Roman cavalry - basic conversions done...

The aim was to get the spears, heads and shields better for the figures I had originally made up and to add to these to increase the size of the unit.  I used the best candidate figures from the Italeri plastic cavalry and added 4 more to make the unit up to 10 in total; shields are from the the Italeri roman infantry and the new heads from Timpo Toyway romans

will now have to fix and fill .....out with the green stuff ...

Roman cavalry - collecting bits together ....

decided to sort out the roman cavalry - bought a couple of boxes of plastic roman cavalry. All the bits available out for investigation and decisions on best conversion/modification methods.

one possibility is to sculpt and cast a rider - with only 12 or so figures not a runner; I like to get 30+ figs out of a mould to make it worthwhile in terms of cost and effort

Escort the druid...

On the northern frontier, the romans are hunting for one of last remaining druids.  A party of Gauls is trying to get the druid to the forest and then on south-west to the safety of Queen Gargamantua's territory....

the Gauls escorting the druid move through the woodland towards the forest ....

they move out of the woodland into a small valley with stream running through it .....

a small group of romans blunder into the group as they move forward, they fall back after being fired on by the gallic archers...

the Gauls now move a little more cautiously, their scouts encounter another group of romans

the Gauls prepare to attack the romans, their slingers and archers pick off a couple of romans...

the romans fall back too the cover of the rocks, those in the open are attacked by the Gauls ....

the romans are badly mauled and form a tight group in the safety of the rocks, meanwhile the Gauls move forward -with the druid being escorted towards the river - the gallic scouts have spotted more romans by the ford over the river

as the Gauls move to distract the romans by the ford they keep up pressure on the romans in the rocks using their slingers and archers ...

the druid and his escort have reached the river, but to their dismay they find more romans in position on the far bank between them and the forest ....

the gallic warriors charge across the river with the druid to their left, the romans throw their pilums to great effect and the most of them are hit ...

the romans move forward to try and get to the druid while they fight off other Gauls who have crossed the river ...

the romans beat back the attacking Gauls and capture the druid....

the romans start to close in on the remaining Gauls who fall back and make their escape....

Roman Galley and crew ...

The basic crew have been painted up now, so the Playmobil galley is out for a short sailing session on the table ....

Roman Mounted officers ....

I used two Italeri Fabri horses and riders to make some roman mounted officers; gave them arms with swords and Timpo Toyway heads - followed by a overall re-paint. A useful addition to my selection of roman officers

In the garden ...

The governor takes a break from work and goes for a stroll in the garden with his wife ...

(Notes: a couple of borders borrowed from Wittenberg palace gardens..)

street fountain ...

To finish off this round of my roman civilian building works I made up a small street fountain; a  simple cardboard construction: head with spout from a plastic animal, water is a wash of mid-blue and a bit of white for the ripples - finished off with three coats of gloss varnish

Somewhere in Botulinum ...

got out the civilian figures and did a couple of setups with the completed split up villa buildings - these have 'villa side' and 'street sides' one of which is a shop.  Also tried out some vinyl flooring off-cuts I kept from the kitchen floor which work well as a paved area.

a public area....

a street scene...

Building works ....

it was off to the Roman World storage cupboard (aka wardrobe) today to get out the buildings to see what could be done with them

a bit of shuffling done to get the big boxes out from the bottom and take the buildings downstairs to the gaming room to see how they could be arranged and improved.

the main target was the roman villa, on a big base and not very versatile, so it was taken off the base and the leftovers retained to be made into three separate buildings - some replacement walls etc will be needed.....

 a quick arrangement ... good enough for a street scene story line setup ...

 or even for the market ....(must get those stalls and figures painted sometime 😊)

buildings setup to represent a villa of sorts

plan to make a couple of new buildings as well - best check there is room in the storage boxes for them first though ....

supplies for the watchtower ....

Some Gauls are on the move...

a couple more are looking at a nearby watchtower...

 where some supplies are being delivered ....

[new items: seven gauls and two roman pack horses]

Roman Pack Horses - WIP

I had a couple of Timpo Toyway legionaries left over and while tidying up I found a couple of horses - two more pack horses were made up from these

horse harness made from strips of '3 layered' insulation tape; some spare plastic pilums form part of the load. A little work left to do, then they can be painted

things in the pipeline ....

I've been accruing bits and pieces with some Ebay purchases; had a session over the last couple of days to sort them out and get them ready for painting.

An auxiliary cohort of Italeri romans, these will replace the blue auxiliaries (which were not very good conversions)

 A few Italeri Gaul conversions, I had some space in one of the boxes for some light armed troops plus a couple of non-action chaps for story lines..

  A basic ships crew using Timpo Toyway romans

Only one more planned item for the romans - some better auxiliary cavalry - have collected some bits  but will see what I can find..

a little diversion...

I had picked up some Timpo Toyway greeks with some romans a while ago and put them away in a box. For a change I decided to see if I could do anything with them. A couple of modelling sessions, cutting, repositioning, head swapping and fixing up I got eleven useable figures out of 20.

I think these better go back in a box for a while, before I go too mad and start another project - Greek city states in 1/32 very tempting ....😁

A statue (WIP)

A slightly larger metal figure, I thought it would good as a statue so I made a plinth for it

probably paint the statue white on a sandstone plinth.

Back to ballistas ...

I have upgraded my ballistas again, having procured another Italeri Fabbri one, 

lovely models, I now have enough ballistas for the size of my forces.

Roman Ship - ready for its crew ...

Finished off work on the ship.

I filled in the gaps in the sides, lowered the rear canopy, painted the sail a neutral colour, added a row of shields (using some printed onto inkjet labels) to each side.

I'm currently converting some Italeri romans to be a small unit of marines, plus some Timpo Toyway romans for ballista crew.

The Ampitheatre get a lick of paint ...

While I had the ship out of storage to work on it I thought I ought to get the amphitheatre sections out as well and get them painted. I found some acrylic paint designed for painting furniture, reasonable coverage and it 'stick' well. Although had to do three coats to get the best coverage on the yellowy plastic. Anyway here tis ..

Currently trying to decide on the best gaming surface for it, once thats does I can work on the gladiators and spectators.

Roman Ship - WIP

Getting round to a few things on this project.

I finished a Stadden roman officer, I've been using him a figure for the PlayMobil roman ship I have. The ship has been taken apart...

 I'm slowly putting it back together, tweaking it a bit. The deck has been repainted to cover up removal of some 'pips' to hold the playmobil figures ...

I have been collecting up some figures to convert to use as marines and crew.