Additions for Gauls - WIP (2)

Finished assembling the Expeditionary Force figures; there is enough variety of arms, weapons and heads to make up a good set of poses...  shown below with a 1/32 Fabbri roman (54mm) and a Toyway roman (60mm)

I married up some of the parts with a Toyway roman torso to give me a warrior with mail shirt...

Additions for the Gauls (WIP) ....

I've purchased a box of Expeditionary Force 'gallic civilians',  nice set - they are really 60mm figs, but the odd larger/taller figure won't look out of place. There are two druid types, two women, two young men, three warriors and a selection of heads & weapons. The women and young men are not as tall as the warriors/druids.

I've done some trial assemblies

I'll be using up my other spare bits to modify/tweak to my satisfaction, I expect the green stuff will be out as well 😊

Roman Testudo (completed)

The legionaries at practice drill - testudo ...

Roman Testudo WIP (2) - trial assembly

Having managed to cut enough Call-To-Arms romans in half for the legs to go with my testudo I tried a trial assembly on a base to see how it looked...

from side, looking good ....

 the back view, some work needed to make it look more realistic, suitable arms for the rear rank at least

Roman Testudo - work in progress

I've started work on my testudo.   The scheme is going to be very basic, enough to represent one on the gaming table. For an idea of what I was aiming for I printed off the image of the Warlord Games 28mm testudo.

• The front and side shields are fixed to a card frame, as are those for the top.
• The men in the testudo are represented by heads visible in between the top and sides, with legs fixed underneath. The back 4 men will be full figures, holding up the rear top shields.
• When all is painted up, the shields will have their designs stuck on.

The components for my model, coming together slowly .....

Roman catapult and crew completed

The catapult and crew now finished, ready for action ...

Next project in the works is making a testudo using Call-To-Arms romans, already have the figures - currently working out how to convert them etc...

Roman catapult crew (WIP) ....

Dug out my stock of Timpo Toyway romans and selected some suitable ones for the crew. Made a appropriate alterations - removed shields, altered head positions and changed a couple of the standing figures arms. The crouching legionary, has had a new torso fitted and some green stuff work. Officer unchanged ...

A catapult for the romans .....

I managed to get a reasonably priced Britains medieval catapult on Ebay; its suitable for use with my Romans

a little work to do on it and also some crew to be sorted out and painted (I have some Toyway romans to utilise )

bits for interiors and bigger photo backdrops

Getting ready for a feast ...

A recent Ebay pickup, four resin cast items for a large feast or party ...

 will need to make a suitable interior room plus more people and servants too :)

Higher Backdrops for picture taking

To get some higher backdrop boards I bought a couple of the standard Daler art board sheets - colour Delft Blue. They provide a basic taller backdrop for picture taking...

 The blue is a bit light, need to experiment a bit, but at least a full height picture of the ship is possible (and also larger buildings when made); I may add some clouds to one sheet and keep the other plain.

Playing with forts (2) ... Roman Style Wooden fort

Dressed up a straight ditch configuration for the romans with the wooden palisade sections; looks reasonable..

From the inside.....

The ditch, with a new causeway piece ... (yep those backdrops are too low - OK for general gaming though)

 a look down the table, perhaps what a gaul may see if looking at it having climbed up a small tree....

Still working on a more curvy look to provide something for the Gauls.

Roman street scene ?

A little project to tinker with, some ideas for a roman street scene - using some cut up boxes as mockups and a little sketch

ideally I would use it for story lines and displaying my civilian figures.

Roman auxiliaries wading - WIP

Made up a couple of trial figures for some wading roman auxiliaries (used up all my spare bits for them). One leaning forward and the other off balance ....

I'll do a bit of green stuff work on them and then see how they paint up.

Something to tinker with ...

A sort of the remainder of spares box yielded some spare horse and riders, plus a few shields. Enough to make up four more cavalry figures for the Gauls.

I had to hack two riders about a bit to fit on two spare Italeri Fabbri horses, the other should be a simple assembly and detail job.

Need to make good and fill in with green stuff etc ....

a base for the the Ampitheatre ...

pulled out the ampitheatre pieces today to make a base for the arena.

for the base I decide to use some Daler mounting board and some sandy look fabric

 The arena was setup on the sheet of mounting board on and drawn round to get the shape; this was cut out and then covered with the fabric (using some strong glue for the edges and dabs of PVA in the middle); after that I covered some offcuts with stone flagstone paper sheet for the entrance area...

 The entrance area ...

 on the finished base I used some sploshes of PVA and some different colours of sandy scatters to improve the look....

gladiators to paint and some spectators to do ....

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 ....

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.

Circus Minimus, checking re-use of arena parts ...

the chariot racing arena, laid out using the arena parts and the two extra seating modules I made - looks much better - a gap at the back - may make a suitable section up to fill it in later ....

 looks good with the chariots ...

Gladiator Arena - finishing off the build ...

Final stage was to add some trim to the new crowd seating modules, using some thin cardboard

All the sections together,  not overlarge and fits nicely on my gaming table (central arena approx. 75cm x 55cm)

 Before I get on with painting it all up I'm going to check on how much can be re-used for the chariot racing 'circus minimus'.  The arena itself will need a suitable sandy surface as well.