Romano-British Cavalry Ride Out To Their Doom!

It's been two months since my last completed unit, but I'm back with some major progress. Eight Romano-British cavalry from Footsore to bolster my forces.

They'll serve as Hearthguard for SAGA, Noble/Ordinary cavalry for Dux Bellorum and mounted Men of the North for Dux Britanniarum. The latter role inspired me to draw on the early medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin by Aneirin for inspiration for the colour scheme of the riders and their horses.

These are the first cavalry I've painted since some Gary Morley Silver Helms way back in 1998 - 21 years! :D

Back to history. There is a wealth of guidance for painters in the text of Y Gododdin which I've compiled below in case anyone is interested.

Y Gododdin

Costume Notes
Numbers in parentheses refer to stanza followed by line.

Broad lightweight shield (1:5)
Gold-bordered garments (1:8 )
Betorqued (many)
Mail-coat (3:7)
Lime-white shields (11:6)
Blaen took delight in gold and purple (16:6)
Gold-fretted shield (29:3)
Swift steeds and dark-blue war-gear and shields (33:2)
One who wore purple (67:4)
Ice-bright shields (71:13)

Horses

Roan (26:8 )
A trim long-legged grey (50:4)
Darker (brown) his saddle (50:6)
Grey steeds (58:11)
Red steeds (61:7)
White horses (74:5)
Dapple-grey steed (77:5)

What I finally settled on was a mashup of qualities drawn from the poem and Late Roman equipment. The "lime-white shields" were a must.

I had to make sure they didn't look too bright, flat or bland. I used a base coat of Foundry Quagmire B (a brown grey) and several thin coats of Canvas C (an off white). I tried to approach them as if I was painting lime onto leather-faced shields.

To give them more depth I weathered them with a drybrush of Quagmire B and Rawhide A. Tried a couple of shield cuts but my brush hand wasn't steady enough to get really thin straight lines done so well.

I also incorporated some "gold-bordered garments".

To give them some elite flavour I pimped up their spears with the stripes that seem to be a Late Roman thing (anyone know the source of these?).

Part of the painting challenge here was to produce sufficient variety in the colour schemes so that multiples of the same model looked different. Among the eight figures there are only six different riders and three different horses. Luckily, the notes from the poem really gave me an excuse to crack open many of the pots in Foundry's Horse Paint set.

I'd only painted dapple greys and whites before this so it was a nice challenge to attempt blacks, chestnuts, bays and a roan. The roan is the toughest to pull off since they have equal amounts of interspersed white and coloured hairs, something which you can only impart impressionistically in paint. While blacks aren't mentioned specifically in Y Gododdin, other Welsh literature mentions Arthur riding a black mare so I wanted to get some practice in before I painted the dux bellorum.

EDIT: I found that different painting techniques worked better for different horse colours, from normal layering (for the bays and lighter browns) to drybrushing (for the blacks) to zenithal for the greys.

Next up on the workbench is Arthur himself with the costume colours drawn from a mix of Bernard Cornwell's trilogy and the Mabinogion. The latter provides some names of Arthur's arms. I'm still trying to figure out what motif to place on his shield which was called Wynebgwrthucher (face of the evening). Perhaps a Celtic moon or star.

Sabot basing - A Method

Since I'm playing a mix of games from those requiring individually-based models to element-based games, having sabot bases is useful to make the most each painted model.

I finally got round to testing out the sabot basing method that I've carried in my mind for months. I've documented it below as an aide memoire and in case anyone else can benefit or improve on the method.

Here's the finished result:

This is a 12cm-wide sabot base intended to serve for Impetus, To the Strongest, Hail Caesar, Dux Bellorum and any other element-based game I care to play.

The Steps

1. First, stick some thin magnetic sheet down on MDF. Above is a 1mm magnetic sheet from Popular Bookstore (the stuff from Daiso is too weak) glued with PVA to 3mm MDF. I'd prefer 2mm MDF, but its not available locally and this stuff was custom cut cheap in bulk by a local framing shop.

Arrange the minis into a comfortable formation, particularly so their spears don't poke each other.

Then, mark the position of each figure with a 20mm steel washer, which acts as a placeholder. You don't want to mess up your nicely based minis with raw filler and sand!

You can see them above under the painted minis. I base all my figures on 20mm washers so the magnetic system works. The washers have the advantage of being heavy enough to keep even the most unbalanced figure upright.

