Bare flesh and hot rides... Yowzah!

...In which our protagonist writes about the other half of his Celtic "army" for Basic Impetus, while simultaneously indulging in a bit of historical revisionism. It's not nearly as sexy as the title makes it out to be.

The Ancient British force, with options, deployed in the famous "pose for the camera" formation.

For something that was supposed to be a lazy side project, this one turned out to be something of a chore to finish. My dislike for painting large models was the reason I moved to small figures in the first place, so when something as "large" as a 10mm chariot comes up I tend to look for ways to procrastinate.

British light cavalry. Like my Gallic horse, the figures are a mixture of AIM and OG riders on AIM's WWII horses.

Nevertheless, the Ancient British are done. Sort of. At the moment they're stuck using the same warband infantry as the Gauls, so while I can say I've got two armies finished for Basic Impetus, I can't actually have them fight each other.

Pimp my rides

Chariots. Transportation, fashion statement, and getaway vehicle, all in one.

Adding to my general reluctance to finally deal with them, the chariots I had were... shall we say unimpressive. Each model came in 6 pieces: two horses, two wheels, the chassis, and a single figure for the two crewmen. Several specimens of both crew and horses showed defects in casting. The wheels were even worse, many of them coming with spokes broken or cast together; even the best castings weren't even round! Only the chassis seemed to lack casting flaws... with the caveat that there was no way to attach it to either wheels or horses.

Pendraken AG7 - "Chariot, 2 Men & 2 Horses (3)". Not one of Pendraken's finest offerings. You can see how I jury-rigged axles out of scrap balsa; an inelegant solution to an inelegant problem.

The wheels had clearly been designed with holes in the back of their hubs for wire axles; in practice, probably half the wheels were cast with their holes filled in (sounds kind of raunchy, doesn't it?), and even when they didn't, glueing the wheels on properly perpendicular proved something of a nightmare. Anyway, the drillbits I broke trying to drill out the remaining hubs were worth more than the figures themselves, so ultimately I gave up on the wire axle idea. Substituting a bit of scap balsa still resulted in a few fingers being superglued together and/or to various chariot components, but the end result probably wasn't any worse than it would have been with wire.

Once painted, the models do look fairly nice, though. And yes, this time the shield designs are mine.

The horses were another issue. Coming in two different poses, with no real indication of whether they are supposed to be used as left/right in a pair, or matched (as I have depicted them), these simply add even more frustration to an already frustrating project. To their credic, at least these horses are depicted wearing horse collars. Now, I don't know if any archaeological or pictoral evidence actually exists for the yoke system used on Ancient British chariots, but at least the collars are a reasonable guess-- certainly they make far more sense than the fantastical oxbow-style chariot yokes depicted on many a wargames miniature that, in reality, would likely asphyxiate the horses.

On the other hand, the rest of the harness on the Pendraken figures is ambiguous at best. Just what are those straps leading wrapping around the horses' hindquarters supposed to do, anyway? And how are you supposed to attach them to the pole of the chariots' chassis? Long story short: more scrap balsa. Oh yeah, and hope that Pendraken re-sculpts their Celtic range some day.

Beware! Male Nekkidness!

AIM 10020410 - "10mm Barbarian Warriors". I used these for naked fanatics and javelin-armed skirmishers, but the 10mm Celtic Warriors pack from the AIM Punic Wars range makes for a better warband. I'm not sure whether the "naked" figures are even meant to be naked, but inflatable G-strings were the only other explanation I could give for their accoutrement!

Were there ever actually naked fanatics? The jury's still out on that one. Certainly in greco-roman sculpture there's a discernable towards nude Celts-- but in greco-roman sculpture there was a general tendency towards nude everything. Yep, no hiding the Family Jewels from the Greeks. There are also a few ambiguous statements by Greek and Roman writers that have been interpreted (or not) as meaning some Celts fought in the buff. Mind you, factual accuracy in writing ethnography and history was not really a priority back in the day; it was considered perfectly alright for a writer to spice up the facts to make a more exciting read.

Man, these fanatics have babymakers as big around as their biceps! Oh, and tatoos that I drew on with a blue Sharpie pen. They didn't turn out all that well.

