First of the Marian Romans
/More lockdown painting, and the first of the 15mm Marian Romans for To The Strongest roll off the production line.
I decided to go for the Baueda range, available in the UK from Magister Militum. It’s a comprehensive range from a manufacturer that I haven’t used before, so a nice change from Battlefront, Museum etc.
The reason I went for the Marian Romans as opposed to the Early Imperial army that I’ve always promised myself, was the fact that all I have to paint up is the core legionary units: the rest of the army I can field from my existing Gallic/Celtic force. Also means that I have some elements of an Early Imperial army already painted!
First up was the senior general command stand: the Legate, his standard bearer and a bodyguard type. I’m very happy how these came out, although it did take a lot of re-touching to get them there!
Next up was the first unit of legionaries, representing (in my head at any rate) two of the ten cohorts required for a full legion i.e. a full legion will work out as five TTS units.
I’m also pretty happy with the way these turned out, although using a mat varnish has made all the metalwork very dull. The mail coat and pila are GW Leadbelcher, the helmets and shield bosses are Tamiya Bronze. They do certainly look “hardened” as a result: none of this namby-pampy polished metal you see in all the illustrations!
Moving on to the shields, these I completed using shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios. The transfers are custom designed to fit the Baueda figures and, as a result look very good indeed. Be warned, however, that the transfers have to be hand cut out to the shape of each shield half: the central boss preventing one transfer per shield. That means that each unit requires the application of 46 hand-cut-out transfers: time-consuming to say the least!
As the first unit completed, this was very much an experimental painting process. I was going to make these two bases cohorts one and two, but judging by the improvements I’ve made at the start of the next batch, they will probably become cohorts nine and ten! I must just remember to mark up which pair of bases belong together as I go along…
