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Author Topic: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars  (Read 20622 times)

Offline Tonhel

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #90 on: August 25, 2021, 06:21:24 AM »
Beautiful and your thread is very inspirational! :-*

Offline Hu Rhu

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #91 on: August 25, 2021, 12:26:18 PM »
Gorgeous painting especially the armour.  :-* :-* :-* :-*

Offline giorgio

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #92 on: August 27, 2021, 01:55:08 PM »
Lovely figures.   :-* :-*

You are spoilt for choice with the Victrix model range.  I would plump for an Allied Italian Legion using a mix of Samnite figures (they have more energetic poses) and the Allied Legion Figures

Very nice collection. I suggest also an Etruscan alley legion. I try to have one SOuth (Samnites like) and one North (Etruscan)

Offline Easy E

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #93 on: August 27, 2021, 03:35:07 PM »
I am sorry about what happened to your collection, and I would also feel like you. 

That said, I love the work you have been doing on this collection and models.
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Offline racm32

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #94 on: August 27, 2021, 03:35:49 PM »
will have to use your photos for painting reference when I start my project.

Offline AdamPHayes

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #95 on: September 01, 2021, 05:36:24 PM »
Very nice collection. I suggest also an Etruscan alley legion. I try to have one SOuth (Samnites like) and one North (Etruscan)

An Etruscan Alley Legion sounds so very sordid!

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #96 on: September 01, 2021, 07:23:10 PM »
Thanks everyone! I'll keep on hashing through it despite damages. I have a lot of fun with it but I figured since It has gone on so long I needed to paint some other stuff. Been painting up some German Fanatics lately with some new paint styles. Not entirely sure if I like them yet or not, but I will share here.

Quote
Very nice collection. I suggest also an Etruscan alley legion. I try to have one SOuth (Samnites like) and one North (Etruscan)

I kept the Samnites / Italian allies as a separate group because there is evidence that suggests some groups did join up with Hannibal while others rejected and stayed with Rome. While Socii seem to have trained and armed similarly to the Roman legions (I think it was a 1:1 ratio for citizen and non citizen? Might be wrong) I did keep their native look for the wars. The Etruscan conflicts seems to have ended half a century earlier than the second Punic War, and I'd suspect "allied legionnaires" like the way Victrix does them in their box sets would be what the Etruscans were recruited as in the Roman army, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing a few hoplite style conversions out of extra Roman pieces I have.  I could use some of the Victrix spare legionnaire bodies that I'll have left over and equip them with a mix of Hoplite shields and Gorgon studio Etruscan shields that I have sitting in my collection. This would work great for other groups of warriors I could use if I do the Pyhrric wars too.

For the true Northern Italy in modern terms, which would be Cisalpine Gaul, I'll use the Germans I am doing. I really like Peter Dennis and his art work so I'm going to do a lot of my work and styles based off of his Germans.




While they'll clearly be Germanic Tribes with their tied up hair at the side I think their clothing style and colors with the removal of Imperial Era Roman Gear will make for good proxy Cisalpine Celts. They can represent later Germanic invasions as well.

Offline sgzleada71

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #97 on: September 04, 2021, 08:38:29 PM »
Sounds good.  What german models will you use ?  Personally I really like the warlord games Germanic cavalry and infantry,  They are  full of character.  I have lots in my " to do box".  :) 

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #98 on: September 05, 2021, 03:48:04 AM »
Quote
Sounds good.  What german models will you use ?  Personally I really like the warlord games Germanic cavalry and infantry,  They are  full of character.  I have lots in my " to do box".  :)

I stuck with Victrix for all my ancients and antiquity. I had lots of Warlord games stuff beforehand but I find that they often clash with other scales out there. Warlord Romans are really small for Imperials, and their Caesarians, while a bigger scale and match nicely with other ranges, all have a squat position. Their germans and Gauls and britons I actually really like, but they don't scale well with Victrix - and Victrix covers so many eras now, I just stick to the one company to keep size consistency. 

I have however, kept a lot of metal characters, so there'll be some warlord Celts and German leaders mixed in there :)

Offline cadbren

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #99 on: September 06, 2021, 05:06:53 AM »
Plastic Warlord Games Celts scale well with Victrix. There's also a very nice Dacian commander that works well (better) as a Celtic leader.



These are large metal figures, same size as Victrix and same heft.

« Last Edit: September 06, 2021, 05:19:14 AM by cadbren »

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #100 on: September 08, 2021, 10:13:22 PM »
Quote
Plastic Warlord Games Celts scale well with Victrix. There's also a very nice Dacian commander that works well (better) as a Celtic leader.

