New recruits for the Empire

Hi everyone! Back to 1/72, and to one of the most iconic armies of Ancient times, the Early Roman Empire. Nothing original of course, but new figures anyway, painted and based :)

In case you've been here before AND you have a good memory, you might remember that I've already displayed a Roman Imperial army for DBA - 12 elements, and (in theory, but still missing in my case) a camp element. but these days, I don't play DBA any longer and wish to paint larger armies. That's where the rule l'Art de la Guerre (ADLG) is perfect, since the basing is almost the same as for DBA. And moreover, the small format at ADLG is 100 points (normal is 200), which corresponds to 68 figures for the Romans (according to my list), and I already had 42 figures in my DBA army. Not a big gap :)

Here you are a table that gives a correspondence between DBA and ADLG, so that I know what I have to paint.

Note: with DBA, you need 4 figures to represent Heavy infantry, or Auxilia or Archers. With ADLG, you need 8 figures and a base twice deep - a better way to represent the most numerous troops on the battlefield.

 

Let's begin with the Auxilia: 2 more elements for ADLG. All shields are hand painted, and I must say that I am quite happy with the green ones.

Hät figures

Strelets figures

All Auxilia together:

 

Then we have a look at the 4 missing legionaries:

Strelets figures

My 3 ADLG Legionaries elements are now complete:

 

Time to take some family pictures:

 

The 100 points ADLG army is not yet complete: I need to paint the generals (with their officers or guards, 6 figures) and... the camp :(  

After that, the next step is to upgrade to a 200 points army for which I need 116 figures, only 54 to paint!

Hope you like them :)  

 

Greek mythology: of Minotaurs and Amazons, and more

Hi! 

What if I could write a post with tags such as 'Ancients', 'Fantasy', and '1/72' ? Yes it is possible, I promise... let's have a look at some 1/72 creatures from the Greek mythology!

A few years ago, Dark Alliance began to produce Fantasy figures from various universes, something rarely seen before, since only Caesar had produced this sort of sets before - all out of prod nowadays, and incredibly difficult to find at a fair price!

Some of their figures are clearly related to Greek mythology, for instance the Minotaurs:

And this is my painted version:

The first Minotaurs have a very classical color scheme, so I wanted to try something else:

This white figure can be seen as a boss, or as an infernal version of a Minotaur - what do you think of him ?

Next set, the Centaurs:

One of them made an appearance in the 2020 Advent Calendar in this blog - you can see the related post here.

Dark Alliance also released a set containing Cyclops, a dream come true:

If you read this blog for some time, you will remember the post dedicated to this very nice figure.

Dark Alliance also made a set dedicated to Amazons, but I must admit that it is far from my favourite (the sculpting is not the best, and my copy had too much flash). Fortunately, Linear A also released a set dedicated to these female warriors, and this time, the figures are really great:

Last but not least, the Hydra. I had to search among my oldest 25mm figures to find a relevant model, a wonderful Ral Partha figure bought some 40 years ago :)

This old snake fits well with a Dark Alliance Amazon. Here is a link to a post dedicated to this figure, one of the first of this blog back in 2016.

I now have enough figures to add 6 elements to my HoTT Greek mythology army (the Greeks themselves are ready for a long time, see here), but there will be further developments. I would like to add:

- some more of the above figures, of course

- a Harpy: I have an old 25mm citadel figure that could do the job

- a Sphinx: a 28mm figure from Reaper Bones - maybe a bit large but I haven't an alternative yet, tell me if you have any idea

- some gods represented with 25mm figures

 And I'm sure that even more is possible. All suggestions welcome!

I hope you found this post useful, or at least recreative :)

A Gallic army for DBA

Back to 1/72 and back to Ancients! The title of this blog declares that most minis should be in the One True Scale, here we are.

