Caesar ante portas...

... or at least some of his infantry. Some of you might remember the beginnings of this project during this years Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. It has taken some time but now I've finally finished my first stand of legionaries, along with some barbarian light cavalry, for my Caesarian Romans.

Having already finished all those bases requiring a relatively low figure count, like Cavalry and Skirmishers, I got somewhat intimidated by the prospect of painting a whole base of heavy infantry. Especially as I already knew I wanted to recreate that look of massed ranks so closely associated with the ancient way of waging war and with the Romans in particular

Thus, after some time of fruitless mulling, I simply went ahead and dry fitted some figures to a base to see how they'd rank up and get a rough estimate of how many figures I'd need to get the look I was after.

Soon it was clear I'd need at least three ranks to the base. As a pack of infantry from that excellent War & Empire range by Forged in Battle/ West Wind Miniatures consists of 24 miniatures (well in theory at least, as these excellent chaps put more figures into a bag most of the time) I was quite keen on trying to use this number as a maximum to keep costs as low as possible. Thus I ended up with a final arrangement of 9 figures for the first rank, 8 figures for the second and 7 for the third rank.

Forged in Battle do provide quite some different poses for their infantry, allowing me to arrange them  as if the front rank is already engaged in close quarters while the second rank still retains their pila. It should be quite interesting to see how many unique looking bases I can get out of the figures I have.
I would have loved for FiB to include a dedicated figure representing an Optio with his characteristic crested helmet and hastile, a staff crowned by a knob made of metal with which he was supposed to keep the legionaries in line. Lacking this I simply gave one of the soldiers a red plume, but I might try my hand on some conversion in the future.

Next was the obligatory base of light cavalry. As before I did enjoy painting horses in that particular scale immensely. Where I always find doing horses in 28mm to be a pain in the bum at best, these almost painted themselves.

First I did a few more figures for the base but in the end it looked to crowded to pass for light cavalry.
So I only need to paint up two more to get another base. But as I don't need it at the moment this can wait.

I also changed the look of the bases slightly. I didn't like the look of the static grass I used up till now so I tried using differently coloured sawdust. And actually I quite like the look of it. Not sure if I'll go back to the other bases or if I just leave them as they are. It doesn't look to bad after all.

I really enjoyed painting these two bases and am eagerly looking forward to finally get the remaining three bases done I need for a full army for Basic Impetus. But being the war-games butterfly I usually am, I actually doubt this will happen any time soon.

No matter, for now it's off to the TV and fingers crossed for Iceland to win yet another unlikely victory! For those not interested in Football, I'm talking about the UEFA European Football Championship going on at the moment.

So have a good time and hopefully till next time!

Vertu blessaður!
(Good bye in icelandish)