Carthaginian Cavalry

Back in this post with further work on my epic scale Punic Wars project, with some cavalry this time!

Warlord Games lists these a Libi-Phoenician Medium Cavalry on the box, I’ll be using them as heavy cavalry in the game as the Midgard ruleset keeps things simple as light or heavy cavalry for mounted units and I’m generally following the units as provided in the example punic wars army lists provided by the author of Midgard.

The Warlord Games sprues come with 10 of these models, but I’ve saved one to bulk out a character base for when I get to those. I’ll be using it to mark a character as more important by having two models on the base rather than the one.

Painting-wise there’s not too much to report, I’m sticking with the formula that’s worked well for me at this scale: undercoat the models black, then base coat them all over with Vallejo Nato Brown. This tackles all the leather and other nondescript brown items on the models and lets me focus on the more colourful details. The horses are done with contrast paints (Gore-grunta Fur, Wyldwood Brown, Black Templar), and I picked out the cloth areas in alternate bone/blue/purple colours. The skin is AK Tan Earth, and the metals my favourites Scale 75 Black Metal and Necro Gold. The models get an all over wash of Army Painter Strong Tone, and then I pick out at few areas of interest (mostly the cloth areas) in their base colours as a highlight. The only real highlight on the models is the spear shafts which I pick out in Vallejo English Uniform to make them pop out.

I lost the transfer sheet for the set, so I went for hand painted symbols, sticking with the Sign of Tanit as it’s relatively straightforward to paint at this scale.

Speaking of scale, last post Jeff over at https://kuribospainting.com asked for some scale shots to show the size of these models relative to “usual” models. So here they are next to Warhammer Empire models which I hope offer a relatively familiar standard, Hope this helps! The Warlord models are an odd scale from what I understand, something like 13.5mm, so just under half the size of a 28mm model.

Next up in this Carthaginian Division box set is the characters and many, many Gauls!

Iberian Scutarii

The good thing about projects is that they sit around and wait for you to get back to them when you wander off different paths. The last post on my Punic Wars epic scale project was back in September last year (so close to 10 months ago!), and it’s now time to resume painting tiny models!

Off the painting table this time around we have some further reinforcements for the Carthaginian side: Iberian Scutarii. These Spanish mercenaries should add some nice muscle to the enemies of Rome!

The longest part of painting these models were the shields as you might expect. They really form the most eye catching section of the models so I spent a bit more time on them than on other parts of the models which are mostly a simple base coat followed by a wash. For the patterns on the shields I generally copied the patterns from the studio paint job on the box.

As all the models I’ve painted for this project so far I really like how they look as a block, I think the scale is a nice balance between paintability and nice look as a mass on the table. There’s a lot more to go where they came from, I’m barely halfway through the first box of models, with fours stands of Gallic infantry, one stand of heavy cavalry and the characters left in the Carthaginian Division set. Then I have the Roman Division and the Allied Division sets to tackle as well as Elephants!

Carthaginian Infantry

The Epic scale painting continues, this time with my first blocks of ranked infantry: Carthaginian infantry.

As with all my models for this project, these are Warlord’s Epic Scale Punic Wars range for their Hail Caesar game. As I mentioned in the last few posts however I’m not basing these on Warlord’s bases, which are 60x20mm but on my own 3D printed bases which are 80x40mm and are more suited to the Midgard game.

As a result of the larger bases I decided to stick down 3 strips per base rather than the two that fit on the Warlord bases. I quite like the look of the 3 strips together, and therefore am happy with the decision. I also quite like the look of the separation I get between blocks even when the bases are touching as the bases are wider than the strips. This will be accentuated for the Romans when I get to them as they are modelled to fit 3 ranks on the Warlord bases (so roughly the same footprint of 2 strips of the more normally ranked infantry).

Painting-wise there were a few things I had to do differently to the skirmishing troops. First of all, these are not single models, but a full strip of 10 overlapping models, which presents advantages (definitely faster than painting 10 individual models!), and adds some tricky-ness for basing as the basing material is added after the strips are glued down and I had to veeery carefully get basing paste between the strips (a roughly 5mm gap) after gluing them down.

