Work in progress - gallic cavalry

finished off the horse harness bits for the gallic gavalry and based them - off they go into the painting queue.....

Current work in progress ....

Taking advantage of the Xmas break, with some time spare, I decided to sort out some gallic cavalry based on a couple of boxes of HAT cavalry. Some minor conversions (head and arm swaps) with some green stuff yielded 12 chaps - need to finish off the horses - reins etc.

For reins I tried some thicked paper, but these looked naff so I removed them and had a re-think. Xmas day was useful - a piece of ribbon round a prezzie had split - width correct for rein size - I experimented with it on a mounted roman officer that I'm working on.

A couple more Gauls....

these two chaps are from Irregular Miniatures ancients range, compatible in size with the HAT/Italeri figures I'm using for the bulk of the gallic horde.

Gallic Warband (no 2) completed

Slowly but surely, progress is being made- another gallic warband completed (a mix of Italeri and HAT), seen below with the Cafe Storme command figures from the last post.

This brings the gallic horde to 60+; another warband is ready for painting and I'm starting work on some gallic cavalry.

A few oddments ...

A roman civilian, this is a JEC figure - shorted in height and remodelled slightly ...

Two more gauls, these are Cafe Storme items, something with a different pose to paint for change, these will add to the horde,

The roman governer's personal guard, these chaps are from the HAT CeltIberians set  (the rest of the box have been converted into gauls)



Gallic Warband

A gallic warband completed (two more of these to do), sorry piccy is a little fuzzy

Also carried out a storage check, to ensure I had enough space in the boxes I'd bought to store the projected number of figures; I bought a couple of boxes with compartments - thse are great for keeping the specials/civilians and oddments in to stop them getting lost in the 'horde'.

 

Roman camp ...

Some roman tents by TSSD, with a few camp accessories ....

They are legion ....

A bit of a push this week as I completed all the conversions needed to complete my planned three units of roman legionaries. I was one Signifer short, so I made one up out of a spare figure, spare arm with shield and some green stuff. I scratch built the standard of spare bits - a bit large but gives a bit of variety.

 

 

When the green stuff has hardened off, the new chap will join the completed cohorts awaiting painting ...

Gallic archers and Roman cavalry...

I had a pick around in my oddments and soem spare figures; I had some bits from a medieval accessory set which inlcuded some quivers and arrows, so attached these to a couple of gauls, with bows made from wire ....

Also finished the small roman cavalry attachment for my auxiliary unit, the rest of the HAT carthaginian cavalry box with heads from Call-to-Arms legionaries, shields from HAT triari and spears made from cocktail sticks.....

Painted up and with the commander and standard bearer I'd already completed....

Gauls attack !!

The Romans have been levying extra taxes recently - the new governor is raising money to re-build the provincial capital Botulinum, this has made the gauls rather annoyed, and they decide to take some of the money back ...

 

Asterix: No potion ?

Getafix:  it was all used up last week to rebuild the stockade round the village,

you'll have to fight the romans without it

---oXo---

 

Some time later .... The roman column carrying recently collected taxes on their way back to Botulinum

 The gauls appear from the edge of the woods ...

The romans form up,  the commander of the column rides ahead to reconnoitre ...

More gauls appear... 

The gauls close in on the romans, using their slings and javelins to some effect .... 

The gauls charge in .....

Fighting is hard and continues .... the romans hold their ground ...

The chief in his chariot tries to catch up with the roman commander but he is too slow (more like to heavy!)....

 The fighting continues, as more gauls move up to join in ....

The roman commader with his small group of cavalry threaten the gauls who are falling back ... 

The gauls retreat from their fight with the romans whose steely discipline has worn them down

The gauls give up and fall back into the woods (not too happy having to fight the romans without some potion to chivvy them up),  the roman column reforms and backtracks slightly and takes a safer route back to Botulinum where they arrive without further incident.

 

---oXo---

 

A nice little game for a first time on the table for the romans and gauls. We made up a variant on the Saxons & Vikings rules used for dark ages games. Making some changes to allow for the romans being steadier etc - still working on typing the marked up rules (the rules do allow for potion taking when available !). I expect the rules will evolve slowly as we play out games.

