Penultimate Units!

I just have to paint and base one more unit of Gothic light cavalry and I'll have finished my planned armies for my first game of Comitatus!

This post sees another base of Gothic shock cavalry (although they could conceivably be used as heavy javelin cavalry instead) and a unit each of Roman and Gothic archers.

The Gothic cavalry are again from the Italeri 'Gothian' Cavalry set, though I've had to modify a couple of the figures to my preference, namely the middle figure and the figure with the cape. The middle figure was the one waving a puny sword that resembled an overgrown butter knife, so I've cut that out and replaced it with a javelin from the HaT Roman Light Cavalry set. The figure with the cloak has had his spear cut down to a more managable javelin/dart size, and is bearing a shield from the Italeri Late Roman Infantry set, just for variation.

The archers' bases are slightly anemic as I was running out of figures, so instead of having the requisite 4 figures, these bases only have 3. I'm not that fussed as the base is still the same size and 3 figures is a little less crowded in the same space.

The Roman base has two figures from the Italeri Late Roman Infantry set and one from the Miniart Roman Infantry set, while the Gothic base has 3 figures from the Miniart set. Just for variation, I've added a small shield from the HaT light cavalry set to the belt of one of the Gothic archers.

The bowstrings look a little fluoro under the glare of the flash against a dark background, but in the flesh they're not nearly so bright!

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.