Of course naked fanatics are a staple of wargaming Ancients. Heck, even the standard Gallic warband charges bare-chested across the wargames table, even though current archaeology tells us that it was the Celts who invented chainmail. In fact, the Romans copied the famous "Gallic" helmets used by imperial legionaries, and there's good evidence that the oval "spindle boss" shield of Republican times was a Celtic invention as well. The Roman legionary would have been something of an imitation Celtic warrior in his equipment! Celtic torcs became prized Roman military decorations; some of the best imperial weapons and armour were manufactured in Gaul after the Roman conquest.

All roads lead to Rome

Old Glory ANT-107 - "Gallic Slingers". These are surprisingly nice figures; in fact OG's Gallic range is among the very best of their grand scale offerings. It's a pity their warband figures are cast in strips.

In fact there seems little evidence of Roman superiority over the Celts. The Romans built roads and lived in walled towns; so did the Celts-- and these were not barbarian copies, but home-grown technology that were just as sophisticated. Roman-centric historians over the ages have denigrated the Celts as living in primitive tribes; modern research indicates that many Celtic groups were governed as Republics, with elected annual magistracies not so different from Rome herself. The similarities go even further: linguistic research shows that the Celtic languages of Gaul were perhaps Latin's nearest relatives in the ancient world. Given how little change there would have been for many, perhaps it's not so surprising that the Gallic provinces were so receptive to Romanization!

British slingers. Why do the Brits get slingers but not the Gauls? I dunno. It doesn't really match what Caesar told us.

Of course the Romans had a better army. Wargamers know at least this much: how the badly-outnumbered but disciplined legions of Rome squared off against the innumerable but poorly armed barbarian rabble and beat the stuffing out of them time and time again. Or did they? I sometimes wonder. After all, it's the winner who write the histories-- and in this case the losers weren't even literate. Indeed, the lack of a writing system was the one outstanding technological deficiency of Celtic culture.

A horse is a horse, of course (of course)

AIM 10020411 - "Barbarian Cavalry". Reasonably nice figures, but, like all of the old AIM lines, lacking in the over-emphasized details that make painting easier at this scale. All of the musculature on both horses and riders has been faked with paint.

Anyways, getting back on topic here, the final component of the Ancient British force for Basic Impetus is a couple of stands of light cavalry. Now, one thing about horses is that manufacturers tend to use the same sculpts for all their ranges-- so a 19th century cuirassier is going to ride a horse no bigger than that of a 17th century dragoon, and indeed, no bigger than that of an ancient Celt, even though the latter would likely have had a pony for a mount. I say most manufacturers, because there are an enlightened few; in 10mm the winner is Pendraken, who mount their ancients on nice little pony-sized horses. Strangely, I've actually heard a number of people complain about this! I mean, you're counting the bloody buttons on your Peninsular War redcoats, but you whine when somebody sculpts Ancients on appropriately-sized horses!!????

This picture is fairly similar to one of the ones at the top of the post. I'm not really sure why I'm including it.

Okay, I'll admit that it could well be different people who are complaining about the one thing versus the other. In fact it probably is. To each his own, right? I, for instance, don't care how many buttons there are on my toy soldier's jacket, but I prefer to be able to mock anyone who's anal-retentive enough to count.

And now that we're off topic again...

Another picture similar to one already posted.

What was I saying? Horses. Right. So Pendraken makes cavalry that would have been perfect for these ancient Brits... but I didn't have any. And since the whole point of this project was to use the figs I already owned, you won't see any here. Disappointing, eh?

All the Celts, all lined up.

A final note on things Celtic

'Celt' is a rather slippery term. Usually it's held to have come from the Greek word Keltoi. We don't actually know what the people in ancient Gaul and Britain called themselves. Even the concept of 'Celt' as a single homogenous, identifiable ethnicity is problematic. To my knowledge (and feel free to correct me here if you know better), aside from a few groups who straddled the Channel, the people of ancient Britain were not even identified with the Gauls-- the latter were supposedly tall and fair-haired, the former small and dark. Linguistically they must have been close; but as we've already seen, the same was true of Gauls and Romans. The speech, customs and culture from one end of Celtic Europe to the other may well have been just as varied as it has ever been.

So who were the Celts? In a way 'Celtic' is as much a product of Sir Walter Scott, Queen Victoria and their contemporaries in 19th century Europe as it is a meaningful distinction. Wargamers like me, who so blithely use Gallic and British figures as interchangeable, are only fuelling the melting pot.

Much Ado About Horses

...In which our protagonist obscures the fact that his output is currently rather unimpressive by producing this instructive article.

