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Sunday 20 April 2014

28mm Late Republican Roman - Civil War.

28mm Late Republican Roman - Civil War.

Julius Caesar's Army.

After finding some time and an empty space to paint, I thought it was a good time for me to start finalizing Julius Caesar's army for a Late Roman campaign I've been planning for some time.

Usually starting from the top down, the plan was to complete Caesar's command base, then his German bodyguard cavalry (apparently he mobilised 300 of them) then 2 veteran Gallic legion cohorts (of which one at least was to be a detachment of the famous Xth Legion ) then two other legionary cohorts, some Gallic mercenary cavalry and mercenary archers (Cretan) and finally a camp vignette.

So here goes, Caesar was bought on ebay as a 'Companion Miniatures' pack together with some Roman cavalry. Only 6 German bodyguard cavalry were required, to make them unique I smuggled in a 'Wargames Foundry' German Romanized officer and converted 3 remaining cavalrymen to Germans by replacing their heads with heads from 'Black Tree Designs' German warrior range. It was just a case of drilling and pinning these together, the result seem to work out fine. A suitable dour uniform was picked for them (as was common for Ancient Germans) but they still retained a mix of Roman equipment and their German style shields.

Caesar's German bodyguard cavalry black-washed.
Caesar's German bodyguard with their dour uniform and mix of German and Roman equipment.

Having painted Caesar himself numerous times over the years I decided this time I would break with convention of having him with a red cloak and red tunic, this time he'd wear a purple cloak with gold laurel border indicating his imperial ambitions and yellowish tunic with blue decoration. With hair greying at the temples, this gave him the image of a mature, experienced statesman and battle hardened military commander, I had a problem with picking his horse, apparently Romans liked the idea of their generals riding white horses, I'd prefer to paint a grey or black horse. So I propose to do both and pick the best.

Caesar primed and under-painted.
Caesar Almost done, just his horse to paint now.


Legionaries of Caesar's Xth Legion washed in hard-wearing black enamel paint, ready for their undercoat.
The Two veteran legionary cohorts will be somewhat undersized compared to their less experienced colleagues comprising 20 figures each..

legionaries based with  grass tufts I produce, now  just the shields and pilum to add


to be continued....




7 comments:

  1. Love your painting style . Good luck with the project.

    Joe

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    Replies
    1. Cheers Joe :) I'm hoping to get some more pictures up soon. All the Best, Peter.

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  2. Congrats for the miniatures!!

    First, sorry for my english, I'm from Spain.

    I hope you can answer me a question, can you explain me how do you paint your horse raiders? I'm not asking about the painting, I'm asking about the logistic hehe I've never painted horse riders, and I see yours glue in something and I'm just curious...

    I'm starting my Roman army now, and your blog gives me a lot of ideas. Thank you!!! and congrats again!!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Manolo,
      If I understand right, the easiest way to paint horse riders is to drill a hole in the underside of the miniature and mount it superglued onto a metal pin in a cork from a bottle of port, that way it makes it a lot easier and you don't accidentally get paint on the horse.

      Best of luck with your Roman army.

      Peter

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    2. Thanks for the answer.

      Just another one hehe

      I saw in some soldiers with spears that the hand doesn't have a hole to introduce the spear. Do you drill the hands?? or, do you cut the spears, and glue them to the hands?? I'm asking that because the hand is to small to drill it, I'll need to buy an special drill to do it...

      Thanks again!!!

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    3. Hi, Yes I do drill the hands, I use a variety of drill bit sizes depending on the diameter of the spear, so from 1mm to 1.5mm is generally good. You maybe able to get a hand drill cheap. I use an electric 'Dremel' drill I bought 12 years ago, it still works fine.

      Hope this helps, Peter.

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    4. thank you very much for the answer!

      Manolo.

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