Sumerian Archers

/

I’m making a real push to finish my Sumerians now. These are from the excellent Museum Miniatures 15mm range, painted with Citadel Contrast paints.

Today’s offering is a non-core unit: a regiment of either Bodyguard or City archers:

Lovely figures, as you can hopefully see, and really easy to paint. Here’s a view from the back:

On to the Battle Carts next!

More Museum Miniatures Sumerians

/

Here’s the latest batch of the 15mm Museum Miniatures Sumerians that I have finished. The more I paint this range, the more I appreciate the beauty of the figures.

48 City Spearmen

I’m painting them using the new Citadel paints: using just one coat over an undercoat to get all the highlights you can see. I reckon that now I’m more familiar with the figures, I could add a few extra highlights to make them even better (especially on the flesh), but as I’m painting about 400 of the little blighters, I think I’ll stick with what I’m doing!

City Axemen

The next big challenge is how to paint the equids/onagers i.e. the proto-horses they used to pull their battle carts. Might do a bit of easy-to-paint light infantry first whilst I think about it…

Levy Slingers

Finally Got Some Painting Done

/

So I finally managed to get some painting done: a third Sumerian spear block.

These are more of Museum Miniatures excellent CAD designed 15mm figures: some of the best Ancients I’ve seen and very easy to paint up.

As with the other two blocks, these were painted using the new Citadel Contrast Paints: one coat only for every colour except the bronze.

Three down, three to go!

Second Sumerian Spear Block

/

Here’s the second of the six spear blocks that I need to field a To The Strongest Sumerian army in the style of my ancients collection.

Once again these are the almost unbelievably detailed 15mm Museum Miniatures figures painted (all except the bronze) with the new GW Contrast paints. I did the whole lot in one weekend, averaging about 45 minutes for 12 figures.

Only another four blocks to go!

First 15mm Sumerian Spear Block Finished

/

I’ve already posted pics of half of the spear block, here’s the block now I’ve added the other half:

I am really happy with these. The speed that you can achieve a detailed paint job with Citadel contrast paints is extraordinary. I know I sound a bit like a fan boy, but I painted one row of these (i.e. 12 figures) from start to finish in about forty minutes: a miracle, and such a relief when you have 288 to paint in all.

I’m not 100% sold on having the command figures in the middle of the second row, but it certainly makes for a striking unit. Only another five spear blocks to go!

Incidentally, CP Models are now doing a 28mm version of the above. They are using the same 3D printing files, so the figures are identical…just bigger! They look amazing:

First of the Sumerians

/

When I first saw the new Museum Miniatures Sumerians, I knew I just had to get some. Designed by CAD, they looked absolutely amazing.

The thing with Sumerians, however, is that you need to have an awful lot of them: to play To The Strongest (my current system of choice for Ancients) you need five or six spear blocks, with each spear block containing (the way I base) 48 figures. That’s 288 infantry: a significant investment in both money, and perhaps more significantly, time.

So a test unit was called for: 48 figures were ordered i.e. one spear block’s worth.

This was to be a double test: one for the figures themselves, and the second for the new Citadel Contrast paints I keep banging on about. I couldn’t face painting 288 figures my normal way (basecoat, wash, highlight i.e. paint each figure three times) but maybe I could if I only had to paint each figure once.

Sold!

The figures are as good as promised, and the paint as well. To emphasise again, the flesh, kilts, spear shafts, cloaks and shields are painted with one coat of a Contrast paint each. Only the bronze is double-painted, but that’s using non-Contrast paints.

Right, once more into the breach: only 264 spearmen to go!