Cavalry. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are impressive. Or at least they should be.

A lot of people are intimidated by cavalry-- and I don't just mean on the battlefield. One of the comments I see again and again is how much wargamers hate painting horses. They're big, obvious, take forever, and never quite seem to look right. Believe me, I know the feeling, 'cause I'm a onetime horse-hater myself.

But painting horses doesn't have to be an awful chore, best avoided; the truth is, in smaller scales horses can be painted quickly, easily, and can still look good.

Equus ferus caballus, of the "brown" variety. Now why is it so hard to get a mini to look like this?

Tickle me brown

Before getting down to business here, let me ask a hypothetical question. If you were going to paint an infantry unit-- let's say the 1st Battalion of the 3rd British Foot Guards in 1909 --how would you go about it? I'll give you a hint: they wore red. Now get painting.

I'm guessing that at this point no one is ready to paint the 1/3rd Foot Guards 1909, despite my useful hint (well, aside from a tiny minority of sad, anal-retentive buttoncounters). Anyone actually intending to do such a unit would be well advised to seek out uniform references and plates as a painting guide. And yet most people will take their miniature horses, say "oh, they're (mostly) brown, right?" and blithely start painting.

Horse colour chart, blatantly lifted from Junior General. Hey, if everyone else is doing it, why not me?

And so I present to you the horse colour chart. Even a quick look at this would probably solve much of the usual brown-o-philia and horse-o-phobia. You can clearly see that not all horses are brown; furthermore, even the brown ones tend not to be completely monotonous.

But let's take our education a bit further, shall we?

That dratted real horse again, showing areas of contrasting colour.

Take a look at the above picture, and compare it to the colour chart. I think we're all intelligent enough to see the patterns here, so let's get painting.

Witty subtitle about painting 6mm horses

As always, I like to start with black. For the purposes of this demonstration, I'm also painting the horses in their entirety before painting their riders; in actual practice, this isn't necessarily the case. I'm going to do "brown" horses which tend to be the most common in my armies (a circumstance driven by the limitations of my paint collection, I should point out). Slight modifications to the shade of brown will give you bays and chestnuts.

Step 1: black undercoat.

Step 2: coat

In painting the brown coat, you'll notice that I've left the nose and socks black, and, because these are large-ish Adler horses, I've also taken some pains to avoid painting the eyes, nostrils and tack. More importantly, select a slightly lighter shade than you want your end result to be.

Step 3: hair

Pretty much as you'd expect: hit the tail, mane and forelock. I've used a dark brown for this, which I've also used on the base. Note that I also snuck in a gold edging on the shabraque and pistol cases in this step.

Step 4: ink

I probably should have mentioned this at the top, but in any case at this scale I like to use inks for shading. Here, I've used a dark brown ink on the coat, and a black ink in the hair. Note that these are inks, not washes; there's a difference. Inks tend to be more opaque, and are also quite glossy-- a definite advantage in this instance, as real horses tend to have quite a glossy coat.

Step 5: markings

Paint the nose, forehead blaze and socks as desired. Avoid painting the mouth and nostrils if possible. On brown horses I like to use white for the markings, as the contrast looks really spiffy. Dark brown or black are also realistic choices, but tend not to stand out so nicely. Another note: real horses may sport coloured socks on anywhere from zero to all four of their legs. For the sake of quickness and contrast, I almost always do all four.

Step 6: tack

Hit the bridle, reins, etc. in the appropriate colour. Most Napoleonic tack seems to have been black, so in this case I've simply touched up any overpainting from the previous colours.

...And that's it. You're done.

Done.

Just paint the riders, and you've got yourself some decent looking horsemen!

Grand Scale greys

As a special feature here, I'm also going to show how I paint my 10mm horses. This is a more complex, time-consuming technique, but it does look better. I've never bothered to try it at 6mil, but the Adlers, at least, are large and detailed enough that it could be done.

Ideally, I would have demonstrated brown horses once again, to better illustrate the differences between the two techniques. Unfortunately I wanted a grey team for my last Celtic chariot, so that's what you're getting instead. Note that in horse-speak the term "grey" actually refers to white horses (I don't get it either). What you're seeing me paint here are actually "black roans" or "blue roans" (yeah, I really don't get it).

Step 1: black undercoat. As per the usual.

