Aventine painted Praetorians

[Prof.Witchheimer]

spotted by TMP, impressive bunch, well painted

[philhendry]

Bloomin' lovely...  I can see that I'm going to have to build yet another Roman army at some stage!

[area23]

Very nice. Does anybody know the full name of Aventine's sculptor 'Adam'?

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Very nice. Does anybody know the full name of Aventine's sculptor 'Adam'?

Can't remember ever seeing his full name on internet. Only know Adam is the mate of Keith and the both lads are the co-founders of Aventine Miniatures.

[Dr. The Viking]

Uargh! Those are bloody lovely! 

[Prof.Witchheimer]

The Romans really knew how to dress up their special forces, didn't they?

[Captain Blood]

The Romans really knew how to dress up their special forces, didn't they?

Hmmm... They look very nice, but is there really any historical evidence for all this costume and colour? I am sceptical. We have odd bits and pieces of archaeology, various monuments, and references in lists of serving units and so on, which wargamers have assembled to make what i suspect are entirely fanciful versions of what Various Roman units looked like... There's a huge amount of conjecture and speculation in what these people from 2000 years ago actually wore... I'm willing to bet they didn't look anything like this   

[Prof.Witchheimer]

though for the Praetorian uniforms there are evidences like this:



The design and the colours of the Aventin ones are based on the picture from the Osprey Elite Praetorian Guard book. The drawing depicts an Optio and a Guardsman from the late 80s AD. Campaign dress. Both are dressed similarly to legionaries of the period and are partly based on the Cancellaria relief:



better view of shields design:



the colours of the shields are unknown indeed, this blue is purely conjecture.

[Dr. The Viking]

Discussions like these are why I sometimes refer to Ancient Wargaming as Historical Fantasy 

[NurgleHH]

the colours of the shields are unknown indeed, this blue is purely conjecture.

Years ago I watch one of these Documentaries of roman uniform-making and guys, who reenact romans. They said, that these red colours were hard to produce and I think the blue one is not unrealistic. Even black was a problem, so the arab black guards've woren blue coats and had "black" skin-colour.
Nice Miniatures, I own some. Very good. A little bit better than the warlords ...

[area23]

Everybody knows the Romans dressed in green. 

[VonMoltke]

Before we are able to time travelling, no one could say, what colours have tunica, shields and so one.
Also the monuments shows only, what the artist like to show us..
Many historicans think, that also figures of the trajan column could be an order of the emperor to the artist.
Praetorian guard units may have the best of the best equipment, but it could also be, that the actual emperor would see them wear hoplite style armour elements, the next emperor would like to see his guard in combat armour, simple lorica segmentata, may be they have greaves, may be greek style, may be all in decoratet centurio style, may be plain steel, may be none?
Most details of the uniform and equipment is speculative.
I have discussed this with Adam many times and he decide to show us the praetorians in this way.
Better greaves than the normal legionary ones, manica and mail fists.
There are many manica foundings, and mail fist for special units is also logical, because an arm protection without hand armour is only half as good..
Romans know very well to do mail armour, why should they not do the final step?
In some books about the roman army of the middle imperial period, there are legionaries shown with this mail fists.
And yes, there is again no one you could definitive say yes they have worn this or not.
Adams idea is to show the roman army, from the theme equipment, at their best time period.
Only because some customers would like to see legionaries with older helmet types he sculpted some.
In the time of Marc Aurel, most legionaries may wear indeed the best and the last italic style helmet, the Niedermörmter helmet.
There are some differences between the uniform of the legionary of the dacian wars and this of the "Markomannenkriege"
After the Crisis of the Third Century and the later emperors (235–395), all have change, and the glory days have been only memories.

The problem is, that we know very few about this times and what we know, could also be a mix of truth and propaganda.

So I think, that every tabletop gamer and collector should do what he like, not important if the tunic is white, brown, blue, red or green.
Also no historican could tell us the truth.

[Doomsdave]

Accuracy be damned.  Those are juicy minis.  I really like the shields.  Who sells those transfers?

[Aventine]

The transfers are from Steve at LBMS

http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/1?osCsid=70860fda6a6f64eb4179ba9e29cbd0de


We also carry them

http://www.aventineminiatures.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=26&osCsid=698512a467f79bed5a45ea16ed5e2a88

Cheers

Keith
Aventine Miniatures