DalyDR's Late Romans

[DalyDR]

Finally got a start on my Late Romans (to face my already finished Sassanid force), and here is the first unit to be completed!  Late Roman cavalry, from Black Tree Design, or whatever name that outfit is going by now.  I've had these guys in a box for many years, and just got around to working on them in the past few months.  The riders were excellent casts, the horses were not - tons of heavy flash that took quite some time to hack away.  The horses didn't look all that great to begin with I thought, but I'm pleased with how they turned out.  Shields done by hand, as I always do, because I enjoy painting shields, and these ended up fairly sharp looking, I think.  I perused shield designs in the ol' Notitia Dignitatum, but just ended up winging it - any resemblance to an actual Late Roman shield pattern is at least partially coincidental!  Spears made of floral stem wire (I forget what gauge), and the leader has a spare sword from some Sassanid figure by Gripping Beast.







Next are the 160 Late Roman legionaries on foot.  I've got 48 done so far but in order to keep my enthusiasm up I think I'll have to intersperse painting them with the Goths and Huns that are part of the project.  Hope to update this thread before summer's out . . .

[Codsticker]

Very nice. Very striking shields; they will look awesome facing off against the Sassanids.

[SJWi]

Excellent work on one of my favourite armies. Mine are mainly Gripping Beast and Footsore. Never risked a Blacktree order. I have a similar problem to you in having to face painting 120+ Spartan hoplites. All those red tunics!

[Vanth]

These look quite spiffy indeed! Well done!

[PAULSPENCE]

Looking good!! I’m basing some Gripping Beast figures.  Painted by some much better than me!

[DalyDR]

Excellent work on one of my favourite armies. Mine are mainly Gripping Beast and Footsore.

This army will be incorporating Gripping Beast, Footsore, Harlequin/Icon/BTD/EOE whatever, and maybe another manufacturer, but all metal.

Never risked a Blacktree order.

Realized when looking at the box they were shipped (and still stored) in, I ordered these 16 years ago, almost to the day!  They've been patiently waiting for some paint all that time.

[LouieN]

The unit looks excellent and the shields came out wonderful.  Good luck on the rets of the army. 

[Easy E]

Looking good!

[Bodvoc]

Outstanding unit, those shields are amazing.

[DalyDR]

I've been steadily working on my Late Roman force over the past year, and recently finished the cavalry contingent.  Here is my unit of Gothic noble cavalry, using Gripping Beast's Arthurian range, mostly because I had a bunch of them lying around.  I like to think of them as a mercenary group consisting of second, third or later sons of Gothic nobles, Romans who left the formal service of their emperor under murky circumstances, and otherwise adventurous sellswords.  Maybe some sort of 5th century AD version of von Richthofen's Flying circus.  Along those lines, they all have individual shield patterns with varying color schemes, although a nod to some period Gothic designs were included.

[DalyDR]

Here we have a rather fashion-forward unit of Roman light cavalry.  I used miniatures from Aventine's slightly-later-in-history line of Early Byzantines here, but their Pannonian caps, appliqued tunics and lack of stirrups means they fit in well enough, though the helmets of the leader and standard bearer appear a bit ahead of the time.  I love the Aventine horses, wonderful sculpts.  Shield designs are conjectural though crescent moons seem to pop up in the Notitia Dignitatum with some frequency.  As for the color scheme, I think I was watching a lot of ice hockey at the time, hence the black and yellow (Bruins fan).

[DalyDR]

Huns!  I love the riders, some older Patten-sculpted Gripping Beast goodness.  When I received them the ponies put me off a bit, so small compared to everyone else's mounts!  A quick bit of perusing photos of modern-day Mongolian ponies seemed to confirm they were probably appropriately sized, and now that they're painted up I quite like them.  For the most part I tried to stay away from any particularly bright colors for these guys.

[DalyDR]

Roman guard cavalry.  Had fun with the shields on these.  Again the basic pattern is inspired by an illustration in the Notitia Dignitatum, but the colors were just something I thought looked good together.  Being the elites, I threw some purple on these guys and gave their spear shafts the stripey treatment.









And now back to working on the hundreds of infantry for this force . . .

[Philotep]

Very nice units, they all look great! the Late Imperial Romans are among my favourite, yours are splendid.

[AdamPHayes]

Those Goths would make a great Bucellarii unit as a generals bodyguard.