On The Painting Desk: Armor Up! More Vandals!

 

Faithful readers, I continue my saga of batch-painting 60 models for my Late Roman Vandal army.  That is 40 infantry, and 10 Cavalry models being painted all.....at....once......! The progress has been steady as I crank along on this project.  Of course, over summer painting time diminished, but it is time to get back on that horse!  

We left off with all the Vandal having pants!  Therefore, today we would mostly be focused on armoring up!  However, before we got that far I needed to get the Cavalry caught up!  I could not paint their pants until their horses armored up first!  Therefore, they were a bit behind everyone else! 

Honey, have you seen my pants? 

I started by painting up the barding on the horses.  I used Hoplite Gold, Horde Bronze, Polished Silver, Broadsword Silver, and Enchanted Steel.  Pretty much each color was used on two horses.  I kind of wanted to see what the difference was in these colors for later usage too.  I also used alternating colors on their head gear versus their main bodies to give them some variety.  I left off the straps, bridle and other parts for now.  I would paint those when I did belts and such for everyone else.

Once the barding was done, the riders needed their pants!  They were the only guys without any!  I used the same basic approach of Cruasder Skin, Pallid Bone, and Holy White for leggings.  Then, the basic colors of Absolution Green, Orc Skin, Fire Giant Orange, Slaughter Red, and Highland Blue for the pants.  Then I alternated the colors up and painted their tunics too.  

The cavalry had now caught up to the infantry!  Therefore, it was time to armor up!  I looked at the horses and decided to drop Enchanted Steel and Horde Bronze from my list of armor colors for the troopers.  I stuck with Polished Silver, Broadsword Silver, Hoplite Gold.  I also added in some Runic Grey and Graveyard Grey elements as well.  

The bulk of the cavalry and heavy infantry used chain mail and helmet so these were the focus of this session.  I had used extra Gothic Elite rider heads on one of the units to represent the Elites.  These guys and the cavalry had somewhat more detailed helmets with plumes, so I gave them some extra work too.  This included using some different colors for the plumes on their helmets.  

At this point, it took some discipline to keep batch painting.  I was tempted to just split off and finish the archers and militia types.  However, I pressed onward in the batch!  I went on and painted up the weapons next.  It is always amazing how finishing the weapons can really make models look much more finished!  The bows were painted in Sand Golem, the hafts of weapons are Harden Leather or Sand Golem.  Blades were Broadsword Silver, Runic Grey, Polished Silver, with the occasional bit of Graveyard Grey.  

Hilts and Guards for the Elites were in Hoplite Bronze while the Regulars were in Polished Silver.    The keen eyed will also not that the Elite Foot also was only equipped with swords, while the regulars had some axes mixed in.  The Elites also had a standard, cloaked champion, and musician while the Regulars had a spear man for standard and a commander model.  Combined with the Goth heads, this was intended to make the Elites visually distinct on the battlefield especially from the Regulars. 

For the last step today, I went and painted all the hair for the models.  I made at least three guys in each unit have Blonde hair and one with Fire Giant Orange hair.  These are Vandal Barbarians after all!  Then I used Graveyard Grey, Dark Wood, and Sand Golem for the rest.  A few I left as simply base coated and trusted the wash would make it look like an older man's beard and hair.  

Cavalry

The last thing I had to do was paint the reins and some armor detail on the Cavalry red.  With that, the base coats for all the Vandals were done!  I split them up into groups and took pictures of each unit with their basecoats on.

Archers

  

Militia Unit

Regulars

Elites

With that, I called it a day.  All that is left now if finishing steps.  That includes a wash, basing, and shields.  Finishing may have some issues as I maybe out of Light Tone wash, almost out of moss for bases, and I did not bring enough shields for the whole army.  The rest are still at my home base!  Woops!  That will make it hard to finish these guys off!  

Until next time! 

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On The Painting Desk: Tagging some Vandals!

