Age of Caesar: Romans, Allies and Enemies

[ZeroTwentythree]

I started paining up some of the Wargames Factory Caesarian Romans. I was going to just add them into the plog I started a few weeks ago with some Celts from Wargames Foundry and Warlord Games, but couldn't seem to change the title. So new plog it is and I will use this as a catch-all for Roman period stuff.

I've got the first part of a more in depth review of the WF Romans on my blog (link in my sig), but here's the pics of the first four "tprototype" figures:







A bit of a confession... I was going to do the shields as something besides the cliche red, but I somehow just put my brain on autopilot and painted them up as above, and afterwards thought to myself, "hey... wasn't I going to paint them some other color..." But that's fine, it adds a bit of zing to what would otherwise be all neutral colors. I suppose I could go back and paint over them with blue or some other color. I'm not sure if I'm going to add any imagery to the shields or leave them plain.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I've closed the previous thread, so here's the pics I had posted there of some Gallic warriors. The first pic are Warlord Games plastics, the other two are Wargames Foundry's figures.

[folnjir]

Looking good, hope to see more soon.

[lorcan]

Looking good, these armies are two of my most favourite armies in the history of warfare. Hope to see more of your work soon.

Regards
Lorcan

[ZeroTwentythree]

I recently completed the rest of the first unit of Romans:



I've also finished up with the rest of my initial review of these figures on my blog:

http://zerotwentythree.blogspot.com/

[ZeroTwentythree]

I've been lurking around Warseer, but a bit quiet lately.

Just finished 10 Foundry Ancient Germans.







I've primed up another 30 Gauls from Warlord, 8 Gallic slingers from Black Tree Design, and 9 Ancient Germans from Foundrty, to use as skirmishers. I'm going to see if I can assemble some more of the Wargames Factory Romans some time in the very near future, too. More pics to come...

[mrtn]

They look good. I think that the earth on the bases look a bit too grey and dry to support such lush green grass, but as you have the same colours on your gaming table you probably don't want to change it, right?

[ZeroTwentythree]

Yes. Every time I think about basing figures differently, it always comes back to the fact that my table and terrain look like that, and I like the consistency between my armies that will allow them to be mixed & matched.


I finished 8 Gallic slingers from Black Tree Design. They're big guys, larger than most of the other figures I've got. They're on larger bases, also (25mm).





Not my best painting. (But I pretty much finished them in a single day.)

[Vazalaar]

Beautiful!
I would love to see more historical painting Logs.

Greetings

[colhodg]

Nice painting style - especially the skin tones. Have you given thought to some simple shield designs? have found they really complete the models and small details make them seem more in scale.

Also Germans are nasty - stubborn warband, eurgh!

[ZeroTwentythree]

Have you given thought to some simple shield designs? have found they really complete the models and small details make them seem more in scale.

I'm trying to find some references. I had some illustrations plus some photos of some Germans I previously painted, but I need to find my CD first (rescued from my old, dead computer.) So for now, I'm just going to keep painting them & leave the shields on the Germans plain.

I think I'm going to leave the Romans plain red.

Right now I think I'm going to try to focus on getting enough figures with a basic paint job to field 1000 points and get some small games in.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I found some of my references and a few pics of my old figures. Unfortunately these were sold off when I was broke and in college and needed to eat more than I needed toy soldiers. On the other hand, I think my painting has improved a bit since then, so I hope to do something similar but better.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Javelin tossing German skirmishers...

[Harry]

They look great. I love those Foundry Germanics.

The Wargames factory stuff looks very nice. (The romans especially) how is the detail on the faces?

The painting ... top notch as always.

[colhodg]

I agree - the Foundry German figs are amongst the nicest, most characterful ancient figs i have seen - and those sheild designs are really (really!) good, I like the way you have used a more muted pallette - so many of the warbands you see painted look a bit ott to my eye (bright and colourful but when you look at a unit of 40 it looks a bit like a pride march...).

Nice to see another quality historicals log on here,

[ZeroTwentythree]

The Wargames factory stuff looks very nice. (The romans especially) how is the detail on the faces?

The detail is not too deep (like the rest of the figure) but sufficient. Considering that I paint things pretty speedy, they passed that test. The fact that a good deal of their head is inside a helmet probably helps. I'm curious to see what their next set looks like. From the "digital sculpts" they post, it seems like they're listening to feedback regarding the detail & such.

I like the way you have used a more muted pallette - so many of the warbands you see painted look a bit ott to my eye (bright and colourful but when you look at a unit of 40 it looks a bit like a pride march...).

I generally paint my figures to the same level of quality, and I think I do a good job with color palette (picking colors that work well together.) But I have noticed something that I had suspected but now believe to be true through anecdotal evidence. Brighter armies get better painting scores & win awards at tournaments, earthy armies can still get high scores, but will almost always be beat out by "brighter" armies, even if they're not painted as well. I would estimate that my "bright" armies (medievals, WFB Empire, etc.) have scored consistently better than my "earthy" armies (huns & germans, WFB skaven & gobbos, etc.) I realize this is subjective, but I've been on both sides of the issue. I've had some of my bright armies win over earthy armies that I thought were technically painted better (and vice-versa.)

At least that's my opinion.

I'll keep painting to what I believe the character of the army is. So my medievals will stay bright, my Germans will stay dark.

The Celts will stay somewhere in between. I picture them as being a bit more "loud" but still within the restrictions of ancient dyes, materials and colorfastness.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I'm still waiting on BTD Early Germans, Renegade Celts and Wargames Factory Celts, but here's a comparison shot of some of the various manufacturers I've already got:

[ZeroTwentythree]

Finished a group of 20 BTD Celt warband:

[Killshot]

This is a great log! Subscribed! The Wargames Factory models look nice too.

Did you recently order the BTD Celts? I've heard they are having major delays and I am interested in ordering some of their Late Romans.

[ZeroTwentythree]

I ordered Celts and Early Germans. The order was half & half. I am in the US. Their policy says they don't charge your account unless the figures are in stock and ship. My account was charged a couple days after I placed my order.

A month after the account was charged nothing had shown up yet, so I emailed & asked on the status. I received no reply, but a few days later my the Celts showed up with a note stating that the Germans had "not shown up" yet and that they may have to ship them from the UK.

Another month passed and nothing had arrived. So I sent another email asking for the remainder of my order otherwise I would like to make other arrangements. It's been a week and a half since I sent that message and I have heard & received nothing.