The time of crisis - Romans for the 3rd century A.D.

[moiterei_1984]

I couldn't withstand the temptation to start a new project and am about to embark onto a journey which will lead me into the turbulent 3rd century A.D., also known as the time of crisis for the Roman Empire.

I've always been intrigued by the way some people use the large bases for games like Impetus to create little dioramas. Thus while trawling the interweb for ideas I came across the splendid painting by Angus McBride (see the illustration here) and suddenly inspiration struck. I knew what to do for my first base.



There's not much in the way of choice when it comes to 3rd century Roman miniatures, so I was stuck with A&A miniatures line of miniatures for this project. Not much of a problem though as the figures are rather nice, if maybe a bit on the crude side as far as the sculpting is concerned. At least when compared to my all time favourite Paul Hicks, or the more recent Aventine Miniatures (incidentally by the same sculptor who also did the A&A ranges).
As an aside, I can't praise A&A enough for their excellent customer service. Excellent and prompt communication as well as very forthcoming with replacements if required.



The miniatures required some clean up as well as some slight modifications in order to capture the flavour, if not the exact detail of the original artwork. Now, before I forget, the rider is by Aventine who are also well known for their excellent miniatures and customer service.



Shields were painted by hand, but honestly I don't know yet if I'll see this through for the whole project. It's quite a time sink and compared to LBM and other manufacturers of high quality decals I don't really feel it's worth the effort. In case you wonder about the die on the base, well I intend to use it as a way to keep track of the units VBU (a kind of combined morale/ unit quality value) in games of Impetus. One less marker to clutter up the table.





That's it for the moment. Stay tuned!

[Mad Doc Morris]

Like said before, it's a little piece of art.
Excellent paintjobs and an inspiring realisation of that artwork (which I had to replace with a link to your blog, due to copyrights etc).

[Phil Robinson]

Wonderful stuff and welcome to the chaos of the third century.

Hopefully Adam will get around to doing some more third century stuff for Aventine.

[Codsticker]

Great little vignette!

[Aventine]

Now that is a piece of work, lovely story telling.

Cheers
keith

[Hu Rhu]

Great painting on those miniatures.  I look forward to following this project.

[chema1986]

Absolutely Great!! I love it ! love the period, love the minis, love the paintjob... Awesome

[aphillathehun]

Nice.  Well executed painting and I love the base.

I have a lot of the A&A mid Roman figures and really like them.  I made my own pila starting with the north star spears, adding a bead to represent the weight, and building up the base of the pila with heat shrink.  They came out pretty well.  If I could only find a bead shaped like the actual weight on Roman pila it would be awesome.

I used the transfers.  It is quicker, but I really like your hand painted shields. 

I also have a bunch of the A&A Sassanids and really like them as well.  I painted them a long time ago and would love to do them again - both my approach and my abilities as a painter have improved and I'd really like to do them justice.  But it would be a lot of work.  I also like the Aventine Sassanids.  We are spoiled for choice here.

[gostgost]

Good stuff!

[Dr DeAth]

Jolly nice - good composition and some tidy brushwork.

Have you considered using a sand coloured dice with brown spots - the white one is a little distracting - or does the colour of the dice mean something?

[Diablo Jon]

Lovely stuff beautifully done. I'm intrigued by the giant spear quivers though I've never seen or heard of such a thing were they a common item of equipment in latter Roman armies?

[Captain Blood]

Beautiful paintwork - of course 
Lovely storytelling too.

[Phil Robinson]

Lovely stuff beautifully done. I'm intrigued by the giant spear quivers though I've never seen or heard of such a thing were they a common item of equipment in latter Roman armies?

There is one on a tombstone of a Lanciarius of II Partica dating from the early 3rd century.

[jamesmanto]

Just brilliant

[Keith]

Wonderful!