 

Last time On the Painting Desk..... faithful readers, you will recall that I started batch-painting an army for my latest ruleset, Barbarians at the Gates.  You will recall that this was a force of about 40 infantry and 10 cavalry (or about 60 models).  I have a larger force but this is the core for the example army from the book.  The models are from Gripping Beast that I ordered from the Michigan Toy Soldier company.  I am trying to batch paint them all together using Armypainter Speedpaints, which is something I have not done with Historicals before.  I am not sure how they will turn out compared to my other Historical minis.  

You will also recall, that I had managed to assemble them all, undercoat them, and get started on some of the basic painting over the course of a couple weekends.  Therefore, they still have a lot to go as I finish their flesh, boots, hooves, and horseflesh before calling it a weekend.  

That brings us to today!  Looking at where I started.... yikes.... there is a lot to paint still!  Let's dive in!

I decided to spend sometime working on the infantry first.  I wanted everyone to get some pants on!  That meant painting up their leggings and then their pants as needed.  For the leggings, I decided to use three colors: Crusader Skin, Hardened Leather, and Holy White.  The armored dudes all had leggings, but the unarmored only a smattering had them.  I typically gave every third mini the same color leggings.  

From there, I decided to use the primary colors on the pants.  Those were Highland Blue, Absolution Green, Orc Skin, Slaughter Red, and Fire-Giant Orange.  Two people in each unit got the same color pants.  This gave them a nice mix of colors.  Finally, everyone had some pants on! 

 This was good progress, but now I had to get everyone's tunics painted up.  For the unarmored blokes, this would be the bulk of their color scheme.  For the armored dudes, it would be their sleeves and trim under their chain shirts.  I used the same colors as I did the legs, but I also added in some other colors for the unarmored types such as Dark Wood, Malignant Green, Pallid Bone, and Holy White for more variety and some less colorful looks.  I made sure to mix it up so no one had the same color pants as their tunics.  That would be a fashion faux pas!  

I did not paint the pants on the horseman yet.  They would need to get their Horse armor sorted before I moved onto the riders.  That made them out of step with the rest of the minis getting their batch painting done.  Instead, I went back and completed the ears, as I missed them last time!  I also got the horse tails sorted out as well.  This was mostly the same colors I used on the horses themselves with some Grim Black added to the mix.  I again made sure not to double up on skin and tail colors. 

The armor on the horses and the infantry would need to be the next big painting lift.  That would be the bulk of the armored infantry and cavalry models.  However, I decided to wait on that lift until the next day.  Armor up, weapons next.  Then, I would do belts, buckles and details the following day.  Then, round it all off with washes and basing.  Shields would be another day as well.  That left me with about 4 more days of painting to do.

However, the unarmored guys were getting closed to being done than they Cavalry and Armored brothers.  Despite the bulk of them being done, they would still take the same amount of time as the rest.  Afterall, I was batch painting them.  The temptation to split them and paint them as smaller units to completion was strong now.  However, that would defeat the purpose of batch-painting!  

The end was insight for this project, but for now this was a good days work.  Time to take a break.  In theory, I think I could paint the whole army in a 7-day painting challenge if I had the week off?  That is from box to finished models.  I think that would be pushing it though. 

I think the Gripping Beast plastics are working really well for batch painting.  They do not have the same level of detail as the Victrix models, but as a mass they look really good together and they batch paint up quickly and easily.  Very satisfying kit so far.  I am looking forward to seeing them all completed.  

Until next time! 

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On The Painting Desk: Sacking Rome with the Vandals!

 

Faithful readers, you know that I recently closed a deal to write a new book for the Osprey Wargaming Series, Barbarians at the Gates.  As part of that process I also need 30 photographs of miniatures.  I also like to have two armies for playtesting and Demo Games.  That means, I need to paint up some models!  

