Borodino or Bust!

...In which our protagonist is fairly enthusiastic about doing the Battle of Borodino in 6mm, but beyond that remains pretty much clueless.

The French are coming!

It's been over a month since my last post, so I figure it's a good time for an update. The larger part of my lead pile currently consists of 10mm Ancients, but the appeal that led me to accumulate so many of them in the first place has since deserted me. What this means, of course, is it's time for a new project!

As might be inferred from the intro, the subject of said new project is the Battle of Borodino. Fought on the 7th of September 1812, near Moscow in Russia, Borodino was one of the bloodiest clashes of the Napoleonic wars, despite being one of the least decisive. For almost two hundred years historians have struggled to make sense of the battle, to explain why Napoleon's genius seemed suddenly to desert him and why the French battle plan called for nothing more sophisticated than a head-on collision with a Russian army near enough its own strength. Even at the time, it seemed like a foolish idea-- much like my own plan for this project!

The Beginning Stages

This Borodino idea has been in the back of my mind for a long while now, although my commitment to working my way through at least some of the lead pile kept it from ever manifesting. Much like Napoleon, however, I have no real compunctions about ditching an army that isn't getting me anywhere, and so I managed to sell enough unpainted metal to meet my previously-established quota. Then, with the proceeds-of-sale in hand, I went out to purchase some little men in shakos.

Adler Napoleonics, as supplied. From the looks of them, you might expect that they'd require a lot of prep-work to get them ready for painting. And you'd be right.

There are currently only three companies who produce 6mm Napoleonics: Irregular, Baccus, and Adler. As you can see from the pictures, I decided to go with Adler, despite being a committed Baccus fan by this point; I've got my eye on enough other Baccus ranges to know they'll be taking more of my money in the future, so I hardly feel like a turncoat!

Debris from cleaning 500-odd Russians; that's a 60x60 mm base for comparison. I figure there's enough metal here to cast a couple hundred more figures! Maybe Adler should start some sort of recycling program...

The advantages that attracted me to Adler were a) the ability to purchase figures by the strip, and b) the availability of poses other than marching with muskets shouldered. I thought the 'advancing' poses would look great en masse, being a good deal more dynamic.

The Grande Armee

The Army that Napoleon took into Russia was very much a multinational force. All of the French Emperor's allies and satellites (which at the time consisted of most of the European states) were convinced, cajoled or coerced into fielding troops to join in the expedition. The varied, colourful force that resulted from this is one of the reasons I chose 1812.

Adler FN 32B - "Fusilier, shako, BR adv (1812)". Adler product codes can be pretty crypic sometimes; the "BR" for instance denotes Blanket Roll, but as far as I can tell what it means in practice is that French "BR" figures are sculpted without their rolled-up greatcoat tied atop their backpacks.

...Of course all that variety can be pretty overwhelming as an intro to Napoleonics. For simplicity's sake, I opted to ignore the French allies for the moment, and start with some basic French and Russians.

Adler FN 29B - "Elite inf, shako, adv (1812)". This code is very, very similar to FN 31B - "Light inf, shako, adv (1812)". So similar, in fact, that I have a hard time distinguishing between the two, and can see absolutely no reason why they couldn't be used interchangeably.

Another issue with all the choices Adler offers is that it's difficult to plan exactly what you'll need. Baccus Nappies, by contrast, are tailored for their own Polemos ruleset, and are generally sold in the appropriate unit sizes. Since Napoleonic armies tend to feature a somewhat bewildering array of elite troops, there's something to be said for being able to buy pre-packed units!

Luckily Adler has its own selection of pre-packs. These are designed to represent (I believe) paper-strength formations at a ratio of 1:20. Now, I like pre-packed units for the above reasons, but I have no intention of modelling Borodino at 1:20 (that would amount to something like 13,000 figures!). Nevertheless, my impatience to get started overrode all legitimate concerns, so I ordered a couple of division packs and a bunch of extra command stands and skirmishers, figuring I'd sort the mess out as I painted.

A random selection of command figures. From left to right, a French NCO, a French mounted officer, a Russian drummer, a French standard bearer. Have I mentioned yet how great these figures are?