At the beginning of this year, I've been able to finish my (second) Gallic army for DBA, but found no time and no mood to take pictures. They're here at last, so let's have a look:

 

The figures are still to be based. There are enough figures for 2 elements of Slingers (Ps), 1 element of Gaesatae (Wb), 8 elements of warriors (Wb), and a General on chariot (LCh). Some of the figures have aleady been displayed on this blog (see here), but some others are new, let's focus on the latter.

Manufacturers, left to right: Caesar, Hät, Caesar, Newline Design

Hät, Revell, Hät, Italeri

Caesar, Caesar, Hät, Italeri

Linear, Linear, Linear, Hät, Hät

Linear chieftain on the left, others figs by Hät and already displayed

This time, I've painted the warriors as if they were related in clans wearing the same sort of tartan to identify. I'm not sure that this was common practice in that time, but I this likely, and it helps to give some sort of visual homogeneity without painting uniforms, which would be inappropriate.

Hope you like them, and appreciate the break from big 28mm monsters (I do)  :)

DBA Early Germans

 As announced in the previous post related to the Early Imperial Romans, the Early Germans are on the warpath too, and now ready to contest the battlefield with the Romans.

The army is composed of 12 elements, in accordance with the DBA rules. I've tried to mix as many sets as possible to get a 'warband' effect. The figures come from 8 sets from 6 different manufacturers: ESCI, Revell, Hät, Caesar, Strelets and Linear-A.

The bases have been made with the same method as for the Romans.

The Early Germans army is mainly a Warband that gather warriors from one particular tribe or from a confederation. No less than 9 Warband elements here:

Some close-ups on two of them, the first is the General (3 Caesar figures + a chieftain with his blue plaid by Linear-A):

Then we have an elements of archers as Psiloi:

And last, two elements of cavalry, one heavy and one light:

Now that the basing method has been validated with the Romans, it proved much faster to base another army, and still fun to do.

Hope you like them :) Tell me if you prefer the Roman Empire or the Germans !

DBA Early Imperial Roman Army complete and based

 Sometimes, one of my never ending projects comes to an end. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure to announce you that my 12 elements Early Imperial Roman (EIR) army for DBA is complete. All necessary figures are painted, and more, what can be seen as a milestone event is that all figures are based, YES, ladies and gentlemen, and I prove it right now:

Aren't they nice when they are properly arrayed on the battlefield ? You can see that there are 12 elements - heavy infantry of course, with auxiliaries, cavalry and even some artillery.

Let's have a look et each unit.

First of them, the prestigious legionaries. These 3 elements are all part of  Legio XXI Rapax. All figures by Strelets, except for the centurio, slightly converted ESCI figure.

The next two elements are from a legion that I can't identify. Note that the pattern on the shields is different between both - it was engraved on the shields of the back element, which gives you no choice, but I love these old dear ESCI figures, and wanted to incorporate some in my army.

Now we have a look at auxiliaries. My documentation (WRG) says that the pattern on the shields is that of a foot auxiliary unit, but I don't know which one. Strelets figures.

Next we have the auxiliary archers. The would be best employed on eastern fronts (where they come from), but I like this figures, a mix of Hät and Airfix.

Now we go on with the cavalry units. First, we have a look at Numidian warriors, running through the flowers. Figures by Zvezda.

You can see next Roman Horse Auxiliary, maybe of Celtic origin, riding to fight against their Germanic enemies.

And last, a roman Scorpio. The DBA list allows to have one, which is fun, but I suppose that it was mostly used during sieges than on an open battlefield.

And a last family picture to conclude.

You may wonder why it took me so long to base these figures (some of them were painted for years).

Several reasons:

- I needed to wait until every figure was painted, so that I can make the same sort of bases for all

- I needed something better than my old cardboard that proved fragile in time - the MDF bases are really great, I recommend them

- I thought it would be very boring... and I was wrong. To say the truth, I really enjoyed it, and the flowers are a must :). And I think that the Germanic tribes will soon be based too.

Hope you like them, as always.