Step 2: coat, and Step 3: hair

Anyway, you should already see the difference here: rather than applying a uniform slathering of colour, I've taken some pains to detail the musculature of the horses' legs and haunches. If your models actually depict this level of detail, all to the better; if not, it isn't that difficult to fake. Also worth noting is that on these grey horses I've painted the hair in the same colour as the coat. Finally, I've used a darker shade for the coat than I want the end result to be.

Step 4: ink

Here I've used black ink on the hair, socks and nose to give them some contrast.

Step 5: highlight

Here I've gone over the coat with a lighter shade of grey, keeping a border of the original shade. The result: instant highlights!

Step 6: tack

Paint the tack in your preferred colour, and you're done! This technique takes longer and a little more finesse with a brush. In ultra-close-up macro photographs it also tends to look worse than the simpler technique I outlined first; but at any realistic viewing distance, this is the better-looking way of doing it.

Examples of this 10mm horse-painting technique.

So that's my take on small-scale horses. In other news, I've got more of these smaller, friendlier posts in the pipeline. Heck, why not? It keeps me from wasting an entire weekend each time I want to make a blog post, and it also keeps me from going weeks and weeks without having anything to show. Is that progress? I like to think so.

A Gaul-ling embarrassment

...In which our protagonist rather sheepishly unveils the 10mm Gallic "army" that he's been "working" on for the last three years.

By putting this picture at the top of my post, I can almost pretend this army looks good!

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who gave such positive comments about my 1812 Napoleonic French. I think they certainly raised the bar for this blog... so now, just to show that we have absolutely no commitment to quality here at Mike's Leadpile, I present something much worse.

Why does this pic look so much yellower than all the others? Why didn't I take the time to fix it? We may never know...

Basic Skimpetus

I'm somewhat embarrassed about this Gallic warband, for a variety of reasons. I almost didn't blog about it; but, as you might've guessed from reading this, I ultimately decided to go ahead with it. Why? I figured it was time to make a return to 10mm. And I wanted to get a second blog post in this month. Petty? You better believe it.

This also happens to be my first force for Basic Impetus (BI). I was inspired by JET aka Jason over at Geektactica, who manages to churn out a great-looking Impetus army with seemingly no effort every couple of weeks. By comparison, it's taken me the aforementioned three years to come up with something much worse.

WTF is going on in this picture? Sadly, your guess is as good as mine.

The sad truth is that these Gauls weren't even intended for BI. With my tastes leaning towards huge armies in small scales, I was seduced years back by the endless hordes in serried ranks promised by Warmaster Ancients (WMA). As it turns out, WMA never quite made it past the 'impulsive purchase' stage for me, and the multiple 2,000-point armies I bought for it proved vastly beyond my attention span. I had painted up a few units from each army to begin with, and had even completed a few more on occasion, whenever the bug bit. Even so, I never got even one army close to the playable stage.

Five figures on a 60 x 20mm base! Back when I was trying to paint armies for WMA, I'd stick a dozen on 40 x 20mm. Which explains, I think, why that project flopped.

Luckily for me, making a "force" (I'm not going to glorify a few dozen badly-painted Gauls with the name "army") for BI doesn't require a lot of figures-- which, under the right circumstances, also means not a lot of effort. A quick glance through the wobbly pile of storage boxes in the corner showed me that I had enough minis to make about 20 or 30 different forces, and indeed, had enough painted figs to make a good start on several. Since this was meant as a lazy side project, I opted to start with the Gauls, as a fortuitous lack of 40x20mm bases when painting up my 6mm Successors meant that this bunch was already rattling around loose. Ready to go!

AIM 10020207 - "10mm Celtic Warriors", from AIM's Carthaginian collection. This is quite an old range, lacking the sharp, painter-friendly details of many modern 10mm figures. Nevertheless, their proportions are fairly good, and there are many decent poses, even if some of them are quite susceptible to breaking.

Recycle, Reduce, Rebase

A closer look at my chosen band revealed many of them to be in sorry shape. My painting standards had swung from one end of the spectrum to the other over the years that I'd been "working" on them, ranging from best-efforts, to products-of-impatience, to guinea pigs for new techniques. Many of them had scratches from the indifferent handling they'd received when I needed their original bases, despite the thick coat of too-shiny varnish that most of them were burdened with. An intensive touch-up effort was needed to bring them up to my current standards.

Pendraken AG1 - "Warband". A lot of Pendraken's older figures come in weird poses; at least with this bunch you get three weird poses.

