Ether Drake's Late Romans/Arthurians Project (Update 9/8/19)

[ether_drake]

Some
Beautifully painted stuff here.

Cheers. Still WIP. Hopefully finished soon.

Great work but I can’t deny I prefer Late Romans with the tunic insignia   

I'm going to have go at it. Just worried about mucking up the underlying paintjob

Can you play Dux Brit as a straight set of game rules as with Sharp Practice etc, or do they only work as a campaign system? (I’m not really one for campaigns which carry on from game to game to game )

You can certainly play one-off engagements with it. The bulk of the rules are for playing raids or battles. I've not played Sharp Practice, but combat and morale plays quite similar to Chain of Command. The activation system uses cards and is focused on command by your personalities.

The campaign system works around the raids/battles and is designed to be very very little work. The design objective was for all campaign notes to fit on a single sheet of paper.

Of course, campaign objectives will heighten the drama of any given raid or battle, but the outcome of any given game is designed to shift the balance of power only slightly rather than make it rapidly unfeasible for one side.

There's also been fan-made variants that adapt the rules for Vikings, Samurai, Franks v Late Romans, and even Middle-Earth.

[von Lucky]

Nice painting - also one that likes the freehand shield designs.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

You're doing some fantastic brush work on those lads. Very impressed. Looking forward to seeing to completed warband/army.

[Silent Invader]

I'm going to have go at it. Just worried about mucking up the underlying paintjob

You’ll do a great Job 

[ether_drake]

My Romano-British saw some action the other week with a Cattle Raid scenario. Once again, they were trounced by the Saxons. It must be because they're not fully painted and the Saxons are!

More seriously, Saxons are a tough force in Dux Britanniarum because they are all Warriors and Elite, no Levy. Whereas the Britons have three units of abysmal Levy.

While my Warriors distracted the bulk of the Saxons so my Levy could pursue the rustled cattle, I allowed my Warriors and Elites to be surrounded by the Saxon Elites and half their Warriors. While they held out well, they were ultimately crushed.

In hindsight I should have mounted more of a divide and rule approach using the narrow paths between the buildings to good effect to split up the Saxon battle line.











The devious Saxon tactic of lingering on the hill foiled the Levy's attempt to catch them twice.


Last stand of the Britons.

Next steps on the project: Finish off the highlights, shields and basing on the Elites, Bows, and Levy. Paint up a manuballista to field 6 points in SAGA.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

Really beautiful looking wee chaps - and great action shots of the game.

[bluewillow]

Doing some nice paintwork there. Late Romans are very addictive and you can get carried away.

I really enjoy painting late Romans, mostly because of the variation of sheilds and tunics I could achieve. I had to stop at 16 units as I had built the entire eastern legions and a lot of allied troops too.

my collection
http://stormandconquest.blogspot.com/search/label/Late%20Roman

cheers
Matt

[ether_drake]

Really beautiful looking wee chaps - and great action shots of the game.

Cheers. They're coming along nicely.

Doing some nice paintwork there. Late Romans are very addictive and you can get carried away.

I really enjoy painting late Romans, mostly because of the variation of sheilds and tunics I could achieve. I had to stop at 16 units as I had built the entire eastern legions and a lot of allied troops too.

You're right. With all the detail in the Notitia there's certainly a temptation to "collect them all" and you've done remarkable work. Impressed you've freehanded all the shields, but I find that's more fun.

It had crossed my mind to have replaceable shields with magnets but alas, laziness struck.

[ACW Gamer]

Do you believe the magnets would be strong enough to hold white metal shields??

[SteveBurt]

Very nice. We find that the British Levy can do quite well if formed defensively in shield walls. The Saxons often come to grief if they attack a shield wall. Not so useful on the attack.

[ether_drake]

Do you believe the magnets would be strong enough to hold white metal shields??

It'd be worth a try. As it is with superglue I've usually had to put another segment besides the handgrip in contact with the main figure for stability.

Very nice. We find that the British Levy can do quite well if formed defensively in shield walls. The Saxons often come to grief if they attack a shield wall. Not so useful on the attack.

Good point. They can't give as good as they get but they can take a beating. And it's less costly in terms of morale to lose them than my Warriors and Elites. They would have been a better speedbump for the Saxon elites. At least then my opponent would be throwing pearls after peasant swine.

[ether_drake]

Arthur and his knights rally around their banner.

After months of painting my Elites and Arthur are done. I even managed to do my first tin foil banner with a transfer from LBMS. It was well worth it, especially after stabbing myself on its spear multiple times throughout this project!

The figures are all Saxon Miniatures (now Warlord-owned), apart from Footsore's Lancelot on the far right. He's awaiting inspiration for a suitable shield design. I'd like to use a large oval shield for him but it's a tight fit compared to a medium round shield.