Long story short, dealing with Adler was painless despite their archaic and user-unfriendly webpage. My emails were all returned promptly, and if the speed-of-delivery wasn't quite up to Baccus standards, my shipment still arrived within two weeks of order. Not bad for a country on the other side of the Pond.

The Russians

Speaking of simplicity, the Russian army seems downright bland when compared to the French. All of the Russian infantry wear pretty much the same uniform; sure, the light infantry has different coloured turnbacks, and the grenadiers have shako plumes -- but for the painter (and, for that matter, the sculptor), the differences are trivial.

Adler RN 2B - "Musketeer, kiwer, advancing". This is the basic Russian infantryman in the 1811 uniform, and in fact the code RN 1B - "Grenadier, Kiwer, advancing" is the exact same figure but with a plume stuck above the pompom.

Despite the slow preparation/cleaning process, I found the Adler figures to be everything I hoped for. Detail is excellent, and the largely complete range negates the need for paint conversions or other frustrations of the sort. The good detail also makes painting a breeze. Admittedly, my first few test pieces took an agonizingly long time to complete, but most of this can be put down to figuring out which colour to paint what pieces of Napoleonic frou-frou, as well as some unnecessary work on my part. What I mean is that all that frou-frou actually breaks up most of the smooth, flat areas on the figure, making shading and highlighting largely unneeded.

Adler RN 3B - "Jaeger, advancing". Aside from the strap on the musket, this figure's uniform and kit are essentially identical to that of the grenadiers (with a different paint job, of course).

Adler figures are cast in strips, but designed to be clipped apart for basing. I know many people are turned off by this, but I actually like it better; getting my paintbrush between the tightly-packed figures on Baccus strips is always an annoyance for me, and more than once I've actually contemplated cutting them apart for easier painting!

Adler RN 21A - "Mounted officers, kiwer". Mounted figures come only two to a strip, but the horses are beautifully sculpted. This code had some miscastings, however; the figure second from the left is missing his sword and part of the horse's tail.

Another predominant criticism of Adler figures are their disproportionately large heads. Yes, their heads are large, there's no denying it. I guess it's one of those things that either bothers you or it doesn't; as for me, I'm not bothered.

Adler XRN 1 - "Russian inf loading, standing & kneeling firing (3)". Codes containing "X" are considered "collector's series" figures. These include skirmishers, casualties, additional officers, etc. depending on the nation. The Russians, unfortunately, are limited to skirmishers for the moment.

So all the main criticisms of Adler don't bother me. On the other hand, I do have one big problem, specifically with the Russian figures. I've gotta say it. Each Russian line infantry or grenadier battalion is supposed to carry two flags -- but the Adler command strip only comes with one standard bearer. I've only got half the flagpoles I need!

The Great Dilemma

So within a few weeks I had my figures and I knew how to paint them (well, more or less; French uniforms in particular seem to consist mostly of exceptions). The question now was what to do with them?

To cover both armies for Borodino without going insane and/or broke, I had to think big. Or small, depending on your perspective. What I mean is that my units would necessarily have to be abstracted, using a very few models to represent very large bodies of men. My painting kept getting faster with practice, but even so I only had so much free time. There were far too many battalions and squadrons present at the battle for me to cover all of them; I would have to even more abstract than that, sticking a regiment (or more) on each base!

My first base: the Smolensk and Narva line infantry regiments from the Russian 12th Division, 7th Army Corps in Bagration's 2nd Army. I made a few newbie mistakes with this one -- technically only grenadier drummers had red plumes. More embarrassingly, I accidentally switched the flags so that the two regiments are carrying each other's colours. Oops.

What basing format I would use was another question. I gave myself two main requirements: firstly, that each base would be a unit unto itself -- I'd grown disillusioned with the multi-base units I'd used for my ancients. Secondly, I wanted empty space around the edges of my formations. Aside from looking more attractive (in my opinion), this "buffer zone" also helps to protect the figures from clumsy fingers. Going with the advancing poses actually conveyed the unexpected benefit of putting fragile bayonets in the best-possible spot for avoiding wargamers' from-above-and-behind grip; but it was also immediately obvious that bayonets overhanging the base edge would be in dire danger from box walls during storage.

