, 1x3Cav, 6x4Blade, 2x4Pike, 2x2Psiloi + an extra stand of pike).  Here is the full army.

The cavalry are all from Fantassin.  Apparently the cavalry of this period wore brown-black "cavalry cloaks."  There was no standardized shield design until later, so I decided to do these as laurel wreaths (I had tried this on a Hoplite shield in my Athenian army and liked it--and it seemed Roman enough).  The figure in red is a Consul in field attire, commanding the army.

The bulk of the legion are Princeps (the few figures wielding swords) and Hastatii (with pilum).  These shields are simpler, a solid green with metal bosses.  Black was a common plume collar, and I decided to keep these all uniform.

The Triarii were veterans of long service, in heavier armor and wielding pikes.  These particular figures have spears rather than pikes, but they are armored in chain mail (instead of the bronze breastplate the Hastatii wear), so I'm using them as Triarii.  In keeping with the practice of higher quality equipment, I did their shields in the same laurel wreath pattern as the cavalry.  The official army list calls for 2 stands of these guys, but I accidentally painted 3.  Oh, well.

The velites were the army's skirmishers.  Since they were unlikely to be rich or well-equipped, I painted their shields in a simple pattern of green and white concentric circles.  Roman velites often wore animal skins on their heads, especially badgers.  Getting the white on black stripes right on these figures' badgers took some doing, but I like how they turned out.

Now the question is what to do with them.  Historically, their primary opponent was Carthage, but I really don't want to paint Hannibal's army, with its elephants, Carthaginian hoplites, Spanish cavalry, and Gaulish infantry.    So maybe I'll try to sell them.  We'll see.

More colonial militia

My daughter has been painting some Indians, so I thought I'd paint more colonial militia, maybe enough for a small 1812 skirmish game.

I tried a number of color schemes, since I still have a few dozen of these figures to paint, but I especially like the leaders.

The local homeschool gang had a good time playing DBA and are asking when we can have another game night, so maybe this time we'll do some skirmish gaming.

Sold: Lead Abatement--Minifig Middle Saxons (6/12)

I still have far too many Saxons, so I'm putting an army's worth of unpainted figures on eBay.  These, like the painted army I'm selling, are older Minfigs.

The scary thing is, even if all of these sell, I still have too many left.

Sold: III/24 DBA Middle Saxons

Last month I bought some 15mm unpainted Minifig Saxons from a guy who had them in his garage for decades.  And when I say some, I mean Harold and his whole darn army.  500+ of them.  And they're not even Saxons from the Arthurian period I like to game!  So, off go the first batch up on eBay.  The army is all foot, some 58 figures in 15 stands.  That's about the maximum number of figures you'll find in a DBA army.  And if this army included the 2x7Horde option it probably would hit the record.

The bulk of the Army is the Saxon spearwall, 11 stands of it.  The army includes one Spear general, with a red dragon banner.  There is also one stand of psiloi, the stand in the top left, with two slingers.  It's not visible on this picture, but I experimented with alternating colors in a dashed line around the hem of their tunics to model Saxon embroidery, which was apparently famous throughout Europe (go figure).  The effect turned out even better than I hoped, so I'll keep using it when I paint more of these guys.

At this point in history, most Saxons were Christian, and crosses were a common shield design.  The traditional Sunwheel was even more common, as I've done these guys.   This was the first time I've used an ink pen to outline the shield designs, and I like how it looks, although my hand could have been a little steadier on some. 

Finally, there is an option for King Harold and his Huscarls to be Warband (impetuous foot) instead of Spear, which are represented like this.   For these stands the Dragon standard is painted in Wessex gold, to symbolize Harold's personal banner.

For more information on using this army in DBA, here is the Fanaticus page on it.

I/28 Sea People DBA army

The 13th century BC ushered in a Dark Age for the Eastern Mediterranean.  Established powers like the Mycenaeans and Hitties collapsed, even the Pharaohs struggled to preserve their kingdom.  One constant throughout this cauldron of violence were the Sea Peoples--tribes from the Aegean and Anatolia that ravaged the entire region.  Archeologists debate (JSTOR gated) whether they were a cause or a result of the general collapse, but either way, they fought against every army of the time.

