Monday, July 12, 2010

And now for something completely different..


Gratuitous Monty Python references aside, I'm back!

Well, it's been a mighty long time since I've posted anything on here but better late than never, right? Well, full time study has turned out be a lot more time intensive than I had anticipated, and most of my time has been devoted to study rather than painting. Still, both Laura and I have managed to pass the first semester with flying colours and I'm now on my mid year break.
I never really did manage to get back on the proverbial painting horse with the Napoleonic 1809 project, and consequently that project has been shelved for the time being. I do apologise to those who were looking forward to whatever it was i was working on, but some day I'll get them finished. I have a feeling it was my efforts to perfect Non Metallic Metal that finally broke my morale :(

My modern history course was on medieval Western Europe, starting with the fall of Rome and going through to 1500. Apparently this is now modern history! Still, i'm definitely not one to complain as this era of 'Late Antiquity' is a personal favourite of mine. I've had a bunch of figures sitting around for a WAB Late Roman force which i purchased a few years ago, only to loose interest without painting a single figure. I swear i must have miniatures related ADD.
Anyway, with my interest piqued in this period i decided to dig these out and paint up an entire force for the much lauded Dadi & Piombo rule set Impetus. Going by fantastic reviews from the Wargames Journal and Neil from meeples and miniatures, these look to be great fun and a fast play set. I also have to admit that my decision to go for Impetus was in a large part influenced by the fantastic little dioramic bases popping up from time to time on TMP and the SD Forum.

I'm hoping to avoid disappointment by initially setting my sights low. I've only got a Patrician Roman force for Basic Impetus planned. This force breaks as follows:

2 x Heavy Cavalry (Roman Cataphracts and Gothic Foederati)
1 x Light Cavalry (Hunnic Mercenaries)
3 x Heavy Foot (Roman Auxilia Palatina and Frankish Foederati)
1 x Light Foot (Roman Pseudocomitatensis)
2 x Roman Foot Archers

Now, on to the good news. I'm actually some way through this force! I decided to do up a bunch of archers first, followed by a mostly decorative generals base. Inspiration came from a bunch of ospreys, the warrior series on horse and foot soldiers and the superb series on roman military clothing. I also heavily delved into an online copy of the Notita Dignitatum and WRG's Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome.
Without further ado, here are these first two bases. Note the lack of NMM. :) The shields are hand painted, the archers are all from Black Tree Design (BTD) and the General's base is a mix of Foundry, Gripping Beast and BTD. I think they work well together.

I've actually completed two more bases and am almost done with the third, but i'll break it up over a few posts. For now, please enjoy and feel free to leave comments.

On another note, after a fair bit of consideration I am interested in taking on commission work, both as I've now got a fair bit of time to paint and to supplement my pitiful student income :) So anyone interested please contact me at fiene.ben@gmail.com


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