My second base: the 30th and 17th regiments of French line infantry, from Morand's division of the 1st Army Corps. As a test piece, I kept this deliberately conservative, but aside from glueing the tricolors on backwards, I was generally satisfied with the result.

To meet my two criteria, I needed big bases. The bigger the better. I considered going with 60x30mm (the Polemos standard for battalions, except I would use them for regiments). The huge 75x75mm bases used over at The Painting Shed were even more tempting, opening up all sorts of possibilities for diorama-esque formations. Of course bigger bases eventually lead to storage problems, as well as cost problems -- the more space you've got, the more temptation there is to fill it with figures!

Base #3: the Alexopol and New Ingermanland line infantry regiments. In the straggling line you can start to see the benefits of having individual figures instead of strips. Lines can be made fluid rather than rigidly straight, while slight changes in figure spacing can produce different effects.

Ultimately I decided to compromise by using 60x60mm squares. The clincher was that I had a few of these lying around (can't remember what for, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth!), and so I duly set about basing the figures I'd painted up.

Typically, I ran into problems immediately. Based on my experience with figures 10mm and larger in scale, I'd counted on "advancing" figures to take about twice as much space as their "marching" or "standing" equivalent. In the event, the advancing Adlers take up a good deal more than that, owing to long bayonets and forward-leaning posture. All of a sudden I had a lot less space than I expected; the leading figures on the base had to be a good 10mm back to avoid a dangerous overhanging of bayonets. I'd planned a skirmish screen of three or four figures on each base, but there wasn't room for them, and so they had to go. Of course less figures per base means lower cost, so I wasn't too disappointed; but some of my more elaborate ideas for diorama bases certainly weren't going to happen.

Base #4: the French 13th light infantry and 85th line infantry regiments, again from the 1st Army Corps. In 1812, the regiments in the 1st Corps were actually beefed up to 5 battalions each (166% of normal size), and generally operated individually rather than in the usual two-regiment brigades... but I conveniently ignored this fact to make things easier for myself in the long run.

The other big problem I ran into was with the different poses. The Russians were fine in this regard, but the figures supplied for the French elites (grenadiers, voltigeurs, and carabiniers) came in different poses than the standard fusilier/chasseur troops. Since by this point I was intending to represent each entire regiment using only 18-20 men, including command, the consequent mixing of different sculpts didn't quite fit my vision of the lethally-efficient French war machine. It wouldn't do. Scrapping the idea of proper proportions of elites for the time being, I opted to use a single basic pose for each French regiment, while for the Russians I continued to mix musketeers and grenadiers. My plans were really taking a beating!

The two Russian bases together. Despite being rather stingy on the figure count, I think I still managed a decent mass effect with these.

And that brings me to the current state of affairs. I know how to make bases that I like the look of. But... I'm still not happy.

What's really bothering me about these is how long this basing process takes. While the individual Adler figs have all the advantages I've outlined above, every gap between them needs glue and sand, and more glue and more sand, and several layers of paint, then possibly more glue and static grass. Getting a paintbrush in there without making a mess is tediously slow business, not helped by the mutually-interfering presence of two big clusters of troops per base. I keep brainstorming ideas on how to make this whole process easier. There are ways, certainly. But I don't want to detract from the overall appearance, either.

The two French bases. For the base with the light regiment I couldn't resist sticking in a few skirmishers. Even with the leading regiment pushed back to make room, the skirmishers' bayonets still ended up protruding past the base edge-- with predictable results already.

So I still don't know what to do. The 60x30mm bases I'd rejected initially are looking more appealing again. I can see them eliminating a lot of my basing difficulties, and of course there would be the added advantage of being able to produce a finished product twice as often.

On the other hand, halving the base size would eliminate most of the "diorama" potential in this project. Looking at the four 60x60mm bases I've already finished, all of them would have figures in the crack (so to speak) if they were divided into two 60x30mm. And I had so many ideas for using that space on other bases...

The quartet of Russian line regiments. Add a third brigade of two Jaeger regiments, and you've got a division. Of course I don't want to base any of my Jaegers until I've settled on basing.

