Saturday 17 January 2009

Coh. I Batavorum Eq.


This is the unit of Auxilia I finished in December; I'm really pleased with them. I'd been planning them for at least 3 years! Mostly Foundry Salehs, but some Copplestones and a couple of Black Tree minis, too. Oh, and a Crusader Centurion!



LAter on, I'll talk more about my plans for the other Auxilia Cohorts.

5 comments:

Secundus said...

Oh wow, great minds think a like, I have been planning a Batavian Cohort for the two years also, but it doesn't stop there. I have also had those foundry Auxiliaries undercoated and waiting for a year, ready to go. In my eyes they are much bigger than my other older Foundry Auxiliaries and are how I imagine the famed Batavians to look like.

I suffer from a bad case of 'leave the best to last', which in figure painting means you never actually get round to painting your favourite units. I have a Centurion (my favourite) sitting around for the last two years waiting for a unit worthy of him, so far i never got round to it so he's still floating.

Nice touch with mixing in the blacktree figures and using a few bear skinned standard bearers to become hardened germanic veterans. Also It was nice to actually see the size ratio of the new Crusader Romans against the other models, he fits well. Very nice unit.

I have been so busy painting other eras that my Romans have been put on hold, next up for me are horse Archers for Alanicus's Syrian army and Syrian slingers, after that my armies will be about there. Mind you as you know there no such thing as a finished army......

I look foward to seeing what other Auxiliares you have up your sleeves.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks very much Secundus!

I want to do at least one more similar Batavian cohort, but I also want to do an earlier, Augustan Batavian Cohort using the Foundry early German minis, like the ones in Ancient Warfare Magazine. Also a couple of British cohorts and a Spanish Cohort and a unit of Raetians with gaesum.

The Crusader minis are nice, especially the Centurion. Not quite as nice as Foundry though IMHO.

The BTD minis work pretty well with the bigger Foundry Saleh, especially once I discovered that the Foundry early German shields match the Saleh shields really well (they are just a mm shorter).

I've been painting Picts. I really hate painting irregulars, and want to finish them and get back to painting civilised Romans! It'll be quite a while before I finish another unit of Auxilia, but I have a couple more up my sleeve to photograph next week... there's one I think you will like.

Secundus said...

Picts eh, sounds good. Are you planning another era of wargaming with later Romans or are you adding to your massive Celtic army with some distant cousins?

Secundus said...

Ps, I like the way you have painted some of your Celts with broad horizontal stripes across their tunics, so far I have not tried this approach and will have to give it a go now, it looks very striking and quite easy to do.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Secundus,

Nick painted the broad stripes. I think they are based on the Osprey Celts book, where there are photos of Britons with a chariot. I really like them... much easier to paint than plaid

I've been painting my Pictish army, on and off, since 1990. It is almost finished; about 2/3 the size of the celtic army, and not as nicely painted, but not bad and mostly my own work. Photos in a few weeks.

Re Romans, I have a big Caesarian Army, an EIR army and some Late Roman units at various stages of completion. I just bought a pretty MIR unit on eBay (my first in that period), and have a part painted Polybian army. I like Romans! Ultimately, I want to be able to run from Camillus through to Constantine without touching the ground.

Did I bore you with my Displaced site? A lot of my stuff is on there.

http://www.displacedminiatures.com/BigRedBat/galleries/