Equites

These Newline Designs Republican Roman Equites represent those Roman citizens who were considered rich enough to be expected to bring a horse to war. This is my first cavalry unit for my Republican Roman Army that I have been trying to focus on.

This is a nice set with some good variation, featuring 3 horse poses and 3 rider poses. The command figures also add some more poses into the mix. The riders sporting the Boeotian helmets had a spears cast on so I removed them and drilled the hands so all riders had the same plastic bristle spears throughout. I repositioned the arm of the hornist and varied the angles of the riders spears.

I tried a new method for painting the bronze helmets. Following the black base coat a coat of chainmail was applied which went on nicely. The following coats of bronze and gold paint then applied smoother than my previous works. In an attempt to add some depth I applied a brown wash but I think it may have made it too dark and dull, though maybe that's ok after riding and fighting in the dust and dirt.

I again had a go at painting free hand the design on the standard I was quite pleased with the flag, it looks fine to the naked eye. I'm not a great fan of painting horses and cavalry units but I'm pretty happy with the end result.

I think I only have this Newline Roman cavalry unit, I have some Hat Roman cavalry buried somewhere and the same for Italian allies, one Newline, one Hat which will one day ride with the Legions. I am now working on Iberian Caetrati to support the Scutarii for or against Rome.

 

Heroics and Ros/Scotia Grendal AFVs

About a month ago I started a TMP discussion asking for opinions on Heroics and Ros/Scotia Grendal AFVs. Generally it seemed that it depended on the sculpt so I decided to get a few of the lines I was interested in and compare them. Below are some quick photos and a very brief overview and some sporadic observations.

 

BMP1s & BMP2s

 

The main thing with the BMP1s are that the Scotia's come with a separate turret. Personally I prefer Scotia's sculpts in this case, although there is not much in it for the BMP2s however the H&R BMP2s are 15p cheaper.



 



 

 

Chieftains and Challenger 1s

 

Between the Chieftains I prefer the H&R sculpt but I suspect the Scotia has the better proportions. The Scotia Challengers are markedly bigger so after consulting a source for dimensions I found that the Scotia to be the more accurate and I prefer the sculpting of the Scotia Challengers.

 



FV43s

Not a great deal between the companies, though there is a trend for Scotia's APCs to be ever so slightly wider than H&Rs. After measuring I found that the SG to be the correct width, both seem correct for length but I'm not too sure what is going on with the top of the SG model. It looks like the top of the hull is sunken? It seems to me that the HR sculpt 'looks right'.

 

 

LVPT & M113

With the M113s as above the SG is the correct proprtions I believe. The LVPTs are both decent sculpts but I'm not sure about the placement of the turret and other proportional details. After Looking a pics around the web I think the SG is closer to what I have been seeing.

 

 

M1 Abrams

Not much difference size wise, though I think the H&R sculpts appear crisper than the Scotia.

 

M2 Bradley

Scotia seems a bit bigger and more detailed. H&R look more to scale but I have not measured these ones.

 

Marder

H&R Marder is to scale whilst the Scotia is too big I reckon its nearly the same size as a MBT.

 

T72

The Scotia minis look a better size and proportion but the H&R are still nice

 

T80

As with the T72s above.

 

Leopard/Gepard

I can only really compare the Leopard 1s, I like the style of the sculpting of the H&R but they are too tall the Scotia have the correct height.

 

 

Challenger 2 & ZSU 23

 

I missed these whilst taking the pictures which is why most of the miniatures are cut off. Challenger 2s as the Challenger 1s above. With the ZSUs, H&R has the best proportions, the turret and the auto cannons are a bit short looking on the Scotia sculpt.

 

I hope others will find this helpful and since I'm not 100% when it comes to what looks right with every vehicle I hope others will point out anything I have missed or have misrepresented.

