Making a start on the Hyborian lead mountain

I bought the Great Escape Games Sword & Spear fantasy rules last year, with the intention of playing games in 15mm. My original idea was to create a 15mm post-Roman army with an Arthurian theme, and this is still my intention. I have a load of Lurkio post-Romans and a few early Byzantines, plus a few Magister Militum wizards which will become transformed at some point, but it also occurred to me that I could expand my Hyborian Barbarian HOTT army into a larger force for S&SF.

The consensus at the club for S&SF in 15mm is that we should use an 80mm frontage for units, which means that any troops based for HOTT or DBA will be compatible. Therefore, a while ago I bought several packs of extra Copplestone Barbarica 15mm barbarians and other figures to bulk out my existing troops.

I have enough extra figures to create more cavalry units, and also heavy infantry, medium infantry, levies and skirmishers, but as I want this force to have a proper fantasy dimension, I also bought some wolves and trolls from the Copplestone range.

So, my initial foray into this particular part of the lead mountain was the wolves and trolls, and here they are;

I decided that I wanted my trolls to have green skin, but also to look like they could hide in the rocks of hills and valleys, so I thought that grey fur would work well. The wolves, of course, are just wolves and grey and brown shades are natural. In both pics I've put a stand of barbarians to show the scale of the new additions. The trolls have been based on 80mm x 60mm MDF bases and the wolves on 40 x 40cm ones, so that they could be used for HOTT too.

Next, I will continue working on some generals on foot and some magic users. I've also got 24 barbarians on the go, who will form two extra Heavy Infantry units. After that, I have more barbarian archers, some more troops to form medium foot and cavalry units and Pict archers to act as skirmishers.

I really like the Copplestone barbarians. They have loads of character and are excellent castings with bags of personality.

As a flying unit option, I am thinking about the Magister Militum Valkyries, which look pretty nice too, but this is something for the future.

The Late Romans are finished ...........

............. well, the first tranche of my Gripping Beast Romans are finished. There are plenty more left to work on, but these will be the core of my Late Roman Saga warband. They will also work for a post-Roman British warband too, and I am going to continue to add to the force over time to give me a Late Roman army for Sword & Spear, as I've already mentioned. 

Anyway, when I was thinking about a colour scheme for these, I knew that the last thing I wanted was a boring bunch of figures all wearing exactly the same colours. However, I did want to have something that tied them together so that they didn't end up looking like a random bunch of models. People often seem to have funny ideas about how the Roman Army looked, generally based upon what they have seen on the cinema screen or on TV. One of the big misunderstandings is the idea that there was a standardised "Roman uniform", because there wasn't, and that particularly applies to the period of these figures. Another misconception is that "the Romans always wore red tunics", because that is also an invention of the film industry.

So, on to the pictures, with some comments about the colours I've chosen. First, here is a group of eight archers, representing a bow-armed Pedites (Warrior) group for Saga. These are all wearing tunics, but I've chosen to paint those tunics in a variety of "natural" shades, representing unbleached or undyed wool or linen. To create a degree of unity, I've painted the trim on the tunics in a range of shades based upon Vallejo Blue Violet. You'll note also that they aren't all wearing the same colour breeches.

Next, here are a dozen armoured infantry. These were given reddish tunics, based upon Vallejo Burnt Red, but in a variety of blended tones. Their tunic trims are also based around tones derived from Blue Violet and Oxford Blue. The shields all feature LBMS Late Roman transfers. These figures are going to represent the Hearthguard (Equites in Arthur and Aetius) elements in my warband.

Here are some characters; a commander, who will be my band's Warlord, accompanied by a buccinator with the distinctive Roman horn, the cornu or buccina, a signifer (standard bearer) with a draco standard and a second command figure,  who will serve as a Hero if required.

Next,  a group of eight more Pedites. These are unarmoured, with the same idea behind their tunic colours as for the archers. Note that these troops' tunics have red trims, to link to their red shields.

Now, let's look at those Hearthguards again. I decided to make three distinct groups of four, one with swords, one with couched spears and the third with their spears held overarm. I think that this was important, because the one issue with plastic figures is the basic similarity in the poses. I wanted to create as much variation as possible, which is why they aren't all wearing the same helmets. I also wanted to give these chaps a variety of shield designs, so that when they are being used as post-Roman "Arthurians" they look more like individuals rather than just recruits to a standing army.

Of course, I could also use these troops for Dux Britanniarum, which is something that I am still keeping in mind for later.

So, that is the core of the warband finished. My final piece of the jigsaw is a group of 12 Tirones, or Levies armed with javelins. More on them in a later post. I also want to make up a dozen Levies with slings for when I am using these as post-Roman British.

Then, of course, there must be some mounted troops, and I have lots of ideas about how they are going to look. I just need to narrow that down a bit.