The quartet of French regiments, three line and one light. This was a standard French infantry division, although of course the 1812 army consisted almost entirely of exceptions ;)

I can't make up my mind.

Thoughts, anyone?

Back in Baccus

...In which our protagonist successfully puts an army of Successors to the brush (but otherwise succeeds only at making puns you wish you could brush off so successfully).

The whole army, photographed in adequate lighting thanks to some timely sunlight!

Hot on the heels of my previous adventures in 6mm comes yet another force in this scale of scales. This time it's a Successor army which came to me by way of accident.

Now, some of you are probably wondering: how do you get an army by accident? Where can I get one? To answer that, I refer once again to the First Lesson given in my previous post:

Lesson #1: Don't make one giant order.

You see, this story starts back when Olde Rivertowne was the Baccus supplier for North America. At the time, they were the ones charged with filling my bloated order for Commands and Colors: Ancients armies. They also happened to stock all sorts of paints and related hobby materials in addition to the miniatures, which I duly requested simply in order to further complicate matters. Long story short, while Olde Rivertowne did an admirable job in getting me the dozens of mis-matched packs that I'd listed, I did end up with a Successor army rather than the Carthaginian pack I'd ordered (the giant order was unsuccessful, you might say). Poor relations between the U.S. Postal Service and Canada Post only exacerbated the problem: shipments between the U.S. and Canada are for some reason far slower and more expensive than from the UK.

Greek archers and slingers. For some reason my army pack had a unit of archers instead of one unit of scythed chariots. The others are leftovers from the leadpile.

Not wanting to undertake a laborious, expensive and agonizingly-slow exchange to get my Carthaginians, I simply tossed the Successors in the leadpile and ordered some new reinforcements -- an option Hannibal might have envied! (I should note that Baccus and the Royal Mail both give sterling service; despite crossing the Atlantic, I've had packages from Baccus in my mailbox within four days of placing the order).

New feature!

Yes, I'm pleased to announce a new feature beginning with this site. I call it "the coin." Many of you probably know what a coin is. The luckier among you may even possess coins of your own. In any case, I've included "the coin" as a scale reference in some of my pictures (those being the pictures where I've remembered to include it). The actual coin in question is a 1998 Canadian one cent piece, for the practical reason that said coin has faceted edges and is therefore less likely to roll away in the middle of a photograph. See below for how this coin compares in size with more valuable currency pieces.

From left to right: Canadian one cent, American one cent, Euro two cent, UK one penny. The first three are all the same diameter, while the UK penny is slightly larger.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Alexander the Great was nothing if not successful, at least militarily -- but his succession was famously problematic. The problem was that Alexander had never officially named an heir. It was claimed that he'd willed his conquests "to the strongest", which in practice meant those of his relatives and generals who could back their claim with enough force to win.

Baccus AMA3 - "Phalangites, open handed, stood". The pike phalanx was the backbone of any Hellenistic army. The pikes here are made from pins with their heads clipped off. Shields are quite large, but this seems to be the case with all Baccus' Classical range.

It was these contenders - particularly the generals - who are most appropriately called Successors, or Diadochi in Greek. It was the strongest among them who succeeded in partitioning Alexander's empire, producing the three great dynasties in Macedonia (the Antigonids), Syria (the Seleucids) and Egypt (the Ptolemies).

A unit of Bronze Shields. The red stars are waterslide transfers from Baccus. The red-on-bronze look was not very successful; too little colour contrast, and they tend to blur at anything further than point-blank range.

For centuries afterwards, a Greek-speaking or Hellenistic elite controlled much of the known world, ruling states both large and small. Their armies were modelled after those of Alexander, built around a Macedonian-style phalanx. Over time these forces changed weapons and composition, as new technology and tactics evolved. It is one of these Hellenistic-period armies that the Baccus Successor army pack represents, containing a mixture of both classically Alexandrian units and newer innovations to the Macedonian arsenal.

White Shields, showing better contrast with blue-on-white. Incidentally, the blue stars come in sheets of 80, while the red come in sheets of 64... for the same price. I think you can see which is the better deal!

Baccus AIR6 - "Roman generals". Six poses, attired in classical style.

