Monday, June 8, 2015

My Recent Painting Focus

While I wait to see what our brave new Warhammer Fantasy world looks like, I've been playing a bit of Mordheim but also doing some painting.

I started as a Historical Wargamer focussed pretty much entirely on the Ancient/Medieval period. Mordheim got me into GW games in 2001 but I've kept most of my historical figures.

Since I played there has been a change in rules. The Ancient period has fragmented somewhat and so you generally play what your local gaming groups play. Here in Wellington it is DBMM. I used to play DBM (pretty much the universal rules at the time) so this progression is not huge.

However the accompanying army lists have changed and so I find what worked 15 years ago is no longer legal now. This has meant that I've had to add new units (elements) to the mix. Fortunately I had some unpainted figures downstairs so it hasn't required any purchases.

The army I have been working on are the Patrician Romans. These are the Roman forces just before (and around) the fall of the Western Empire as it tried to turn back waves of Goths, Huns, Franks and Vandals. By this time the Emperor had lost power which was held by Warlord generals - hence the term "Patrician". In historical terms we are looking at the period 410-490AD.

My army is made up of Wargames Foundry figures - sculpted by the Perry twins just before they started work on Lord of the Rings. So all metal which is interesting given industry progressions. They are still nice figures.

Some Legionarii (red & gold shields) and Palatina (blue & red shields)
 

Most of the painting has been of new Roman troops. My previous army was based around Foederati which were essentially barbarian allies. Current thinking has much greate integration of foreign soldiers in "Roman" units.

More Palatina and a Cataphracti/Clibanarii armoured cavalry

I am currently waiting for some mdf bases to arrive so that I can base these units up - typically 4 figures to a 60mm base - as per the Legionarii on the plate.

Later in the month I am looking to play an event at one of the Wellington clubs.

 

3 comments:

  1. Always good to get back to the roots in a time of flux. Hope the event goes well.

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    1. Well at least I'll have massed ranks by the time I'm finished

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  2. They look good, really good. I love the shields, and the uniformity of poses makes them look like a proper military force, no cart-wheeling ninja 'dynamic' poses here.

    Out of curiosity, what't the attraction of this particular army? I mean Patrician Romans, rathern than late Republican, or Greek hoplites, or Scythians? Are they effective in-game, do they have an interesting and varied force mix for army building, is it the notion of a resolute band desperately fending off hordes of barbarians (mostly their cousins)?

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