Roman Republican Revival

 So While I've been painting a long for a time now, I've been putting my first project aside. That was, the Roman Republicans that I used to paint. Now, I never lost interest but had been working on the for so long and with their eventual destruction at the hand of a child, I've now decided to make a come back. 

I'll finish some more medievals before jumping back into it, but the idea here is to use the Peter Denis style of painting to do them up. that is, focus more on his paper soldier style but apply it to my minis.

The plans to run republican romans are as follows:

Use whites and reds and typical roman colors, but change the tunics up for variation. I will use red and wash it as per the norm, but whites should avoid washing.

Skin should also try without washes to better blend. too dark seems a bit off to me at times. I'll also add in the eyes properly. 

The idea is to create a Hail Caesar force and the units will be broken up into the small forces like before...

Roman Legion:

2x Hastati 

2x principes

1 x triarii 

Skirmishing units (Leves or velites)

Allied Legion

2x Hastati

2x principes

1 x triarii

skirmishing units (Leves or velites)

Cavalry unit

(I need to see what I have, but basically I can do mixed punic riders of Italian types, or do Roman riders from aventine. the idea here is to also have 4 units of cav at least)

After that, I can add in punic mercenaries were they be. 

For the Roman legion, I'd stick to the basics. Give them the basic helmets with feather plumes for Hastati and principles, while the triarii would have fancier helmets, albeit not too fancy.

Meanwhile, the allied legions would be decked out in all sorts of various paraphernalia. 

I'd be mixing shields and colours, like you see on Peter Dennis' cut outs. I think that would look best!

Units are small as well so hopefully it would not take too long. 

So between posting the projects I was doing with late Hundred Years War and Kickstarter, I ended up playing a game of SPQR, or rather, a bit of it while it was on demonstration. They've really revised the rules, so the game is better than before. It's not as deep as the rank and file battles (literally and figuratively), but it was enough to make me further want to get back into my old ancients, so I dug them out again. 

A few years ago in the Lead Adventure Forums I started this blog and now wish to continue it. For what I have now is as follows for the Hail Caesar! set up:

2 units of Italian warriors 

1 small unit of allied Triarii 

1 small unit of light italian infantry. 

various commanders, though I think since I am starting a new, I am going to also paint new ones. 

This is enough for one division of Hail Caesar. I also have a single unit of Hastati and Velites as well as an elephant Numidian crew, but I think those will be extras for other games or I'll lend them to new wargamers that want to try Hail Caesar while I repaint everything.  

For this Triarii Unit, I think I'll keep them with the "Samnites" instead of putting them in with the Roman stylized legions. Hail Caesar! is pretty much a sandbox, so I can easily list the troops as a small unit of hoplites or still operate like Triarii do, without following the roman system. Let's just call them defectors, or allies.. whatever they are they're Socii instead of proper Roman citizens. 

I'll have to make more light infantry and skirmish units as well. They're very useful for screening and acting as javelin men or forming up and charging flanks where required. 

At the end, the new commander. He will have a Hoplon and be featured in the next Kickstarter project I am sharing.

I've got a bit better with eyes since I painted my last Italians and Started adding stubble to the mini's faces. In my opinion it brings out the models much better in the face, though at a distance nobody would notice these sorts of things. I've also started using more Vallejo colors, so that adds a whole ton more possibilities for more colors on these Italians. 

I'm also considering revarnishing most of these minis. I used Vallejo Matte Spray on them all and it really matted down everything - including the armor. Some places are even a bit cloudy. I stopped using spray primer since then, and found that Vallejo paint on matt is great for armor (since its not truly matt, and leaves enough shine) while AK Ultra Matte does wonders for skin and clothing, and things not supposed to shine, and keeps the finished product while removing any weird shine washes cause. I also want to not wash my whites anymore (something I learned while painting Afghanistan tribal warriors for an afghan-anglo project is that whites don't need to be washed) and try not to was the skin as well to see if blending works better. 

Finally, I want to attempt to better "Mediterranean" bases. I have a new style of basing I've been using for my French Knights in the HYW but I think I can get a bit more reds and different styles of stones in the Punic Wars to give them a more suitable base. If it doesn't work out, generic grasslands is still fine! 

In any case, I am excited to get back to this project. My plan is to first work on two more units of the Italian infantry, similar to the ones I shared in the photo. When that's done I'll either do a whack ton of Italian Cavalry that I have or start my Roman Legions over again. This time the plan is to do not one, but two full divisions of "Roman" Hastati, principles and triarii, as well as two full divisions of "Allied italian" Hastati, principles, etc... as well as some mounted Cavalry from Aventine. I have some fun plans for the new divisions and have inspiration from new sources that I think will make the units look a lot more interesting that my previous versions.