The good thing about standards, of course, is that they can go down as well as up. And when you're trying to keep a lazy side project on the lazy side, this is exactly what needs to happen. Instead of touching up the minis, I simply looked the other way and based them as-is. (note: I mean "looked the other way" in the figurative sense; the author in no way condones the use or attempted use of superglue while actually looking the other way).

With paintjobs like these, I should have turned off the "macro" setting on my camera.

The Spoils of War

Celtic warriors were renowned raiders back in the day, always on the lookout for good plunder. In war, they even stripped the armour from their dead opponents. Actually, as anyone who bothers to do their research should know, pretty much everyone in the ancient world stripped the armour off their dead opponents, and used it too. The notion that each culture had its own unique military equipment is, generally speaking, a fallacy perpetuated by devious manufacturers of wargames miniatures, in order to get us gullible saps to buy more figures.

Pendraken AG3 - "Command". Can you believe they actually sell a pack of 30 figs containing 15 each of these two poses? Can you believe I actually bought one? Bah!

But I digress. As I was trying to say, much as the ancient Gauls proudly plundered shields off the battlefield, I have shamefully plundered shield designs off the internet for my miniatures. Okay, so it's a poor analogy and no justification for a morally reprehensible act on my part; but here I am, freely owning up to it and promising never to do it again.

A comparison, showing Celtic infantry from (L to R) Old Glory, AIM, and Pendraken. Also shown is my disgusting shield-design piracy.

The shield designs in question are from Little Big Men Studios (LBMS), a great company that produces rub-on shield transfers for an immense selection of miniatures, including a few in 10mm. Alas, Celtic designs are not numbered among these (or else I would have bought some. Honest).

Gallic warband, showing AIM, Pendraken and Old Glory figures mixed on the same base. I used to tell people they wouldn't mix; I guess I was wrong.

Horse Whispers

My attempt at maximum laziness failed when it came to the cavalry contingent of the Gallic force. Any horse larger than 6mm is a horse I don't want to paint. On the other hand, if I am going to paint it, nowadays I want something worth painting well.

AIM 10020213 - "Celtic Cavalry". I found the spears on these figures quite fragile; the top section in these examples has been replaced with wire. Unfortunately, this is not an easy solution, as the white metal used by GFI (the current producers of AIM figures) is very hard and resists drilling. These horses are also quite low on detail; eyes, nostrils, and even musculature have been faked with paint.

Once again I had a couple of choices, having a fair collection of both AIM and Old Glory (OG) cavalry. Neither of them, unfortunately, proved ideal: it was those dratted horses making things difficult, as ever. The AIM horses were nicely proportioned, but lacked detail; they didn't even have eyes or nostrils sculpted on them, which would make painting a pain. The OG horses, by comparison, had better detail, but were crudely cast, and -- putting an end to any thought of using them as is -- were hugely out of scale. Emphasis on HUGE.

Old Glory ANT-105 - "Gallic Cavalry". The three riders differ greatly in equipment, ranging from a bare-chested, to helm and tunic, to chain cuirass, crested helm and cape -- light, medium, and heavy. Shown here are the brutal OG horses, many of them suffering from rear "mono-leg" syndrome.

Luckily this was a problem I'd attempted to address years ago. Since the OG riders are cast separately from their horses, I'd also accumulated a large herd of riderless AIM horses to replace the unsuitable originals. Not the cheapest solution, as the horses on their own cost as much as cavalry with riders. I suspect I wasn't thinking things through when I bought them!

AIM (or GFI?) 12029906 - "N Scale Horses, Bare", from the WWII range. These are slightly larger than the 10mm AIM horses, but also have more detail. The standing horse at right is also part of the pack, but as they wouldn't have mixed in, I didn't paint any.

Ultimately I ended up doing a mix of 10mm AIM cavalry and 10mm OG riders on GFI's N-scale horses. I should mention that OG's "Grand Scale" cavalry, while ostensibly 10mm, ranges from large to very, very large. Think Goliath riding a Clydesdale. The Gallic cavalry is actually less grossly out-of-scale than most, which is why I decided they'd be okay to use.

A medium cavalry element, mixing AIM single-piece figures (with the larger shields) and OG riders on AIM horses.

