Comitatus arrives!

Huzzah! I received my full-colour rule-book in the post a couple of days ago as a belated birthday gift from my father. We were both expecting it to take a lot longer, but it arrived only a couple of days after my birthday.

It's basically the same beast as the free pdf download that used to be available, but with the added bonus of lots of lovely full colour diagrams and photos to illustrate troop types, formations and combat procedures. It has a handy-dandy quick reference sheet, too, which will be useful in the heat of battle!

I'm really looking forward to giving the rules a go. They seem straightforward enough, but not too generic. I'll have to get used to the pre-firearms period: no artillery, no muskets, just good old fashioned biffo!

Now to hurry up and finish my armies....

Hairy, Scary Barbarians!

I got myself a box of Strelets Ancient Germans recently and decided to take a break from painting Romans.

They are probably historically too early for the late Roman period as their shields include ones with Celtic-style spined bosses, but what the hey, I think they'll do.

I love the poses on these fellas; they're all in aggressive fighting stances, none of the wishy-washy Italeri poses, although there is a preponderance of swords, when spears would be more common. All of those not wearing helmets (the majority) wear their hair in either top-knots or Suebian knots, which is a nice touch, too.

Not sure what the last chap is wearing on his head, whether it's supposed to be a Sioux-style feather headdress, or if they should be oak-leaves. I've gone for feathers.

 

 

I've also done a swap with Conrad Kinch over at Joy and Forgetfulness and will be getting a swag more of these chaps as well as a few more sprues of the Miniart Germanic figures (in exchange for some tanks), so my Romans will be set for enemies!

Italeri Late Roman Archer Stand

This is the first of my Roman archer stands. Both figures are from the Italeri Late Roman set. The next archer stand will be using the figures from the Miniart set.

I chose to make the stand the usual width, but gave it half the depth as I figured that archers wouldn't be formed up in depth like the infantry.

Experiments with Archers

Rather than have archers using bows with no bowstrings (maybe they just shout "twang!" and chuck their arrows?), I've experimented using a technique I've seen on various other blogs and fora, namely using a length of plastic bristle from a kitchen floor brush and pan set.

The bristle was cut in half and one length was glued from the archer's fist to both ends of the bow, then trimmed once the glue had set. I think I'll need to be a little more skillful with the glue, as there seems to be rather a large blob around his chin and shoulder.

"Twang!"

1st bristle added

Once he 1st bristle had dried, I added the 2nd.

Bristles trimmed and then painted.

Skirmishers

Here's my first stand of Roman skirmishers to go with the infantry; 2 javelin throwers and 1 slinger.

All 3 are Miniart again and suffer from the same defects; fine poses, but terrible production qualities. The mold lines down the faces and legs are terrible, likewise the flash around the shields and javelins. I did my best with trying to de-flash them, but didn't want to spoil any of the detail there is on these figures.

I like the animation in these figures. They all look like they are in the act of winding up to launch a barrage of missiles at the enemy.

New Acquisitions

Click images for PSR reviews

My latest acquisitions for my late Roman / Germanic barbarian project are HaT's late Roman Light Cavalry and Italeri's 'Gothian' Cavalry.

The first was an internet purchase from the Drum & Flag ebay shop while the second was an impulse purchase while killing some time in the city last week, not expecting to find anything remotely related to my preferred periods. I'd actually gone into the Victorian Hobby Centre looking to buy some paint, but decided to check the 1/72nd figures shelves just in case. Previously, this shop had a very limited selection catering mainly to the WWII collector. The shop historically was dedicated to the aeroplane and railway modeler, but with a change in management and refurbishment, they seem to have expanded their range, including even the much loved (by me anyway!) HaT French Infantry 1808-1812 set 8095!

The HaT set is just brilliant with crisply moulded figures with no flash. They aren't as detailed as say Zvezda or Italeri, but the sculpting is historically accurate and reasonable, withou the odd poses that spoil Italeri figures.

As I already mentioned, Italeri always spoil their otherwise brilliant production values with some clunky poses or just outright stupid mistakes and the Gothian cavalry is no exception. While the figures are useable for my purposes, anachronistic mistakes like giving the riders stirrups would make the stickler think twice. The figure brandishing his sword looks like he's threatening his enemies with a table knife, so he'll be a candidate for conversion. The figures' spears are all spear-like, but as some are supposed to be flinging javelins, they'll have to be shortened to make them more javelin-like.

Newline Legion

I've been a bit quiet on the Roman front, what with all my attention devoted to the Royal Navy over on the other blog. I've been chipping away gradually, and here's the result!

I've got another of these stands to go and am planning a mixed Italeri/Miniart stand as well. While I quite like the detail of the Newlines, I'm used to the variety of poses you get with plastics. These look like a group of robots in comparison!