Here's those Roman generals, posing as Greeks. They show off their fine Hellenistic fashion sense with fuschia-and-yellow cloaks.

The times they are a-changin'

The cavalry arm saw some of the greatest change during the Hellenistic era. At some point the two-handed lances of Alexander's day seem to have been largely replaced by spear-and-shield wielding riders. The longer lance remained in service with the cataphracts, fully-armoured cavalry copied from the Persians and steppe tribes of the east, which began to see service in Hellenistic armies.

Baccus AMA14 - "Cataphract cavalry". Great sculpting. Some of the reins/forward horse bardings were miscast, but the detail was still there to accept a drybrushing on both the rider and horse armour.

Cataphracts in line. I like how Baccus heavy cavalry often comes in a standing pose; it gives them that nonchalant 'cavalry reserve' look.

Baccus AMA12 - "Hellenistic/Greek cavalry". Beautiful sculpting on these figures. The shield has a vertical spindle boss, doubtlessly attested to by some sort of archaeological or artistic evidence, but which precludes the use of waterslide tranfers. The figure on the right is actually the standard bearer -- from which I clumsily broke the standard!

Charge!

Javelin-armed skirmishing cavalry also adopted shields, perfected initially by the city of Tarentum. Eventually all cavalry who fought in this fashion were called Tarentine horsemen, irrespective of their actual origin.

Baccus AMA15 - "Tarentine light cavalry". Nice sculpting, but I had a few miscasts in my bunch, generally shields, spear butts, and helmet crests. The red stars are waterslide transfers.

Tarentine horse. These could easily be mixed in with AMA12 and/or ARR5 for more variation.

Scythed chariots were another innovation adopted into some Hellenistic armies. Darius' Persians had attempted to use scythed chariots against Alexander, with little success; the Greeks themselves tended to do no better.

Baccus APE24 - "Scythed chariots". Each chariot comes with four identical horses. The chariot side panels (with attached wheels) are separate pieces.

Baccus' scythed chariots also seem to be suffering some teething problems. The two side-panels-with-wheels are asymmetrical, making it look like the chariot has a crooked axle; and neither of them fit properly. The very delicate yoke poles also need to be bent into position to sit across the horses' backs; I had one pole arrive broken (you can see it in the pic above), and consequently resolved to leave the whole rickety rig alone, forgoing the 'proper' yoking of the horses.

Scythed chariots... poor casting, poor painting, poor assembly, poor weapons. By the time I finished this unit, I was glad my army pack had a unit of archers instead of more chariots.

If you aren't broke yet, buy more

As I explained in my previous post, I've switched over to the Baccus Basing System (BBS). I'm starting to like the look it gives my units more and more; the multi-layer texturing really does stand out, even if it takes a painfully long time to produce.

Of course switching to the BBS meant buying the BBS. At the same time I bought the waterslide transfers for my phalangites. Still, it felt wrong, making an order from a miniature producer without getting any minis. And so, for purely aesthetic reasons, I bought some elephants.

Baccus AMA16 - "Successor elephants". One of the crewmen carries a bow, one a javelin, and the third has arms raised to support a pike (not included).

Being used to the single-piece Carthaginian elephants, I was surprised to find their Successor equivalents come in several pieces. The two sides of the howdah are cast separately, each with an attached crewmember. Furthermore, you have the option of giving a weapon to the third crewman. Luckily the fit was a lot cleaner on these models than on the chariots, and everything went together easily.

Cataphract elephants! I'm told the pikes were used as lances for jousting with other elephant-riders, much like European knights of the middle ages. Really. And holding up a 5kg pike from one end was not a problem for these guys, that's how hardcore they were.

One more of the whole army.

A Fistful of Ancients...

...Or, how our Protagonist assembles an army from his Baccus6mm scraps.

Yes, it's true: 6mm will always give better mass effect than larger scales. Roman Hastati/Principes from Baccus.

My big project for 2008 (or is that my really, really small project?) was painting up Carthaginian and Republican Roman armies for Commands and Colors: Ancients (CC:A). I wanted lots of figures. That meant 6mm, a new scale for me. A wise person going into a new scale would have ordered a small sampling, painted them up, drawn conclusions from that, and then worked from there.