The skin was painted exactly as per the Numidians from the past post, that is with AK Tan Earth. The shields are a mix of AK Ivory, Vallejo Game Heavy Goldbrown and Vallejo Game Heavy Violet. The bronze is Scale75 Necrogold, and the silver Scale75 Black Metal, both my go to colours for those. As for the other models I went for an all over wash of Army Painter Soft Tone followed by a highlight of the basecoat colour.

Overall I really like the ranked look you get from these models, especially with the overlapping shields. These were slightly more tedious to paint than the skirmishers, but again I painted 60 models in the time I painted 20 skirmishers so I suppose I can’t complain.

Here they are amongst the other bases I painted so far. I really like the distinction between skirmishers and ranked infantry you get at this scale. I’ve made a small dent in the Carthaginian Division set now, with roughly a third of the units painted (the rest is mostly a lot of Gauls and Iberians!).

In other news, I just got a notification that today marks five years since my first post which is quite something. I don’t think at the time I had any idea I’d go this long, so thanks a lot to all of you for reading the blog, it does keep me motivated to see comments and views on my posts! Here’s to 5+ more!

Really Tiny Space Marines

Back after what must have been the biggest break this blog has seen! I’ve been traveling for work and as such have had pretty much no time to paint in October between the trip itself and preparation for said trip. I’m back at home now, and started something I’ve been eyeing off for a while now: Legions Imperialis – the revamp of the old Epic 40,000 game system.

As I mentioned above, I’ve been thinking of getting started in Legions Imperialis since it launched – something about the scale of the battles really appeals to me (For the same reason, I’ve also been eyeing off Warlord’s epic scale offerings). What prompted actually diving in was a couple of happy occurrences: I was lucky enough to stumble on someone selling all of the books second hand for a steal, and my local game store had a sale a few weeks later during which I picked up the Battle Group box for the marines.

While I was travelling I re-read Legion, which might well be my favourite Horus Heresy novel, and (re-)enjoyed it so much that I decided these marines should be painted as Alpha Legion.

When I popped open the box I finally realised how tiny these models actually are. Looking at pictures online isn’t quite the same as holding the models in your own hands and as you can see from the comparison shot with the 28mm marine above, this is quite a departure from what I’m used to painting!

I often see Horus Heresy era Alpha Legion painted in a metallic blue/green colour. I decided to stray closer to blue here, with the markings in a minty green. The painting (by necessity!) is really simple. I started with a black undercoat and airbrushed some Ammo Mig Warhead Metallic Blue all over the models. The exhaust covers on the rhino and the boltguns on the marines were then picked out in Vallejo Model Color Black, and the bare metal details were painted in Scale 75 Black Metal. The markings were painted in Army Painter Kraken Skin. The models then got an all over wash of Ammo Mig Deep Brown Panel Line Wash, which was wiped off the raised areas to keep things clean.

The models come with these nice textured bases that I wanted to use rather than cover up, so I decided to go for an overgrown ruins look. I basecoated the surface with Vallejo Game Color Heavy Bluegrey, followed by the same panel liner as the models. I then applied a wash of heavily diluted AK Muddy Ground texture paint (a tip I picked up from the Cult of Paint youtube channel) all over the base. This adds a bit of texture and a nice gradient brown to the base while not hiding the texture modelled into the base. I then glued on a few bits of foam turf from Woodland Scenics, and applied some light washes of AK Slimy Grime Dark and Slimy Grime Light to add some green colour in patches. I’m satisfied with the outcome, it looks in scale to me, keen to hear what others think.

Overall these were fun and quick to paint, I think the metallic paint does a lot of work here, and makes the models pop despite their size. Unlike pretty much all my other models I did not varnish these as I didn’t want to lose the shine contrast between the marines and the base. I have a whole lot more of these to paint now, but I’m happy with the scheme so can safely proceed from here!