More pictures of the team on the blog: https://etherdrakecave.blogspot.com/2019/04/arthur-and-his-knights-assemble.html

The Saxon Miniatures are from the Winter King range sculpted by Colin Patten, providing lots of choices for Knights of the Round Table. I like their poses and kit. My only complaint would be about the casting quality of their faces. The detail isn't as crisp as Footsore faces. However, I'm very happy with their Arthur as Footsore lacks a suitably heroic Arthur on foot.

Being influenced by the Bernard Cornwell books I was all set to make my Arthur pagan. But a desire to wrap up this lot (batch painted in a group of 21 minis) led me to use a transfer from LBMS. I thought it'd be a nice tribute to Geoffrey of Monmouth's description of Arthur's shield bearing the Virgin Mary. He still bears the white cloak from Cornwell, though I couldn't settle on a better colour than black for his helmet plume. I'm open to suggestions (I did consider ochre as I read it was common in Late Roman times, but I need something rare for a Lord).

I painted this group in common colours, mainly red, white and blue, varying the location to give them both uniformity and individuality. The white and blues would tie them together with the previously painted Warriors, whilst the red - especially the cloaks - would set them apart.

Arthur and Lancelet, being Lords, had purple mixed into their scheme and used grey-white rather than canvas white for elements of their costume.

[Captain Blood]

The figures are all Saxon Miniatures (now Warlord-owned)... ...The Saxon Miniatures are from the Winter King range sculpted by Colin Patten, providing lots of choices for Knights of the Round Table. I like their poses and kit. My only complaint would be about the casting quality of their faces. The detail isn't as crisp as Footsore faces. However, I'm very happy with their Arthur as Footsore lacks a suitably heroic Arthur on foot.

The banner looks great. You've done a nice job on these - considering.
I completely agree with you about this range. I have all the Footsore Arthurian / Late Roman / early Saxon figures, but I was seduced by a few additional packs of the Saxon Miniatures figures when Colin Patten brought them out - including these Arthurian 'knights'. But they're a classic example of figures which look pretty good from a distance and once painted up, but when you actually get your hands on the raw castings they are disappointing. The casting is terrible (don't know if it will be better now that Warlord own the range - I got mine when they first came out). They have a filthy amount of flash, prominent mould lines, including, as you say, right down the middle of delicately detailed faces and ornate helmets - impossible to carve away without losing detail. There is also an ugly accretion of surplus metal clag underneath scabbards etc. The dynamic poses and feel for the period flavour are to die for. But there are aspects of the sculpting, characteristic of Colin Patten's output, that don't bear close inspection - like the weirdly stunty forearms, and cloaks that instead of flowing naturally, are oddly flat and two dimensional - I remember these features of the sculptor's style now from my Vendel (as was) border reivers, and earlier Gripping Beast stuff.
I'm going to paint a few of these, as I've laboriously cleaned them up now, but will probably move the rest on... 

[ether_drake]

The casting is terrible (don't know if it will be better now that Warlord own the range - I got mine when they first came out). They have a filthy amount of flash, prominent mould lines, including, as you say, right down the middle of delicately detailed faces and ornate helmets - impossible to carve away without losing detail. There is also an ugly accretion of surplus metal clag underneath scabbards etc. The dynamic poses and feel for the period flavour are to die for. But there are aspects of the sculpting, characteristic of Colin Patten's output, that don't bear close inspection - like the weirdly stunty forearms, and cloaks that instead of flowing naturally, are oddly flat and two dimensional

I got these from Warlord once they had taken over the line. The casting issues are particularly noticeable on the faces. Sometimes there were odd bits that I wasn't sure were flash, moustache or nose. The eyes were also poorly defined in comparison to Footsore - Bill Thornhill somehow manages to sculpt the damn eyebags!

That said, once painted up and at wargaming distance they look perfectly good, even if there's the odd stunted arm. The armour details are good. The overall flow of the figures is pleasing and they bring some welcome variation from Colin Patten's usual dollies. A bit like Victrix, once you've seen a few poses in one period you've seen them all.

I got on alright with the cloaks, though exaggerated shading hid some of the sins you mentioned.



That said, I've probably painted all the figures from this range that I care to paint. Any future elites will be from Footsore. My Levy are actually Bondi from Saxon's Viking range, they're simple and beardy enough to pass for any generic Germanic for this period. But I'm not giving them much more than a glaze and wash.

I do hope Warlord finds it fit to bring out Patten's Thorfinstead terrain set at some point. Its a very handsome collection of terrain.

[westwaller]

I would have to wholeheartedly agree with the comments on the amount of flash and casting defects on the Saxon Arthurians. I was really excited about getting them after receiving some fairly nice Norman's from Saxon but on receiving them I was fairly disappointed. I've bought a few packs of other Saxon dark age stuff from Warlord and I'd say there hasn't been that much improvement in casting but it's a pitfall that I have encountered with regards to several other companies miniatures too. I guess if you look at pack prices of Saxon/Warlord dark ages they are pretty cheap compared to others so maybe it's a case of you get what you pay for?!