A Bloody Good Read

As a bit of mood setting for painting Romans I'm rereading The Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem.

Set about 150 after the troops I'm painting, but still the writer hits all the notes of an admirable hero, compelling narrative, good history and really good prose.

Here's a sample:
The cohorts marched out by night, carrying full equipment, twenty days rations and the hopes and fears of their commanders.

This is, I think my third reading of this stirring epic of the last Roman general holding the crumbling frontier against the coming darkness.

I can see the novel making a good campaign game too.

Highly recommended.

First Batch of Romans Done

The first 30 of my lovely A&A Middle Empire Romans are done!

2 doz infantry, giving me either 2 units for Lion Rampant, or 3 groups for the new Too Fat Lardies ancient rules Infamy, Infamy! Plus a 6 figure unit of archers and a spare leader.

Notice the detail on this senior officer. The pectoral plate on his armour has a figure of Mars! Same on the greaves.

Shields were done with Little Big Man Studios transfers. I do like painting shields but I wanted a very elaborate design, like what I see in the pictorial reconstructions in my books.

Some of the reds I achieved by using red airbrush paint over my usual brown undercoat instead of separate shade and highlight tones.

But now that I've figured out how I want these guys to look, and the super busy training period with Air Cadets is almost done, the rest should go quite quickly.

Romans Arrive

My order of A&A Middle Empire Romans arrived just after KEGSCON.  So I've been beavering away to get them assembled and primed before the weather turns cold.

Notice Medusa head shield boss on the officer

The sale deal also included extra figures in command and archer packs.

So for games of the Two Fat Lardies ancient rules, tentatively titled "Infamy, Infamy!" (Its a joke referencing an old 'Carry On' movie), I've got 6x 8 figure groups of Infantry, 2x 6 figure groups of equites and 3x 6 figure groups of archers plus 5 Big Men.

For games of Lion Rampant or Hail Caesar I've got 4x 12 figure units of infantry 1x 12 figure unit of archers plus 6x skirmishing and 2x 6 figure units of equites.

I'm really pleased. Lovely details. Minimal flash. Nice poses. Generous allotment of extra shields and weapons too.

Can't wait to get cracking on these.