Mix Master Mike

Surprisingly, differences in poses and size didn't really make anything stick out too sorely, in either the infantry or the cavalry. Then again, maybe it isn't really surprising. People and animals come in all sorts of different sizes, and Celtic forces weren't exactly know for their uniformity or discipline. What did come as a surprise was the different ways the minis took paint. The Pendraken and OG figures, with stronger detailing and deeper recesses, took a heavier coat of ink when I shaded them. In practice, this means that their details, particularly fingers and face, are visible from a longer distance; it also means that they appear darker, even when painted using identical methods to the AIM figs.

The general's cavalry element.

Once upon a time I also had some Magister Militum (MM) Gauls for comparison purposes. But you won't see any here, as I've long since sold them off. Suffice to say that MM infantry mixes very well with Pendraken, but MM cavalry doesn't mix with anything. Their horses are similar in size to AIM's, but much with a much chunkier (read: ugly as sin) style of sculpting.

Old Glory ANT-104 - "Gallic Cavalry Command." The carnyx horn carried by the fellow in the middle is quite large, but otherwise the riders are nice. OG horses remain as atrocious as ever, unfortunately.

May the Force be with You

So that's my Gallic "force" after three years of work. (Well, five weeks of work spread over three years). But it's still not done. While I've finished all the elements for the 1st century BC/AD Gallic list for Basic Impetus, I've got so many Celts in the leadpile that I've decided to expand. I'm already well on my way to morphing the Gallic force into an Ancient British force (with options).

Go Go Gallic Force!

...And that's my embarrassing little side project. For those who'd rather hear about the Borodino project (which is probably most of you, as I can't imagine people come here to read this other crap), fear not: the next bunch of Russians is already in progress. I'll have it painted and ready to show within... ohhhh, let's say three years or less.

-Mike

Pendraken 10mm Late Roman infantry

The Ioviani Seniores, highest-ranking infantry regiment of the Western Empire.

Depicting the Roman army of the 3rd century AD through to the early 7th century, these little gems created quite a stir when they came out. Great sculpting, an interesting but under-represented subject, and, most of all, an unusually wide selection of poses quickly wooed the 10mm community. Of course this was some years ago, now -- and these poor Romans have been languishing in the leadpile almost since then.

Well, no longer.

The Sculpts

ARL1- "Unarmoured standing spear"

Using state-of-the-art Photographic™ technology, I can now show you what the ambiguous unit description does not: there are five different poses in this pack, depicted, as the more astute might expect, without armour. These guys are dressed appropriately for the period, in long-sleeved tunics and "barbarian" trousers. One of the sculpts sports a beard; two others wear flat-topped "Pannonian" or "Illyrian" caps. Equipment consits of flat oval shields, stabbing or thrusting spears (hasta, for the Latin geeks), scabbarded longswords (spatha), and, on one of the figures, a beautifully-rendered "ridge" helmet. Everything conforms to the types cranked out en masse by the state arms factories of Late Antiquity. The sculptor has obviously done his homework; on the other hand, the very idea of unarmoured infantrymen in becoming increasingly discredited, largely owing to the efforts of modern archaeology and unbiased scholarship.

ARL6- "Unarmoured attacking mixed weapons"

The action-oriented counterpart to the above pack. Six different poses, comprising three additional spearmen, two swordsmen, and a gentleman preparing to throw a we ighted dart (mattiobarbulus or plumbata). While the sculpting and detailing remains impeccable, the figure design in this pack isn't quite as nice; the poses with raised sword, spear, and dart look a bit unnatural. On the other hand, the other three are possibly the best poses in the range.

ARL2- "Armoured standing spear"

Only four poses in this pack -- an unfortunate reduction considering these should represent the bulk of the Late Roman army. Generally equipped as per their unarmoured equivalents, except (predictably) wearing armour. This latter consists of chain hauberk and helmet -- either of the ridged or spangenhelm type. Really nice figures, although three of the poses seem to be leaning slightly to the left, as seen in the photo above. Nothing a bit of filing can't fix, however.

ARL9- "Armoured attacking mixed weapons"

You probably guessed this bunch was coming. The figure on the left, swinging his sword, is maybe the worst sculpt of the range; his shield grip clearly different from everyone else's, and the way he's holding it looks like this soldier's begging to be stabbed in the leg or groin. Weren't these guys supposed to form a shieldwall anyway?