The Vikings of 1200 BC

Most of the information I used painting these figures is from Nancy Sandar's The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Eastern Mediterranean 1250-1150 BC.    They are based on matte board with adhesive magnet underneath (the thin black line visible at the bottom of each base) for safe storage.

According to Egyptian inscriptions--our main source of information on the Sea Peoples--the Shardana made up the largest portion.  Wearing heavy armor and their trademark horned helmets, they form the army's core.  We know their shoulder armor was bronze, but archeologists aren't sure whether their cuirasses were made of bronze or cloth; there is historical evidence for both, but not much for either.  I took the liberty of making them bronze as well.

1xLch (gen) and dismounted Bd (gen), 2x4Bd

The next largest group of Sea Peoples was the Peleset.  As Barker states in the 3.0 Army notes, the Peleset seem to have become the Philistines after being defeated by Egypt, but their origins (and that of other tribes) is not as certain as Barker implies.    One distinctive feature was the feathered headdress they wore.  Archaeologists have found bronze circlets that match the base ring of the headdresses, but don't know what color the feathers were, or even if they were feathers.

Another distinctive feature of these figures is the copper equipment. Interestingly, some of the Sea Peoples' swords and shield bosses seem to have been almost pure copper instead of the more golden bronze in most of the region.  I don't know if it's 100% historical, but for variety I've done most of the Peleset blade in copper and the rest of the army in bronze.

6xBd  All blades in the army are on 20mm bases, to allow their historically appropriate use as 3Bd raiders for players using 2.2+.

These lightly armored figures are Shasu, a smaller tribe that seems to have come overland to Egypt, from what is now Jordan.   Temple inscriptions show them as wearing their hair back in bags or turbans, which I've arbitrarily painted red in keeping with the general army palette.

3xAux

These figures are all from a Chariot Miniatures DBA 2.2 army pack.  The draft lists for DBA 3.0 are almost identical, except that they lose the distinction between 4Bd and 3Bd, so this is fine for 3.0, and the 3xBd units lend themselves to being played as "raiders" for 2.2+ players.  It works for everyone!

1/26b Trojans

This is the Trojan side of my Trojan War set (their Mycenaean opponents can be seen here).  I did these in reds, pinks, and yellows to distinguish them from the Mycenaeans, who use identical figures, but painted in blues and greens.  The color scheme comes from the Trojan Archer statue that they have recently recolored after finding traces with ultraviolet light.

1 x LCh/Bd (general), 3xLCh, 5xSp, 1x (Aux or Bd), 2xPs

The flocking for these--and the Mycenaeans--is lighter colored than my usual flocking, and includes more rocks.  This was the result of negotiations between my daughter (for whom I painted this), who wanted more green, and I, who wanted more sand and dirt.  In the end, I added tan sand and extra rocks to my usual green flocking to get this paler color.

Aeneas and his Dardanian Spearmen

 Personally, Aeneas is my favorite character, so I wanted to paint him.  I couldn't much in the way of description, except for his gleaming helment.  You can't see it in this picture, but I used a golden color instead of bronze for his helmet.  I also made a stand of spearmen with similar equipment and colors to represent his followers from Dardania, in what is now Southwestern Turkey.

The loser Paris

My daughter wasn't sure about clothing Paris in pink, but I was. How lame can you get, laying around smooching with Helen while your brother is out there fighting Achilles on your behalf?  I also painted Hector, with his distinctive plume of black horsehair atop his helmet, and Sarpendon in his gleaming armor.  Apparently the tin content (or something) is high in the part of Turkey where he came from, so the bronze from that area appears to gleam like gold--so I painted it that way. 

Next are the Trojan Spear.

A mix of Museum Miniatures and Old Glory 15mm

Finally the Amazons that fought on the Trojan side.  Apparently, they were historically armed with spear and shield like the men, but I happened to have some Black Raven 15mm Amazons with bows on hand.  Since this is a stand of Aux, I decided that it would do fine.

No naked amazons for my daughter's army, though.

Almost the same as the Mycenaeans, except for replacing 1xSp with either 1xBd for more ground-pounder strength or with 1x Aux for bad terrain strength.

1st Cacadores

These figures are for a guy who is doing Wellington's army by brigade, representing the 1st Cacadores during the early years of the war (in later years they changed hat styles and facing colors).

Old Glory 15mm Figures.

These were fun to paint.  Maybe because the top and bottom were both the same color, but they seemed like much less work than British redcoats.