Gothic Infantry and Roman Command Stands

I'm almost ready for my first game of Comitatus!

With these two stands, I have finished all the infantry and command required. I now need a couple more stands of archers for both sides and another Gothic light and heavy cavalry stand each.

The Gothic infantry are another mix of Miniart and Strelets figures which bring the total of infantry stands to six, or enough for 2 x 3 stand cunei, or attack columns.

The Roman command stand was one which I had a long hard think about. I wanted it to stand out from the rest of the Roman cavalry stands, so I used two figures from the light cavalry set coupled with one from the medium cavalry set as the general.

Both light cavalry figures were altered, one with a draco added in place of the spear and a head swap, and the other with a cross piece added to the spear and a homemade vexillum glued in place. I couldn't think of how to decorate the shields, but I knew I wanted to do something different. I considered a winged Nike holding a laurel wreath, but decided that was beyond my talents, so decided on a wreath and Chi-Rho combination ie. Christ the Victor. Then I remembered I'd seen something along those lines in a book I had read recently and found the image of Honorius holding a banner that said in translation "In the name of Christ, you are always victorious", which I thought would be an appropriate thing for my general to aspire to! I knocked up a teeny-tiny banner in Paint, coloured it in with my daughter's felt tip pens (no access to the colour printer at work while I'm leave!) and Robertus is your avanculus!

The Honorius panel in question. He really doesn't look like the sharpest tool in the box, does he? No wonder the West fell!

The caption is actually legible if you expand the picture.

Roman Light Troops

Here's another couple of stands of light arms for my Roman forces; a stand of horse archers and a stand of light infantry skirmishers.

The horse archers are from the HaT Light Cavalry set and the infantry are from Miniart with an interloper from the Italeri Late Roman Inftary set sporting a Mininart shield and a shortened spear. He also has an extra javelin glued to the hand holding the shield, ready to take after he's thrown the one already in his hand.

If you follow my Napoleonic blog, you'll know I had a disaster with my spray varnish. My remedy involved olive oil which has left the figures fairly shiny, especially with the camera's flash.

More Roman and Gemanic Infantry

Two more stands of infantry for Comitatus; one Roman, one Germanic.

Again the Romans are Miniart, though I've given a couple of figres new heads from the Italeri figures, and the Germanic warriors are from Strelets.

Next up, some more cavalry both Roman and Germanic.

Light Troops

Here's the latest stands submitted to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge; a stand each of Newline Gothic archers and Miniart Roman skirmishers.

I've used the bow-string technique I tried earlier on my Roman archers to jazz up my archers. I reckon it's worth the effort and certainly makes the clone effect of the same poses less noticeable! The Newline figures are very nicely sculpted and produced, but they do lack a little in variety of poses and animation.

The Miniart figures have the opposite problem to the Newline figures, though. Wonderfully dynamic poses with woeful production values! I persist with them because they're the best in this scale for historical accuracy and realistic, dynamic poses. 

I'm really conflicted about these guys; they're really great from a distance, but butt-ugly close up!

These chaps earned me 30 points, with a couple of points extra for the bowstrings, which brings me to 25th place int the challenge and 12 points away from my target of 600 points. After getting nowhere near my estimated total in my first outing, it looks like I'll actually exceed it this time! WooHoo! 

More Roman Cav & Gothic Skirmishers

The latest entry in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge consists of the following:

HaT Light Cavalry (classed as Light Javelin in Comitatus),

HaT Medium Cavalry (classed as Heavy Javelin), 

and a Gothic skirmish stand using Strelets and Miniart figures. One of the Strelets figures has had his axe removed and glued to his belt, to be replaced with a javelin.

Gothic Command

Here's my latest stands in my ongoing Comitatus project; Gothic infantry and cavalry command stands.

The infantry stand features Newline Design commander, draco bearer and buglers. The commander is supported by warriors from Strelets (with shield mod) and Miniart.

The cavalry stand are all Miniart, though the commander in the middle has a plume added, and one of the warriors has had his lance replaced with a draco standard from the Italeri infantry set.

I'm Back!

Since the commitments for my Borodino project have been completed, I can now continue adding to my Late Antiquity project. Hooray!

Expect to see more in the next few weeks as I paint up more Germanic infantry and cavalry as part of the 4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

As a taster of what's to come, here's the latest Germanic tribal infantry stand using Strelets and Miniart figures.

Gothic Hordes!

Another Late Antiquity entry for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. This time a Germanic infantry stand. The front row are all Miniart figures, while the rear are Strelets. I had fun with these, and the reward is that Curt awards extra points for hand-painted shields!

Even MORE Romans!

Another stand of Roman infantry completed. This one is again mostly Italeri figures with a couple of Miniart ring-ins, all using the shields from the Italeri set for consistency.

I also indulged in a little surgery to convert one of the ridiculous poses Italeri have a penchant for, to something a little more realistic and useable in a shield-wall formation. I also repositioned the head of the figure 2nd from the left in the front row so he's actually looking ahead at the approaching enemy and not off to the side as he was originally sculpted.

Stupid pose just inviting a javelin to the chest!

Same pose with a little surgery to turn the arm  around

The whole formation with the converted arm figure front row, closest to camera.