There are of course many more additions to this range that I haven't reviewed here. Some, like the command groups and archers, I simply forgot to take pictures of before basing them; some, like the slingers and militia, I forgot to order in the first place. Others, most notably the cavalry, didn't even exist yet at the time. I'll say here that the archers are exquisite: comparable to the other unarmoured infantry in dress, and containing no fewer than seven different sculpts. See below for an image. The armoured command group is likewise superb, with two different musicians, two different standard bearers, and (I think) four officers. The unarmoured command isn't quite up to the same standards: there's only one each of musicians and standard bearers, and the bannerman has two right hands. I'm not sure how whomever was making the mold missed this, but it's the honest truth. I think there's also only three officer sculpts, although one of them doesn't have a shield, and so makes a fine commander of archers or slingers.

The Painted Army

We're fortunate today that medieval monks took a liking to the Notitia Dignitatum, a Late Roman document detailing the administrative and military organization of the Roman world, both east and west. Several 15th- and 16th-century copies are extant, providing remarkable insight into the Mediterranean of a thousand years before that. Of special interest to military afficcionadoes are the hundreds of shield blazons preserved in all their splendour.

The Pannoniciani seniores and Moesiaci seniores, two western units commonly brigaded together. The chi-rho shown on some of the Moesiaci shields is my own addition, although it's commonly believed to have been employed since the reign of Constantine I by Christian soldiers.

While not every regiment listed is given a corresponding shield in the Notitia, there are enough that it's possible to paint up a variety of units from any given field army of time without resorting to making any up. The time frame is fairly specific, however: the information on the Eastern army is generally dated to the 390s, and the Western to around 420. This is significant since both armies were in a state of rebuilding during these years, containing a mixture of older regiments (including the decendents of several legions that had been around for hundreds of years) and newly formed units. The East had lost a huge army (and an emperor) to a Gothic force at Hadrianople in 378, while the West had in turn suffered a series of invasions and territorial losses at the hands of Goths, Alans, Suevi, Vandals, Huns, and Sciri, as well as the usurpation, for a time, of several provinces by a would-be emperor. Rome had been sacked, and the veteran field armies upon which the Empire depended had disintegrated.

The Sagittarii Lecti. Archers were usually designated Sagittarii, but as many names lost their original significance over time, we have no way of knowing whether or not this unit would actually have comprised bowmen.

I opted to paint a Western army, for the odd reason that I prefer the East. Strange, I know, but my painting skills improve continuously, and I had originally envisioned painting up forces for both states, so I wanted the Eastern troops to look better. At my current rate of painting, I should have both forces complete by about 2080, but, rest assured, I'll do my best to post pictures here when they're all done!

The Lanciarii Gallicani Honoriani. Lanciarii are believed to have been elite light infantrymen, deriving their name from the light javelins they wielded (lancea). If this is true, these troops may have been among the few regulars to go to battle without body armour. Of course I ignored all this, and simply assembled a unit from some of the more unwieldy poses I had left over.

The Celtae Seniores. With the Western army in dire straits, things were shuffled up quite a bit; garrison units were promoted to field army status, and others were created from scratch. Although the Celtae were one of the surviving elite Palatine regiments, I decided to show the stresses of the times by painting this and several of my other units as a mixture of armoured and unarmoured soldiers. Normally this unit would be paired with the Petulantes, but I inadvertantly painted up the Brachiati instead. Eventually both these units will recieve their proper pairings, but for now they'll just have to live with each other. (Brachiati not shown.)

Brigade of Herculiani and Ioviani-- at least I got this pairing right. As the senior infantry regiments of the West, I gave these units coloured tunics and full armour. The Herculiani represent a significantly earlier attempt to paint this army up, however, and the unit isn't quite up to the same standards as some of the others.

Conclusion

I've vowed to paint (or otherwise dispose of) more of the ol' leadpile before shelling out money for new figures. I've even set myself a quota to make sure I stick to that vow. The day I reach that quota, however, these figures are the first I'm going to buy more of-- imagine some cavalry, and barbarian foederati, oh yes, and those beautiful casualty markers... and there's even a pack containing Arthur, Merlin and Mordred of Arthurian fame.

Suffice to say I'm impressed by these figures. The sculptor (Clibinarium) and producers (Pendraken) are both to be commended. This is premium-quality stuff, the kind you usually pay two or three times as much for. Even better, Goths and Franks are rumoured to be coming at some point to complement the range (mind you, said rumours have been circulating for years); I've also got some of the contemporary Sassanian Persians in the leadpile, which I hope to paint and review here in due time.

Of course, if blogging keeps taking as long as it is right now, that due time could be a long time coming!