Cheap, Fast 'n Dirty Slave Mob

[Lagartija Mike]

Low on time, looking for decent plastic Celtic, Germanic, Hellenistic, Nubian, Caesarian/EIR Romans and Gladiators in 28mm plastic I can quickly Frankenstein in an army-sized mob to crush my bud's Legio Hispana Whatever legionaires.

Please help the "Revolting Cocks of Kyrene" become the unpleasant tabletop reality they were meant to be! Any recs appreciated.

[tyrionhalfman]

I don't know of any plastic gladiators though I'd be interested to hear if there any.
Warlord Games do Celts, Germans and Caesarian Romans (which unlike their EIR range actually scale nicely with other manufacturers).
Wargames Factory do Celts, Germans, Numidians, armoured Greeks and Romans.
Victrix do armoured and unarmoured Greeks.
By the way if you haven't already you should check out the various gangs of Rome threads for inspiration.

[Lagartija Mike]

Thanks, I'll look into those threads. Are those Foundry ranges in plastic or exclusively metal? I'd like to pull my mob of commodified death providers together by the next few weeks and plastic's easier (for me at least) to bomb through....

[rebelyell2006]

The Wargames Factory Caesarian Romans in plastic are 48 per box, and have separate heads.  That might be useful if you are mixing and matching body parts.

[Lagartija Mike]

Absolutely. Speeds up the process significantly. I'm trying to go for an almost surreal mix of elements, say a towering naked Numidian in a provocator helmet,  a battered, graffitoed legionaire's shield and a Dacian falx...things along that line.

[Steve F]

Agema does multipart plastic velites - lots of bodies wearing just tunics should be useful for a mob (Victrix also does velites, but they are mixed in with their boxes of early republicans).  Look through Agema's range and those of the manufacturers mentioned by tyrionhalfman and you've got all the 28mm multipart plastic ancients out there, I think.  HaT have been scaling up some of their softer plastic single-piece 1/72 figures to 28mm, but I don't know if there is anything of use to you.

Foundry's minis are, indeed, all metal, as are those of the other 28mm gladiator ranges - Crusader, Black Tree, Brigade Games, Shadowforge.

[Lagartija Mike]

Thanks Steve, saved me some searching (tho' it's becoming pretty clear I'm going to have to mix mediums). A semi-related question: where hoplons still in use the Augustan Age?

[Mad Doc Morris]

In case you've missed them, here are the links to LAF's most prominent pair of Roman gang fighters: rumacara and nervisfr. Almost anything you would (or wouldn't) want to know about kit-bashing Roman rabble is covered by these two.

There had been no hoplites around for a couple of centuries before Augustus. However, since you're obviously not aiming for historical accuracy (one's choices would be severely limited, to be honest), you might as well use hoplite armour in an Augustan era rebel army. Although it's very unlikely, someone might have acquired such a panoply by plundering an old temple.

If you really want to 'go cheap' and half-way historical, though, I'd recommend just buying a few boxes of Ansar by Perry Miniatures. These are very useful for all kinds of unarmoured, fairly 'Ancient' looking footsloggers. Add a couple of head and arms variants from other plastic sets and they're good to go.

[Goliad]

Old Glory have a Spartacus range with lots of revolting slave/peasant types - and Old Glory are comparable to plastics price-wise.

[nervisfr]

hey guys,

If you want to customise your plastic troops with Gladiator's helmet you must find this at C-P models.

Cheap and could be fit with "28mm" plastic, i think. They are standard 28mm.

http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%2028mm%20Gladiators.htm





Now, with the heads, you can add some gladiator armour pieces to any plastic figures you find and get a slave mob very original......

Cheers
Eric aka nervisfr and Re-Animator

[rumacara]

Quick list of usefull boxes, bits, heads to convert:

Warlord cesarian romans, celts, germans (as mentioned before)´
Wargames factory numidians, germans, celts, cesarian romans (as mentioned before)
Victrix greek peltasts, republican romans (as mentioned before)

Metal heads from CP models and West Wind.
Metal gladiators from Brigade Games, Cp models, Foundry (probably you will need to mix some with the plastics).
Lots of green stuff or other miliput.

I found most usefull the numidians box from WF, the velites from Victrix as well as some unarmoured greek peltasts because all of these are in tunic and can easily be converted.

Feel free to contact with any doubts.

[nervisfr]

Don't forget some good beers to complete the list

 

[Lagartija Mike]

Thanks for all the recs. I was able to get ahold of a few different used ranges. Hopefully I'll have time to start on them this weekend....I'll post some pics of the mutations ( at least a few of the more showboat figures) sometime next week.

[Tim Haslam]

Trying not to be a bit 'nerdy' here, but,

Only around 72 Gladiators escaped from Capua and went on to lead an army of 70,000+ ex-slaves and brigands.
So your ratio of 'Gladiator' types to general slave types will be quite low (perhaps just unit characters?)
Also one contemporary accounts has the Gladiators destroying/throwing away their helmets as a sign of contempt.
(the hidden face element to the helmets 'de-humanised' their wearers)
Of course other more useful gladiator armour may have been used at first.
However over time I suspect most of the trained slaves and gladiators would have switched to captured roman armour.

I built and painted a slave revolt army years ago, before we had the luxury of plastics.
If I was constructing one now I would be pleased with the options available.

For your Gladiator (characters, heroes or unit leaders) I'd use Foundry metal Gladiators with bare heads or head swops with roman helmets and roman shields.

For trained slaves I'd use plastic Warlord late Republican Roman bodies and equipment with a mix of heads from the other plastics mentioned above.

For your generic bulk of slave revolt, i'd use all sorts of plastic and metal figures providing they looked like peasant types from that era. I even used Wargame Foundry German woman and children mixed into my mobs.
Again contemporary accounts have the slaves making shields from plashed branches, so a 'wicker' type shield may look good?

Also of note, although the slaves had many successes and captured lots of Roman eagles/standards they didn't appear to use unit/regiment standards themselves.
Perhaps the odd priest type figure to help motivate your mob may look good?
1st Corps do a nice Greek priest sacrifice set?

regards
tim       

[tyrionhalfman]

Looking forward to seeing your results.I have been watching the gangs of rome threads for some time and have toyed with the idea of trying some of my own