Late Romans (Western Empire)

Compared to the last few posts we are now going back in time quite a bit.

One of the armies I have always wanted to do was a Late Roman Army for the Western Empire. So a couple of years ago I bought some minis from Footsore Miniatures, but never got to paint them. But every year the German distributor (and publisher of the German translation) of SAGA runs what he calls “Die Heerschau”. All in all you need to paint a point worth of troops per month for six months plus the Warlord sometime during that period. Essentially it is a motivator at the beginning of the year. So this year I decided to get myself motivated and to finally paint those Romans I had lying around.

So let’s start with the Levies. I decided, that I wanted a Balista, which means you need to trade half a point away in return for the Balista. I feel you get the best deal with the Levies. So it is half a a point of Levies with close spears and a Balista. I always loved the poses of those late Romans crouching behind their large shields, so half the unit is depicted this way. I wanted to make the units easy to distinguish. So every class got a different uniform and shield design. The Levies got white tunics with simple red patterns and red shields with a yellow serpent. The only body armour they have are helmets (at best).

The normal foot troops are by Footsore (as will be the rest of the troops with the exception of the Balista), while the Balista is by Gripping Beast. Back when I bought these, the later was the only Balista option on the market. I think less than a month after I bought it , Stronghold here in Germany announced theirs, which is far nicer. But alas I did not want to buy another one. The shields are all by LBMS except for the one on the Balista base, which was hand painted to match the rest.

The Warriors are slightly better equipped with chainmail or boiled legged vests and helmets for everyone. These guys have dark green tunics with red trim and red shields.

Up next are the two points of Hearthguards on foot. While their armour does not get much better, their clothing are more expensive Blues and their shields feature elaborate designs.

These are also Hearthguards in horses. I went for the Cataphract Models planning to use them either as Cataphracts or regular Hearthguards. These models did not come with shields or visible tunics, so there is not much that could show them off as Hearthguards here. But their massive armour should do the trick. But the sheer amount of armour made them a bit dull to look at. Since I absolutely hate leather dyed in bright colours I decided to give them painted lances (which I also hate but no near as much) to add some colour to the minis.

And last are the Warlords. I feel this Warband could work with both. warlord on foot or a mounted one I did. up both options. Colour wise I went with the Hearthguard colours for their companions.

The mounted Warlord is actually King Arthur from Footsore. The animation of the mini is simply great and the armour fits the period, so he seems like the perfect choice. In those Case the shields were hand painted. I have to admit, I should have (tried) to imitate the more elaborate Hearthguards shields, but these days mounted minis tend to bore me fast and I wanted to get them over with.

There are still a unit of Levies with bows and a unit of mounted Warriors to do, but I hope those should be done fast over the winter.

 

Rounding off my Normans

Ages ago I started painting my Norman army for SAGA. For roughly four years now, they have been lingering around at two points of Warriors with a Warlord added later on. With the upcoming German Grand Melee this weekend, I finally felt noticed to finish them and here are the results:

Up first are the Levy archers. The minis are old ones by Wargames Foundry. Not sure who the sculptor on these was, but they have a certain Perry vibe to them. They are slightly on the burly side, but given that other minis in this army will be from Crusader, Gripping Beast and Conquest Miniatures, they will fit in quite well. Only the Footsore minis (see below) and the Warlord from Stronghold will be slimmer. But the animation on these is very good and at six different sculpts, they offer enough variety.

Up next are mounted Warriors from Footsore. Usually love Footsore minis, but these were a mixed bag. The sculpts themselves are really nice and the set offers lots of variety at eight different rider sculpts. But the horses were a huge letdown. While these seem to be new horses, they had lots of flash and took ages to clean. The other problem are the shields. As usual with round shields, they have a depression on the back (on the rear of the boss) and a corresponding nipple o the arm, that are meant to give them a spot where they can be glued on and withstand the rigours of play. Only with these minis, the poses are such that you can only get them to align on two or three of the set. All of the others will not fit. As a result most of the shields are fragile and you always run the risk of levering them off. I have now attached them with ultra strong two part epoxy and still only try to touch only the horses and not the riders.

Last are the mounted Hearthguards. These minis are plastics by Conquest Miniatures. Really like them for their really heavy horses, versatility and low price. They require some work filling the gaps between parts and so on, but otherwise they are great. I am not happy with all the shields (most of the ones turned away from the camera 😉) and might go back to these at a later date.

While not Normans as such, I also completed two carts. We will be playing the Ambush scenario at the Grand Melee and I felt it would be good to prove some models for that!

 

Last Anglo-Saxons for SAGA

These were actually painted last year in time for the French Grand Melee. But the lack of time to take some photos and problems with photoshop prevented me from posting them any earlier.

Nothing really spectacular here, but with the changes from SAGA 1 to version 2 it became moch more sensible to field four points of Levies for my Anglo-Saxons instead of three points of Warriors and just one point of Levies as I did in the past.

Since I wanted a unit of archers, this was all easy enough. Those three points of Warriors I used before were amalgamated into two points of Levies (since both added up to 24 minis). For the archers I picked up a set from Footsore Miniatures. I was really pleased with them. Mighty nice mini and a true joy to paint.

The biggest plus was that no two minis were identical. While there are only six different poses, each mini that shares the pose with another has a different face and head gear to make them all different. I kept the colours simple and subdued to make them appear like lowly peasants that could not afford any bright and expensive clothes.

In addition I had always fielded a Priest Warlord in the earlier edition to get enough SAGA dice. Now I felt I needed a fighter. Well or rather could afford one without having too few SAGA dice. I felt it made the most sense to pair him up with the Hearthguards, since only they can be sacrificed, instead of him taking wounds. Since all my Anglo-Saxon Hearthguards are mounted, he had to be mounted too, to keep up with them.

As with the Hearthguards, I used Norman cavalry from Conquest Miniatures modified with Gripping Beast plastic Anglo-Saxon parts to make them look the deal. The only thing I regret about them are the shields. I was running out of time ahead of the Grand Melee and simply did not have the time to paint the shields any nicer. And over the past few months, I simply could not find the motivation to repaint them or add more detail.