28mm Marian Roman Legionaries

My 2000 point WAB Marian Roman army continues to take shape. Over the past couple of weeks I've finished the last of the Roman infantry and now have a full six units of legionaries. Each unit has a centurion, a signifer, a cornicen, and 17 legionaries. I also painted an extra signifer as the army standard bearer, so there are 121 figures in these shots. I did paint up generals for the army (including Old Glory's Julius Caesar!), but I'm waiting on a shipment of flock from England before I can finish them.

All six units (click on pictures for larger images)

All six units

Close up of army standard bearer and one unit

All the figures all Old Glory, and all the shields are hand painted. Now it's time to start working on the cavalry and skirmishers. I'm going to field 20 Old Glory Numidian cavalry, 10 1st Corps German heavy cavalry, and 16 Crusader penal legionaries as skirmishers.

Because Roman armies fought in so many different theaters between Marius and Augustus, I'll probably never finish adding auxilia, but at least the core heavy infantry are finished.

Silflor Prairie Tufts

I've always tried to do something special with my bases, since in my experience a good base is just as important as a good paint job. When I started my 15mm armies, I just painted the base solid green and left it at that, but I soon graduated to Woodland Scenics foam rubber flocking. After a few hundred bases, I began mixing in rocks and dirt, getting what you see here:
This is still my standard flocking method for 15mm figures. It looks good without overpowering the little men. Sometimes I'll do something more ornate, as I did with my Flames of War Germans.
Here we have Woodland Scenics fine brown ballast with bits of earth blend flock and medium grey ballast. I use talus as bigger rocks. And of course, the tall grass from Woodland Scenics too.

The tall grass has always frustrated me. I see all these beautiful grass tufts on other peoples' bases, and I've never been able to recreate that look.

So last Fall my buddy Dale, who introduced me to miniature wargaming (and also maintains a blog), took me aside and whispered a few words of advice. "Silflor," he said. "You've got to try Silflor. They make grass that will look just killer on your bases."

It took me nearly a year, but I finally took Dale's advice and ordered some Silflor grass tufts. I got them from Scenic Express, a model railroad scenics retailer. Their prices were reasonable, and only two days after I placed my order, I had the Silflor tufts in my hand.
The tufts come in four colors with decreasing brightness: spring, summer, late summer, and autumn. I settled on late summer and autumn, the two most subdued tones. These packs cost $22 apiece, so they're not cheap.

But you do get a lot of tufts for your money. They are stuck to a flexible plastic tube. I placed the tube over my hand and used tweezers to remove the tufts. They're pretty hard to get off the packaging! I dipped them in a little tacky glue and pressed firmly to attach them to my bases.
And here is what they look like. The Carthaginian spearmen on the left got the autumn tufts. The Celts got the late summer tufts. I use Noch brown ballast for most of my ancients. The grass tufts and talus make for pretty good looking bases.
This unit of Gallic gestati received the full treatment with the late summer tufts. I'm sold on the Silflor, and I'll definitely buy some more when this batch runs out.

August Painting Totals

It was a good month, as I whipped through a few different 28mm projects and added to my 15mm French Napoleonics. This was my August painting:

15mm Napoleonic French, 96 line infantrymen
28mm Carthaginians, 30 spearmen
28mm Gauls, 18 naked warriors
28mm Marian Romans, 72 legionaries

I really need to come up with some sort of scale equivalency calculator. Last month I was very disappointed to only finish 216 figures. This month I feel like 216 figures was a huge accomplishment. Mostly, I think, that's because all my figures this month required a huge amount of detail work. When I painted the 72 Marian legionaries, for example, I also painted 81 shields. Each one of those shields took as long to paint as one 15mm figure. Each Roman without his shield took about as long as three 15mm figures. Each Carthaginian, with personal designs on armor and shield, took about as long as five 15mm figures.

Maybe I should try something like professional painting services use, only instead of shifting prices, I'll use "Scott Painting Points" (SPPs). I'll take the basic 15mm figure as my starting point, something like ACW infantry with a block paint job, and adjust from there.