2. Apply a layer of filler around the placeholder washers. Liberally sprinkle this over with fine to coarse sand while its still wet. You can always brush water on the semi-dry filler to help the sand adhere. Leave to dry and shake off the excess sand. If there are any bare areas just touch them up with PVA and sand. I use coloured filler which is close to Sienna in colour. It is less troublesome to use than white filler which really sucks up any pigment or paint added.

When that's all dry seal the whole lot with watered-down PVA glue. This gives you a good surface to paint and drybrush the sand without it all coming off.

3. Basecoat with a preferred earth colour. I used a mix of Dark Chocolate and Burnt Sienna from Americana craft paints because they're cheap.

Then drybrush with a sand colour. I used Americana Sand with a few drops of the basecoat to tie them together.

Once that's dry, remove the placeholder washers and clean up their sockets. Make sure there is a good level and even fit for the models' bases or else the magnet won't be as effective. You may have to scrape around the cavity with a blunt sculpting tool to get a good fit. Don't make it too roomy, you want to minimise the appearance of sabot holes. Just enough for a snug but easy fit.

Then you can flock and dress the base. I recommend doing this with the figures inserted so you can disguise any obvious signs that this is a sabot base. I tried to place flock in front of the gap between the sabot and the miniature's base.

As you can see above the front row is quite well disguised. The second row could use a bit more work, but this could easily pass as a nice multi-based unit for Impetus. A future challenge would be to combine some diorama action with sabot basing.

The Test

So, how well do the magnets hold?

Pretty well, I'd say.

Next Steps

In pursuit of an ever-lower base profile I plan to order some 12cm wide, 2mm deep laser-cut MDF bases from Warbases. I will use thin magnetic sheet for the bottom which carries with it the dual advantage of holding both the models and the entire base to a box lined with magnetic sheeting.

My models, based on 20mm-wide washers should sit flush with the MDF. Total depth of base to the foot of the model should be 3mm versus the 5mm in the method above.

As mentioned above, aesthetically I'd like to try some diorama action, perhaps incorporate some drama with casualty figures, or even terrain like a road or other feature to make any given base look less like a movement tray and more like a thoughtful composition.

The Levy Assemble & Merlin Grumbles

I am pleased to announce the completion of my 18 Levy for my Dux Britanniarum Romano-British starter force.

This was a quick and dirty paint job as they were Saxon Miniatures (now Warlord) figures I was lukewarm about. They are originally Viking Bondi but have the advantage of a fairly generic Dark Age warrior look, especially if one is representing Germanic troops or foederati.

They were primed white then washed in a bright primary colour - blue, green, madder red, lemon yellow. This produced a natural shade in the folds, an effect I accentuated whenever the component pigments of certain paints separated, as was especially the case with the Army Painter blue. I would soak up the darker pigment and wash it into the folds.

For the lighter tones I used a standard brown wash for more detail. The hair was treated the same.

More care was applied to the shields where I went for LBMS transfers and full three-stage highlights on the back boards. For ancients infantry the old wisdom really rings true: focus on the face, the weapon and the shields and you'll be fine. A bit of care was also taken with the bases. Maybe they could use another highlight, but there was a battle to fight the next day.

Their previous outing without finished shields didn't end so well. The nasty Saxon cattle rustlers stayed out of reach despite Merlin's exhortations.

Merlin himself has now been finished.

Inspired by Bernard Cornwell, I painted him as a grubby druid, with a sun-bleached bearskin cape and a dirty robe. People say he looks like Old Luke from the Last Jedi. I've left a bit of a gap on his base for a future decoration such as some toadstools or a skull when I have time to sculpt or mould them.

I umm'd and ahh'd about how to paint the bear fur cloak but in the end I just went with a base of Vallejo G Camo Black-Brown and applied the triads from Foundry's Bay Brown and Chestnut, about six layers in all, with a final extreme highlight of Vallejo Dark Sand to establish contrast and mimic some bleaching/weathering. It looks a bit harsh in the photo due to the lighting. I am still on the lookout for a good method to paint bear fur as well as timber wolf fur (for the champion Raedwald's coat).

This leaves only the champion and Lancelot's shield to receive their final highlights. But I'm already hankering to start painting some cavalry as I've been reading Y Gododdin to get into the mood.

I also finished work on another four warriors for a total of 16 warriors to make my warband SAGA ready.

Once again, the shields were hand-painted. I experimented with patterning the highlights on the white area. Unlike the Saxon Miniatures figures above these Footsore troops were a delight to paint. The faces especially were packed with detail, rewarding the time taken to paint in the eyes. They even sculpt the eyebags!