Ludus of Garicus Bornius - 54mm Gladiator Project - Update 24 Jan 15

[Hu Rhu]

Having been inspired by a number of threads on this forum (in particular Furt and his amazing Blood on the Sands Gladiators Rules, Pappa Midnight, BigMecha and Carmen's Fun Painty Time blog) I am dipping my toes into the world of Gladiators.  The intention is to build an arena, a ludus (or two) and get my local club to run a Gladiatorial Campaign.

Firstly I decided that since Gladiatorial combat involved only a few figures I wanted a large scale so I decided on 54mm as the scale of my gladiators.  Having decided on scale I looked around for a suitable venue and the Playmobil Roman Gladiator Arena seemed to fit perfectly.

So here is the start of my Ludus.

Firstly the Arena.  I managed to pick up a Playmobil Arena fairly cheaply on Ebay.  


It will need some painting as I am not happy with the sandy colour or the sheen of unpainted plastic.  However as you can see it seems to fit the scale of the 54mm gladiators quite nicely.  I intend to mount it on a 3'x3' board and the the inside of the arena will be hexed.  I bought a (large) number of 45mm hexes in 2mm MDF from Warbases which will be glued down to the board and covered in sand.


Next the gladiators.  I noticed that in 54mm scale there were a number of options including Black Cat, Pegaso and Pegasus.  I choose the latter for my initial buy simply because they were the most easily available (my local hobby store had a number of boxes) and they were cheap!  The down side is that they are soft plastic which has required a little more preparation time.  I intend to acquire some Black Cat and Pegaso to fill out the missing armaturae and to provide a range of poses.

Here are my first gladiators in their unprimed state.  They still need some greenstuff to fill the gaps in assembly especially since I did a couple of cut and shut jobs to re-arrange some of the poses. They are all mounted on 40mm bases. Next steps will see them primed, undercoated and painted.
First up is my Secutor.


Next his opponent the Retarius.


Then the classic Thraex.


And finally his opponent the Myrmillo


Here they are in fighting poses inside the arena with a few of their colleagues.


That's all for now but I will post updates as the project progresses.

[Furt]

Looking very good Hu Rhu; a most impressive start.

If I wasn't so heavily invested in 28mm, I could almost be tempted to pursue some gladiators in these larger scales.

Looking forward to your progress.

[Mason]

That is a great start, Gary.
Love the arena and the effort that you have put into converting the Gladioli is great.
Some pretty dynamic poses in there.
 

Looking forward to watching his progress.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

And another one joins the fray 

It's more addictive than you first think 

cheers

James

[Elbows]

Yes...yes it is.    Looking good!

[The Dozing Dragon]

That arena is becoming a must buy....

[Pappa Midnight]

Excellent stuff!
The Pegasus minis are very versatile. I'm looking forward to seeing them painted up.
With regards to the Pegaso 54mm miniatures you will find that although they are very nice they don't match up scale-wise with the Pegasus plastics ( the Pegaso metal minis are a good head or more taller !).
I've seen reference made to some 54mm minis by Outland games but can only find a few pics of them.(near the bottom of the page).
http://www.outlandgames.net/welcome_to_the_outland_games_gal.htm

Regards
PM

[Hu Rhu]

Thanks for all the support and encouragement. 

@Pappa Midnight - Thanks for the heads up with regards to size mismatch between Pegaso and Pegasus.  I will try some Alpha Miniatures through Black Cat.  I just need a few different poses. I missed out on some Sanderson Miniatures on EBay the other day but picked up this metal Myrmillo made by Italeri/Fabbri. It will need some work since the pre-painting is very poor.



Next update shortly.

[Too Bo Coo]

Very nice!  What a fine ludus you have there....

Have you ever heard of Army Painter dip?  I bet the strong or dark dip would look great!

[Too Bo Coo]

Yes...yes it is.    Looking good!

ditto....  And TONS of fun!  I even got the little lady to play

[Furt]

I missed out on some Sanderson Miniatures on EBay the other day but picked up this metal Myrmillo made by Italeri/Fabbri. It will need some work since the pre-painting is very poor.

Not a bad find at all.  You guys are really opening up my eyes to what larger scales are available out there.

Like TBC's suggestion, I also use Army Painter for most of my minis these days, especially glads, but I do wonder how it would look with larger miniatures.

[Too Bo Coo]

I think it was first 'discovered' in the context of 54mm soldiers....  but I wonder myself

[bandit86]

I am slowly working on one of those too, but I am trying to add stairs and rooms.  Good luck and nice job so far

[Captain Blood]

Looking good Gary. Thank Heavens for Playmobil eh? 

[Hu Rhu]

Here are my first two painted gladiators.
First up is Servius Maximus - a Myrmillo.


Next is Nisus Africanus - a Retarius


They didn't quite come out as well as I had hoped as I found the change in painting style from 28mm to 54mm a challenge. Still not bad for a first attempt.

Also started on priming the Arena but the weather has stopped that in its tracks as I don't want to spoil the primer with all the humidity.  WIP shots to follow.

Also the base board arrived today so I shall be shortly starting to create the fighting area.  Again WIP shots to follow.

Next post hopefully before too long.  Ave