I, of course, am not a wise person. I went for one gigantic order, smugly assuming that since I'd worked everything out using a spreadsheet, I would end up with exactly what I needed.

Lesson #1: Don't make one giant order.

AIR6 - "Roman generals". Most of the armies in Baccus' ancients range don't have generals sculpted for them, meaning these guys tend to do extra duty.

Needless to say, I ended up with several hundred extra figures. Wasted money? Well, maybe. On the other hand, I really like painting 6mm. Speedpainting for the big CC:A project was fun-- but the results didn't exactly thrill me. The detailing on the little guys was there; I just wasn't living up to their potential, and that was a waste. Long before finishing the CC:A project, I started thinking of all the things I could do in 6mm with only a little more time and care. This time, though, I wanted to experiment. Luckily I had all those extra figures in the leadpile...

Shades of Brown

First up was the Numidian cavalry. I ordered enough figures to replace all the blocks from the CC:A game-- which it turns out was unneccessary, as no scenario uses anything approaching the full number!

Lesson #2: Figure out how many figures you will actually need, rather than how many you think you might need.

Baccus AMO3 - "Moorish cavalry". This is one of the older ranges; there's only one pose, and many of the shields were miscast, as were the hands holding the spear.

From a distance, the defects are invisible. Of course, a lot is invisible, if you don't use contrasting colours!

With enough extra Numidians to make several units, it was an ideal opportunity for comparative experimentation. Although 6mm veterans always say to use bright colours, I wasn't convinced (after all, who listens to the voice of experience? Suckers, that's who!). I first attempted a 'realistic' approach, using various shades of brown (above, at left). It looked terrible, ameliorated only slightly by adding a white Tanit symbol on the shield. My second attempt (above, center) turned out better; lighter tones all around made them look less like sub-saharan Africans and more like berbers, while simultaneously emphasizing more of the details. The third attempt (above, right) took this approach even further, while also trying to add more colour. The blue Tanit symbols didn't turn out as well as the white ones.

Lesson #3: Paint adjacent areas in contrasting colours.

A mixture of AMO1 "Moorish infantry" and AMO2 "Moorish javelins". Again, the limitations of this older range were obvious: few poses, and a tendency for the castings to break at the ankles. The combined survivors from these two codes only produced this single unit.

Much ado about skirmishers

ASP2 - "Spanish Caetratii". Nice sculpts, with various styles of Iberian sinew headgear in evidence. Some of the shields were miscast, but the figures are far more robust than their Moorish counterparts.

Infantry units in CC:A are represented by four blocks apiece. In my original project I'd represented each unit by four 20mm square bases, but for my experimental units I decided to go with the same system I'd adopted for my 10mm figures-- two 40x20mm and two 20x20mm bases per unit. It's a versatile system, allowing combinations of 20, 40, and 60mm frontage, while the extra space allowed me to play around with figure placement.

The Spanish Caetrati arrayed for battle. Sources portray these troops as excellent skirmishers, bombarding their foes with javelins, often from ambush, before closing to finish matters at swordpoint. The bases are from Litko Aerosystems, with magnetic base-bottoms for saboting together.

In one sense the switch to larger bases was a success; I really liked being able to arrange figures in more aesthetic formations. But the revolution went even further, as those dastardly fellows over at Baccus6mm came out with their Baccus Basing System (BBS)! Naturally I had to have it; it was all too obvious that their way looked nicer than mine. Was it worth the switch? Well... the jury's still out on that one. For stand-alone bases I'll admit the BBS produces much nicer results. But for whole armies, doing three stages of drybrushing per base is a hugely time-consuming process. Furthermore, I discovered that the high-contrast drybrushing puts a lot of emphasis on the base edges, as is obvious in the picture below; there's no disguising that these units are made from four separate bases.

Lesson #4: It really can be easy to make a really good looking base! Making many good looking bases, however, is another matter.

Aerial view showing the arrangements of the troops. I wanted to portray the Spanish (bottom) as being ready to fight in either close or open order, hence the mixture of troops in line and scattered. I didn't like the big gap between the two groups, however, and improved upon the arrangement for my Numidians (top).