Italeri Austrians

The drummer, officer and the standard bearer are recently painted whilst the marching figures have been done a while however I highlighted them with lighter colours so the details would stand out better. The Italeri set does not contain a standard bearer so I cut away one fusilier's musket, replaced it with a bristle and used one of the flag stickers. The officer, originally a Hungarian Grenadier a has had a head swap with the 'German' officer on horseback as I wanted them all on foot. I used the same technique I did with the Newline Austrians which was mainly based on a brown wash over the base colours then highlighted.

I painted these at the same time as the metal Austrians of the previous post, of which I used the same hodge-podge basing method. I have received a nice tip to improve the stones on the base by adding some wash to add depth to them, but not yet acted on it.
 

 

 

Austrians Rebased

This is more of an update of an older post. After looking into various rulesets from various eras I have come to prefer one base equals one unit sets. After a bit of experimentation I found that a 60mm square base suits my tastes. Also had a quick going over and highlighted them as with my older paint jobs I left them after a Delvan Mud wash, which I think was too dark looking at a distance.

I also updated the flag. I ordered some flags from ebay seller 'Flagsandpatches172', they are printed on sticky paper and just need cut out and stuck on. I found that the Newline Austrian colour bearer's staff was a bit short originally I used a cavalry flag but decided to change to a larger flag. I snipped the old flag off chopped the pole and put a section off a metal spear to artificially increase the length.

The basing was winged. It was initially just the green scatter grass but felt that was a bit bland. Then I squished some grey stones to try and break the grass up, still not happy with that I added some light straw coloured grass. I'm still not sure about the basing but just left it at that.

 

 

     

Citizens of Rome

Yet some more Romans, five more bases of Rome's citizen soldiers complete. I attempted to twist some of their heads to give some variation as all of the Legionaries in chainmail are the same pose. One head twisted right off so I decided to do a head swap with a Legionary with pectoral armour since he had a Italo-Corinthian helmet. Still there are quite a few Romans in the pile but I am going to have a break from Legionaries.

 

Hannibal's Iberians

A few more bases of Newline Designs 20mm Iberian Scutarii. Much like the previous post of Iberians however I opted for a little less variety in tunic colours to allow mass painting and I went for a metallic colour for the helmet just out of preference. I did spend quite a bit of time on providing a variety of shield designs and I am feeling more confident at freehand painting designs.

Next I will be working on some more Republican Roman Legionaries so there maybe some repetition of units but it is the nature of raising a wargames army.

 

Republican Roman Velites

These 20mm Velites are the latest editions to my Mid-Republican Roman Army. I decided to just do all the tunics from GW Shadow Grey to GW Space Wolves Grey then white for ease and I like the look of this scheme from a distance. The main colour was going to come from the shields and like the Legionaries I went with mostly red and the rest blue and yellow. 

 

These light infantry bases feature 2 of the 4 poses from Newline Designs ANR05 code, which have had some very minor bends on heads and arms to give a bit more variety. These miniatures normally just come with the round bossed shields but I used some of the Celtic spined shields to give further variation. The javelins were from my usual stock of plastic brush bristles but I glued a few to the back some of the shields to look like the bundle of spares carried in the shield hand. 

 

I only used the figures which wore helmets just for the look I was going for. The other poses in the code are similar with one overarm pose featuring a wolf pelt over the helmet which is usually attributed to the Velites and the other with an underarm pose, bear-headed and cape. I'll use these at some point possibly using the wolf pelt bearers as elite or 'picked' Velites and I'll probably use the bear-headed ones as Leves the unprotected prelude of the Velites. I also have some Newline ANI09 Etruscan Class IV troops which have no armour and would make excellent Leves (or generic unarmoured ancients, renegade slaves, levies or even an angry mob). 

 

I have a lot more Legionaries to work on to complete my Republican Roman Army and a lot more Spanish and Celtic heavy foot so there maybe more of the same coming up soon. I also want to base and update older figures that I have already posted. In the mean time I hope you enjoy the pictures.