1 basic 15mm figure = 1 SPP
1 advanced 15mm figure = 1.5SPPs
1 basic 10mm figure = 0.5 SPPs
1 basic 28mm figure = 3SPPs
1 advanced 28mm figure = 4SPPs
1 basic 28mm shield = 0.5 SPPs
1 advanced 28mm shield = 1 SPP

So last month I finished 100 10mm ACW Confederates for 50 SPPs, 92 28mm ACW Federals (pretty much the definition of a "basic" figure) for 276 SPPs, and 24 15mm French Napoleonics (definitely "advanced" 15mm) for 36 SPPs. That gave me a total of 362 SPPs.

Now for this month. I count the Gauls and Romans as basic 28s and the Carthaginians as advanced. That gets me 390 SPPs for the men. The Gallic shields were pretty basic, but the Roman and Carthaginian shield were advanced. That's another 120 SPPs. The French Napoleonics count as advanced 15mm, so they net me another 144 SPPs.

All told, I painted 654 SPPs worth of figures this month, compared to 362 SPPs last month. Those numbers reflect my production much more accurately than mere figure count.

Flames of War Army for Sale!

UPDATED: SOLD! (But feel free to enjoy the pictures.)

I'm selling my Flames of War mid-war German grenadier company with support. This is the army that Battlefront sold as a box set for their Stalingrad supplement. I'm also including a pack of Battlefront German snipers which I painted for this army. The unpainted figures sold for $162.

The company includes:
1 Command Group with CiC, 2iC, and spotter
2 rifle platoons with 2 platoon leaders, 2 50mm mortar teams, and 16 rifle sections
1 heavy machinegun platoon with 1 platoon leader and 4 MG-34 teams
1 medium mortar platoon with 1 platoon leader, 1 spotter, and 4 81mm mortar teams
1 infantry gun section with 1 section leader and 75mm infantry gun teams
1 antitank gun section with 1 section leader, 2 50mm antitank gun teams, and three transport vehicles
1 sniper platoon with 3 sniper teams and "Major Konig"
1 assault gun section with 2 StuG IIIFs and 2 bailed out markers
1 assault gun section with 2 SiG 133s and 2 bailed out markers

This army includes 7 painted vehicles, 4 painted guns, 4 painted heavy machineguns, 4 painted medium mortars, and 167 painted figures. All figures are mounted on well flocked FOW bases.

The storage container, buildings, and terrain mat are pictured for reference only and are NOT for sale.

Click on any of the pictures below to get larger images. I tried to get good pictures that showed the quality of the paint jobs. If you would like to see anything in more detail, please email me and I'll snap some more pictures.

The whole army packed for storage

German armor: 2 StuG III Fs and 2 SiG 133s

Bail-out markers mounted on pennies

Close-up of command SiG 133

Another close-up of command SiG 133

SiG 133

Top view of both SiG 133s showing the extra stowage

Front view of both SiG 133s

Another close-up of the SiG 133s

Detail of SiG 133

StuG IIIF

StuG IIIF command

Top view of both StuG IIIFs showing stowage

Front view of both StuG IIIFs

Detail of StuG IIIF

Detail of command StuG IIIF

Soft transport for the AT gun section

Close-up of commander's car

Close-up of gun towing cars

Another close-up

Attached guns include a 75mm infantry gun section and a 50mm AT gun section, each with command stands

75mm infantry guns

50mm AT guns

Close-up of 75mm gun command team with scratch-built radio

Company command includes 1 CiC, 1 2iC, and one spotter for the 75mm guns

Company commander

Second in command

Mortar platoon includes four mortar teams, a spotting team, and a command stand (not pictured)

Mortar team

Spotter with scratch built radio

Rear view of mortar platoon

Machine gun platoon includes four MG34 teams and a command stand

Close-up of command and MG team

Close-up of MG-34 team

Both rifle platoons

Each platoon has one command stand, 8 rifle section stands, and one 50mm mortar team

Second platoon

Close-up of riflemen

Close-up of 50mm mortars

A rifle squad

Rear view of rifle squad

Snipers!

Close-up of snipers

German sniper--"Major Konig"

German sniper--"Major Konig"

I'll be selling these rule books soon, but I can add them on to this army for an additional $60. I'm selling the original rule book, the updated rule book, the supplement for Stalingrad, and the supplement for German armor.