Roman Auxiliary Command and a few Gauls more...

I've been considering having some roman cavalry, but not too much. A bit of reading on the web - auxiliary units did have some cavalry attached - 'Cohors equitata' : unit of auxiliary infantry with attached mounted squadron(s). Just right to add a few cavalry.  So I bought a box of HAT 1/32 Carthaginian cavalry to hack about. First up the command, a standard bearer and officer, using some BMC heads, shield from the HAT triari, the fur for the standard bearer gave me some difficulty - then realised that some dolls house grass is just right, the conversions in the raw ...

and painted and finished off ....

Currently have the auxiliary cavalry other ranks on the modelling desk - will post piccies when finished.  While I was in 'auxiliary mode' I made up two more infantry standing with spear to act as sentries ...

And last of all a few more gauls have been painted up....

I've sorted out the gauls I've left over into groups of nine to paint, I'm also thinking of adding a couple of gallic archers (did they have them ?).

Roman Legionaries - first cohort ready for paint

After some fiddly work to get the conversions to holding pilums done, the first unit of roman legionaries is ready for painting...

I may have a blitz and finish all the legionary conversions off, I have another two units part done sitting in a box - we'll see ....

Gallic Chariot

Vitalstatistix tries out his new chariot,

Then shows it off to the locals ...

Some new addtions ...

Getafix gets a cauldron to brew his potion in ...

A couple of pack ponies (tweaked slightly from a Western set), led by converted HAT spanish infantry.

Gallic Chariot - work in progress

I've been collecting bits together for the chariot for a while, having bought another box of Italeri gauls I have now got some suitable figs to convert - I need to make up the chap holding the reigns. Here is the first assembly of the chariot ...

Also managed to find some storage boxes with just the right depth to hold the gauls, romans and accessories (Very Useful Box -11 litre)..

Roman Auxiliaries

Finally finished my unit of roman auxiliaries; worse bit to paint was the sandals ! the shield was awkward, I chose black for the design and use a combo of paint and fine black marker pen ....

On the march

formed up for battle

in skirmish order

Romans: stick-on shield design for legionaries

While considering what shield design to use for my roman auxilaries, I decided to sort out the legionary shield (scutum) design while I had a idea of how to do it - I made a template of the shield with a hole for the shield boss using a a post-it, then found a nice image on the internet of a roman shield and sized it up to print out on some sticky labels. Below shows a shield with stick-on label applied....

After applying the sticky labels, I'll seal the shield surface with some acrylic satin varnish.

Some livestock ...

Sorting through the animals I use for my 40mm figs, I found some goats which are really too big and are really for 54mm so they've been re-based for use by the gauls/romans as needed; I also had a couple of spare geese too..

I buy bags of animals, at Car Boots sales and Toy&Train collectors fairs, to get maybe one item I want - anything else that may be useful I keep, the rest I donate to charity. So delving into my 'maybe useful' pile I found three 'wild boars'. Something for the gauls to hunt for their feasts ....

Romans - Work in Progress (2) ....

While I was in the mood, I thought it would be a good idea to see how a Call-to-Arms roman conversion to holding a pilum would come out before I made any more pilums; first attempt shown below (orginal figure on left and conversion on the right)

Romans - Work in Progress ....

I was getting my unit of auxiliaries ready to paint. I had prepared/converted some HAT triarii and had them all armed with swords. I wasn't satisfied with them - two problems the head/helmet didn't look right and a lack of spears.

The first thing I did was to give them some new heads taken from spare Call-To-Arms romans; then made some spears from cocktail sticks and green stuff  - tryouts with spears below

the spears armed men look OK so I've decided to arm half the unit with spears.  While I was thinking of spears, the Call-To-Arms roman legionaries are all brandishing swords - so pilums are needed (sorry don't know the right latin plural for pilum). First try shown below of making a pilum from wire spear top and cocktail stick compared to one I got in the BMC romans set I bought recently

I'll probably make enough up for my legionary unit(s) to be half armed with pilums.