Old Glory Republican Roman Cavalry

Old Glory makes two sets of Roman cavalry for the Punic Wars, one armored and one unarmored. The armored figures are wearing a muscle cuirass, which I find unlikely dress for my Second Punic War army. I'll be using Crusader figures for my armored Romans. The unarmored figures are likely to represent the allied cavalry in my army.

The Old Glory figures are dressed in a simple tunic with a sword belt. They are wearing a Greek-influenced helmet, so they have a distinctly southern-Italian feel. These cavalrymen are definitely at the charge, and their poses look very natural--not the over activity of which Old Glory is sometimes accused. The shields are particularly nice, with rivets along the shield crest.

I painted these figures using Delta Ceramcoats with Testors enamels for the metals. I knew that the figures in their plain tunics would be a bit bland, so I really focused on making their shields and helmets to pop. The shields got a drybrush in Testors silver. I painted the shield faces midnight blue, painted the designs with opaque yellow, then shaded the base color with twilight blue and blue stoneware. The skin started with toffee brown, which I highlighted with medium flesh. Tunics received a basecoat of cinnamon with shading of tompte red and dusty rose. I painted the helmets with brown iron oxide, then carefully painted the raised areas with Testors gold.

The three poses in the Old Glory pack.
Click on any picture to enlarge it.

Pose 1
This pose shows my flesh colors pretty well. Look at that kneecap to see how they complement each other.

Pose 2
I need to hit this guy with some more Dullcote. His lacquer is showing. This is my favorite of the three poses.

Pose 3
You can really see the tunic highlights on this guy.

The finished unit.
You can really see the shields well here. By using the rivets and shield boss as reference points, I was able to paint pretty uniform designs.

The figures look great once they're painted. The only real negative about this pack is that it doesn't contain any command figures. I'll have to paint a pack of Crusader Roman command for this unit.