Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Italian Hoplites in 6mm

Continuing my recent painting wanderings throughout a number of my projects, I conducted a rummage through The Lead Pile.  My hand came to rest on a couple of packs of Baccus 6mm ancients.  No addition to the 6mm Punic Wars project has been made in nearly a year so the project was due for a few reinforcements.  Since memories of my last Commands & Colors Ancients (CCA) game have faded almost entirely, I ought to drag the game out onto the table for a quick refresher.  Perhaps these new recruits can participate?

Four stands of Italian hoplites of 24 figures each are ready for combat.  The hoplites are based in three ranks of eight files.  Under CCA, the hoplites will be treated as medium infantry.  Rather than having these four stands form one CCA element as in the block game, I use one stand per CCA element and track hits.  Thus, each stand can absorb four hits before elimination.






When I first pulled these 24 stands from the bag, I thought 96 figures all at once may be too big of a bite to chew.  I was pleasantly surprised that this mob of figures was completed in only a couple of painting sessions.  Seeing how relatively painless the hoplites were to complete, 96 Triarii are in the painting queue awaiting the chance to follow their brethren. 

16 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks but these pale in comparison to your beautiful Strathbogie regiment.

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  2. Man Jonathan that is some tasty 6mm magic!
    I don't know how you do it. I purchased some 10mm Naps recently and I couldn't dream of getting that much detail on them!
    Cheers
    Paul

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  3. Some very nice figures there. I have a Anglo Saxon 6mm army I am trying to ignore

    Ian

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  4. They look great. I like how you did the shields. The large amount of Bronze, off-set by intermittent color makes the unit appear more animated.

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    1. Thanks, Jake! A solution that left me without a need to paint designs on every shield.

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  5. They look the biz! Well painted Jonathan!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Ray! They may look the biz but I hope they can fight.

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    2. I agree, the choice of mixing designs with plain bronze on the shields is very effective en masse and speeds painting. The basing aklso makes the best of the "Mass Look" of 6mm as well. Bravo!

      (just don't ask me to paint the little buggers - I hate doing even 15's!)

      Peter

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    3. Peter, the 6s are really easier to paint than you might think. It has more to do with mass effect rather than individual detailing.
      Thanks for your comments.

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  6. I like them a lot, the mass effect is excellent and the shields just great!

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  7. Lovely work again, Jonathan. I second all the comments on the shields. The massed look is splendid.

    So now we know, your method of choosing what to paint is to rifle through the lead mountain? ;-)

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  8. True. When not on a mission, I sometimes dig through the pile until I find something interesting to paint. This time, it happened to be 6mm ancients.

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