12 February 2017

Balbus the disfigured - Early Republican Roman command stand

Finally I've made it! My first scheduled friday-submission!
Well, live is rather busy around here with me being away on in-company training for much of the time as well as taking over new responsibilities in my job. Normally I would have planned to have more time for painting this challenge, but alas it was not to be. I'm rather sure most of you know such real live issues only to well so I stop blathering and will come straight to business.


I've always been fascinated by anything Roman. As a kid I loved to dress up as Roman centurion for carnival and birthday parties. Most of my friends preferred the more traditional cowboy or Native-American costumes though. This love continues to the present day and albeit not dressing up as Roman anymore I still read and watch anything vaguely related. So it's certainly of little surprise that I jump at any chance to paint up a few nice miniatures for this period.

 The miniatures for this little command stand come from the excellent Aventine range of Early Republican Romans as well as Etruscans. The casualty though is from Armorum & Aquila miniatures and while a little rough in detail, still a very nice and atmospheric sculpt. The decals used are from the more than commendable Little Big Men Studios. What's a little odd about the commanders sculpt though is he's sporting six fingers on his left hand. It took me a while to figure out why I felt there was something odd with this miniature.

 I had these cuties sitting in my lead pile for what felt like ages. Initially I had planned to paint them up for use with Impetus, but I prefer using 15's for games with largish formations. To this end I'll probably use these with SAGA or any other skirmish game. I think I'll call the commander Balbus (latin for Stammering One).No idea when I'll come around to paint up some retinue for him though.

I want them to represent Romans from the early Republic, so round about the time when they freed themselves from Etruscan rule and started to subjugate their immediate neighbours. While in Greece at that time large battles were fought with the well known Phalanxes fighting it out, battles in Italy still were fought at a somewhat smaller scale. Often these battles were nothing more than small skirmishes or kettle raids.

10 comments:

  1. What a fantastic command base!
    Masterclass sir!

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  2. I had the good fortune to see this fantastic gem up close and it's simply superb! I can only say more please!

    Christopher

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  3. Surprisingly your clash of colour works. Great job!
    By the way Moiterei, I hope you don't mind me asking what settings did you set on your blog to make your latest blog post show the full article while the older posts are shortened with a 'read more' link? Is there a specific template I must choose from blogger? I hope you can help. :)

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    1. Hey FEM, thank you for the kind words.
      To shorten your posts you can use the 'Add Jump Break' button when writing your post. It looks like a piece of paper torn in two.

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    2. Thanks Moiterei. Does that mean when you do a new post you then add the jump break into your previous post?

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