Finally finished - 6mm Punic Wars Roman army

Well friends, its taken 12 months for me to finish these guys testament to my speed/ dedication as a painter.

Its been a bit of a rock-n-roll year for me.  I was hoping to get these guys done in a few months but as usual with me it never worked out.  In between painting this army I took on some Volksturm and Hitlerjugend in 15mm for Richard, finished (yeah, right!) my late war fallschirmjager, got stuck into my French 100YW knights, topped up my classical Indian army with some skirmishers and in between all of that managed to go overseas, have an operation, renovations and all the other stuff that gets in the way of my hobby - life, work, bands etc.

All that aside, I actually finished painting these guys a few months ago but sat on basing them until I was more motivated.  I find basing to be terribly dull and I'd rather not do it quite frankly.  In the end it took 2 months just to base them all.  They are all finished now and I've started my next project, Parthians in 6mm, mostly by Rapier but with some Baccus thrown in for flavour.

This army is comprised for the most part of Rapier miniatures.  I say for the most part because in order to get Italian allies I had to go to Baccus miniatures, details later in the post.

The army itself is comprised of 2 army large army packs with a few odds and sods thrown in to flesh it out a bit.  When I started this we were all playing Field of Glory and as such is based for that ruleset but since starting Impetus has become the flavour du jour so although they are based on indvidual 40x15mm laser cut metal bases, they will fit both systems.

The roster is as follows:

3 legions, each of 8 bases velites, 8 bases of hastati, 8 of princeps and 4 triarii, all figures by Rapier.  8 bases of Roman citizen cavalry, 4 bases of pedites extraordinarii (Rapier princeps based as medium foot), 4 bases of Numidian light cavalry, 6 of Cretan skirmishers and 4 generals bases.  The Italians allies are 12 bases of Baccus thureophoroi based as 3 groups of 4 medium foot.  In the works I have some Gauls and slingers that are from my Carthaginian army but I'll wait and paint them further down the line.

As I said, this list was based for FoG but the Impetus list is much bigger leaving me with a quandary; do I buy more (wife groans!) or do I come up with some sort of cunning plan to thin them out?  The latter was the final choice, after much racking of brain I came up with the solution of using blank bases, 2 per unit of 4, to block out the units and create a checkerboard pattern of deployment that this army is known for.  For the price of 30 HF bases and some paint, glue and sand I doubled the size of the HF force!

And so, dear friends, to the pictures.  I tried a few different things this time, hopefully they turned out all right.

The full army deployed in line

A bit of a close of of some of the legions.







Italian allies and mercenaries



Numidian light cavalry and Cretan archers



My interpretation of a Roman marching camp.  The base was made by the wonderful Mr. Barker to my specs.  The tent part is a standard FoG camp base 120x80mm with figures by Rapier and tents by Leven Miniatures (from their WWII range).  The ditch and bank are only for show hence are removable.



Roman citizen cavalry and generals



The "checkerbaord formation" or how to double the size of your force for virtually nothing!  On the left is the expanded legion in its movement trays and on the right a comparison showing the same number of figures.  The blank bases look exactly that - blank.  I've got more tufts in the post as I type so by the time I get them on the table they will be done.

Cant wait to get these guys out fighting.  They have been a looooong time coming.

I've learned a lot painting my first 6mm army.  I've tried to keep my style consistent wherever possible with my 15mm stuff but in some places its just not possible.  I've also managed to come up with a few shortcuts on my basing technique which should take some of the pain out of future armies.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.