A Legion Rises

Since revisiting this project a date dropped into my diary for our annual gaming weekend away. As First Blood would be top of my gaming list this year, I wanted to ensure I had my full 800 points completed in time. I find having set deadlines and goals to work towards really helps motivate my progress.

The date was in early July, and as we were already well into Feb I had just under five months. With this in mind I would split the army into fifths and aim to complete a chunk each month – more or less. With my plan to build towards playable point brackets, I put the following schedule together:

Feb – Legionnaires (x8)

March – Pretorians (x11)

April – Xiliarch (x1)

May – Legionnaires (x8)

June – Officers/Retinue (x3+3)

Unsurprisingly I was a week into March before completing the first Legionnaire Regiment but I had managed to get the Praetorians primed and ready to go, plus I had my process all figured out now!

I only needed a total of eight Pretorians for my full list, but as I had built 11 it made sense to tackle them all at once. This would be the biggest unit I would paint in one hit. However with more armour than the legionaries, meaning less flesh to work on, and swords in place of spears, I figured they would be a little more straight forward to paint.

These above images show before and after the Drakenhorf wash. You can really see how the blue desaturates the gold, making it feel older and more tarnished. Below is after the dry brush has been applied.

I worked through the exact same steps I had taken with the previous regiment. With enclosed helmets and shoulder pads there was more metallic work to do, but once this stage was completed this regiment was well on its way.