It's been good to get the new hobby room partially functioning. Still a way to go but I have been able to at least get the last bit of highlighting and basing done on these 20mm Maccabean Heavy Cavalry from Newline Designs. They are lovely sculpts that have a great Hellenistic look and as such I am using them to represent Eumenes II's cavalry at Magnesia fighting on the side of Rome against the Seleucid king Antiochus III.
I ended up using only the leader from the command set the standard bearer and musician are unarmored and wanted to keep the unit all armoured troopers. Thus one of the troopers was bodged to carry a small flag detailed below with an imaged based on a design found on coins from Pergamon.
I fancied trying out the Vallejo Oxford Blue shade which is more of a toned down purple shade, very pleasant to look at so the unit, which is more than likely overly uniformed for the period, is themed around that shade. The only other thing to note with painting is my first outing with Citadel Contrast paints. I tried Skeleton Hoard on a couple of horses and on the white linen armour, Apothecary White. I found them very useful additions as shades especially so with the white shade. As a light grey wash on top of the Vallejo white it shaded the white areas very nicely which is fantastic as white is a nightmare to deal with. The best thing about the white contrast is that the white base-coat remained bright white, so I look forward to getting more uses out of it. I have since grabbed a few more contrasts I think they will be useful additions to the paint rack.
I have another post in mind about the basing format but the method for the materials was straight forward. Being cavalry it was easier to apply the ready mixed filler, paint it and apply static grass. I added a few tufts of pre glued clumps of static grass, again something I may get a bit more of a variety in stock.
Overall I am pleased with their turn out and particularly like these sculpts. A second unit pack is set aside which will be used as shielded Hellenistic cavalry. I was thinking of painting the scalemail as quilted linen armour which would make them good as Ptolemaic cavalry. I'm not sure what I'll be moving onto next. There's loads to crack on with but the desk is still not set up properly and there are bits and bobs that are yet to be located and found. However broadly speaking I was to crack on with rebasing, I particularly want to get the Romans sorted, which may result in painting the remaining Mid republican Roman figures first. There is a part painted unit of Seleucid companions of which I can not find their prepared shields and 3 Scythed Chariots than need painted and assembled. So I may chip away at these various tasks. There is still the matter of the Lost Battles report, I found the notes so might still do a brief AAR when I get a chance.But until then here are many photographs of these Lancers.