AGR10 - "Psiloi - Sling", from the Greek range. The sling on the 2nd pose is prone to breaking-- although to date it's always been my fault; I haven't had one come broken. Baccus offers proper Balearic slingers with bucklers, but for some reason I missed them when placing my order. Even more strangely, the Spanish DBx army I ordered also came with these instead of the Balearics!

AGR4 - "Psiloi - Bow", also from the Greek range. I needed a few archers for CC:A, but there aren't any in the Punic Wars range.

Slingers in action (top), and archers. All Baccus figures are cast in strips, but many light infantry are designed to be cut apart individually. Archers are designed to be cut into pairs, one standing behind the other; but dividing them into singles wasn't a problem.

How to ruin a good paintbrush, fast

I have two main issues with the Baccus Punic Wars range. The first is with the Spanish Scutarii, who are based in open order, contrary to how I imagine them. This is easily remedied, however, with a bit of extra cash outlay and a few minutes with the side-clippers. Not so with the second issue: those giant shields. Only a few of the codes really offend me-- namely the Roman Hastati/Principes, Triarii, Marians, and once again the Spanish Caetrati. The shields on these figures extend from the ground to above shoulder height; from the front their bodies and legs are completely invisible, making them look like spear-wielding shields with heads. They're kind of like oval versions of the playing-card soldiers from Alice in Wonderland.

ARR1 - "Hastatii/Principes", showing their truly enormous shields. The command group actually comes in a strip of centurion/musician/standard/trooper. I thought it looked dumb with a bunch of unshielded brass all at the front of the formation, and clipped them apart for a more realistic deployment.

ARR6 - "Marian Legionaries", displaying the same affliction. Astute viewers will also note that the command staff are all about a head shorter than their troops.

Most people don't bother to paint shield patterns at 6mm. Normally I wouldn't either, but in this case I felt obligated-- those giant blank spaces were galling me! Needless to say, it was an annoyingly time-consuming process, and I think each #000 brush is good for maybe 150 of these little guys before getting too bent and frayed for detail work. At about $7 a brush, it ain't the cheap solution either.

Don't get me wrong. I like Baccus. I like their website, which has tons of pictures and makes ordering simple. I like Peter who runs the outfit, because he's infinitely helpful and provides lots of useful (and free) information. I even like most of their figures; the new ones, especially, continue to get better and better. I just don't like these particular shields!

Lesson #5: Plan your army around figures you like, rather than headhunting figures for an army you want.

Late Republican cohort. With shield patterns, those oversized shields almost look good. Almost.

ACA2 - "African spearmen". See, now those are shields I can appreciate. Even if my #000 brush was evidently no longer up to the detail work.

...And they still look good en masse. The shields don't need to be gigantic to draw attention.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So was all that extra effort worth it, I hear you wondering? Good question. I would estimate that I spent about twice as much time per unit trying to paint them up nicely, versus the speed painting used in my initial army.

Newstyle (left) versus speedpainting (right). The larger formation actually looks more numerous, but if you count heads you'll see that both units actually contain the same number of troops!

The extra work on the shields stands out, I think. The old ones were given a slathering of the base colour, followed by a wash for shading; the new ones were painted more carefully, to preserve the blacklining around the details. Again, it all comes down to maintaining contrast. Likewise, making sure the belt was a contrasting colour makes it stand out oh-so-much better at a distance.

As for the basing... I'm still not convinced switching to the Baccus system makes that much of a difference. Granted, my basing style before wasn't all that bad; my days of bright green flock are blessedly long gone. But I'm pleased with other aspects of my basing; in the example above, for instance, I moved the standards to the second rank, while the centurions occupy front and rear corners of the formation. One trumpeter is with the standards, the other at the rear. Looks good, having that uninterrupted row of shields up front, doesn't it? The larger bases and looser spacing also worked out well; details aren't obscured by crowding, while the army actually looks bigger. I'm pretty sure there's a Gestalt Principle to explain this.

Lesson #6: Don't crowd your bases-- it's pointless.

The whole army. Not much of an army, actually; it looks like it could use a few more maniples! Must. Resist. Buying. More! Maybe there's a Basic Impetus list for an army with only eleven elements...

Lesson#7: 6mm is addictive.