These may or may not feature in the book later.  I am hoping to find some manufacturers to support me with the photos.  However, I still need some painted armies.  After thinking about it, I decided to focus on the Vandals as my Barbarian force.  Why the Vandals?  First, I have been fascinated by them as they were not 100% successful historically.  They faced a lot of set-backs and some victories in their history.  Sure they had some pretty big highs like sacking Rome and conquering North Africa but some big lows too.  I mean, they basically got expelled from Europe by other barbarian groups after they had been driven from their traditional homelands by Huns.  They also lost in Spain to the Romans.  Like I said, not always the best track record.  Sounds like my gaming history in a nutshell! 

The first step was to get a feel for what I wanted in the army.  Thankfully, I had an example Line-of-Battle for the Vandals in the draft rules.  I decided to use this as the core of my Vandal army.  This would be....

• 1 Unit of Heavy Cavalry
• 1 Unit of Elite warriors
• 1 Unit of Warriors
• 1 Unit of Militia
• 1 Unit of Archers

Of course, that would be the core of my force, but I was also going to make other units to be able to swap in and out.  That would include more of each unit type (except Cavalry) and some skirmisher units with Javelins.  

With the force selected, it was time to think about the models. I took a look at several lines and what was available to me from US distributors.  Ultimately, I decided to go with Gripping Beast plastics.  

The Goth Elites would be the main Heavy Cavalry unit, the Saxon Thegns would be the Elites and warriors, Dark Age Warriors would be the militia and skirmishers, and archers are self-explanatory.  I spent a weekend and built and spray undercoated the core of the army.  With that done, I loaded it up into my WIP box and ready for the road.  

I also built and undercoated all the archers, all the Javelin armed skirmishers, and spear-armed Militia.  However, I did not need these for the core army so left them to paint up later.  I still had enough miniatures for 2 spear-armed units of warriors that I did not get time to build.      

So, here is the core of the Vandal army.

Of course, I am going to be Batch Painting as much of this as I can all at once.  I will probably do all the infantry together.  I will be painting the cavalry on their own. Not to brag, but I tend to think I am a pretty good batch painter, but you will get to judge for yourself. 

On the next weekend, I made sure to drybrush all the minis with cheap acrylic white.  Those who know my process know that I skipped the Dark Grey wash.  This is a test to simplify my approach.  Using Speedpaints on Historical models is also a test.  I am not sure how these will turn out and how well they will fit in with my other Historicals.  

From there, I started the batch painting.  The first thing I did was to use Barbarian Flesh and paint up all the skin tones for the Vandals.  Painting has begun in earnest now.  This is real!   

After that, I picked out a few colors for footwear.  Graveyard Grey, Hardened Leather, and Dark Brown all got the nod.   All the boots got painted.  From there, is was time to make sure the horses got their feet colored too!  I made their hooves Graveyard Grey.  Then I used a variety of colors for their skin such as Hardened Leather, Dark Brown, Sand Golem, and Runic Grey.  The horses are mostly armored so only their legs, noses, tails, and ears really show.

Hard to believe, but with that my daylight for the second weekend day working on these guys was waning.  I had to pack it in for the day and do some sight-seeing!  Not great progress, but I am batch-painting 60 models, if you count the horses and riders separately.  Progress will be iterative!  

Here are some sight-seeing photos since I don't have that many miniature photos in this one.  This is Badlands National Park below.... 

Mount Rushmore.  I have been here a few times, and I always make sure I get some of the famous Thomas Jefferson ice cream when I stop by.  This was particularly fun as we had pre-planned to meet some folks here and hang out!   
   

The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota.  An active dig-site of Mammoth bones.  The area has a lot of fossils from the end of the Ice Age.  

You can see that I have had a hard time finding time to paint miniatures as I spent quality time checking out the Black Hills area of South Dakota.  There were plenty of others stops and discoveries as well.  However, not much on the gaming side of things or that would be of interest to wargamers at the moment.  

Keep in mind, there is a rather large delay between when these post on the blog and when I actually did it.  Therefore, by the time you read this I will be long gone from the area.  However, I expect I will be heading back through a few more times on my travels so let me know you favorite Black Hills related sights, and what game stores I should visit in the area!  Is there any local cons I should try to time my visit to attend?     

Until next time!  

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