I think victrix are a tad bigger. Warlord's Celts certainly have much more going for them when it comes to poses. I will make use of their metal characters. Those are nice as you've shown. :)

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #101 on: October 04, 2021, 09:26:21 PM »
So I finished the first 6 Fanatics for my Germans and took a shot of them pitted against some of my Hastati. They'd certainly work for Celts - although I'll admit they look way more germanic and savage than Cisalpine Gauls.



I gave two of them extensive chalk and charcoal warpaint.I think I'll do more fanatics this way.

Offline Wiegraf

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #102 on: July 04, 2022, 02:44:43 AM »
So between posting the projects I was doing with late Hundred Years War and Kickstarter, I ended up playing a game of SPQR, or rather, a bit of it while it was on demonstration. They've really revised the rules, so the game is better than before. It's not as deep as the rank and file battles (literally and figuratively), but it was enough to make me further want to get back into my old ancients, so I dug them out again.

A few years ago in the Lead Adventure Forums I started this blog and now wish to continue it. For what I have now is as follows for the Hail Caesar! set up:

2 units of Italian warriors
1 small unit of allied Triarii
1 small unit of light italian infantry.

various commanders, though I think since I am starting a new, I am going to also paint new ones.


This is enough for one division of Hail Caesar. I also have a single unit of Hastati and Velites as well as an elephant Numidian crew that survived the damaging child attack a couple years back, but I think those will be extras for other games or I'll lend them to new wargamers that want to try Hail Caesar while I repaint everything. 





For this existing Triarii Unit, I think I'll keep them with the "Samnites" seen here instead of putting them in with the Roman stylized legions. Hail Caesar! is pretty much a sandbox, so I can easily list the troops as a small unit of hoplites or still operate like Triarii do, without following the roman system. Let's just call them defectors, or allies.. they're either allied Socii or traitors to the Roman cause instead of proper Roman citizens.







I'll have to make more light infantry and skirmish units as well. They're very useful for screening and acting as javelin men or forming up and charging flanks where required.




At the end, the new commander. He will have a Hoplon and be featured in the next Kickstarter project I am sharing with my own vector traced decal, which I think is medieval but will probably still fit for this era. More on that in another forum post at a later date. :P

I've got a bit better with eyes since I painted my last Italians and Started adding stubble to the mini's faces. In my opinion it brings out the models much better in the face, though at a distance nobody would notice these sorts of things. I've also started using more Vallejo colors, so that adds a whole ton more possibilities for more colors on these Italians.

I'm also considering revarnishing most of these mini's armor pieces and metal bits on the weapons. I used Vallejo Matte Spray on them all and it really matted down everything - including the armour. Some places are even a bit cloudy. I stopped using spray primer since then and found that Vallejo paint on matt is great for armor (since its not truly matt, and leaves enough shine) while AK Ultra Matte varnish does wonders for skin and clothing, and things not supposed to shine while it keeps the finished product and removes any weird shine washes cause. I also want to not wash my whites anymore (something I learned while painting Afghanistan tribal warriors for an afghan-anglo project is that whites don't need to be washed and, in my opinion, look more natural!) and try not to wash the skin as well to see if blending works better.

Finally, I want to attempt to make better "Mediterranean" bases. I have a new style of basing I've been using for my French Knights in the HYW but I think I can get a bit more reds in the earth and different styles of stones in the to give them a more suitable base for what stereotypical mediterranean land would be. If it doesn't work out, generic grasslands is still fine!

In any case, I am excited to get back to this project. My further plan is to first work on two more units of the Italian infantry similar to the ones I shared in the photo. When that's done I'll either do a whack ton of Italian Cavalry that I have or start my Roman Legions over again. This time the plan is to do not one, but two full divisions of "Roman" Hastati, principles and triarii, as well as two full divisions of "Allied italian" Hastati, principles, etc... as well as some mounted Cavalry from Aventine. It's going to be a very large, epic force and allow for some big battles. I have some fun painting schemes for these new divisions and have inspiration from new sources that I think will make the units look a lot more interesting that my previous versions.

Finally, I will still be working on my Hundred Years war stuff! I just need to finish another unit of mounted knights and I can play the bare minimum of Lions rampant as planned, but after that I'll have lots of infantry to do up. And I still have plans to paint a whole whack of Celts and germanic barbarian forces to put in for the Punic Wars to represent cisalpine Gaul.. ah, there's a lot of things and I am so happy to be able to paint them all! :)

Offline Ray Rivers

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #103 on: July 04, 2022, 09:12:08 PM »
Nice batch of brutes you have there!  :-*

Offline sgzleada71

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Re: Hail Caesar! - Growing forces in the Punic Wars
« Reply #104 on: July 06, 2022, 10:56:36 AM »
excellent miniatures.   Thanks for the discussion on your methods.  I'll try some.