Anyone seen my Pachyderm

In my inimitable style I decided to start of the Republican Roman forces even though I have not finished off the Carthaginian forces.

Starting with the infantry I had to consider how I was going to differentiate between the various subunits on the table. It was around this time that the Roman army was undergoing reform and rather than troop type being defined by class (and having the money to pay for equipment) they were organised by experience with the government providing the arms and armour. At this time the Roman infantry was broken into four key groups these were:

• Hastati – newest and least experienced troops armed with pila;
• Principes – experienced troops armed with pila;
• Triarii – veteran troops armed with spear;
• Velites – light infantry skirmishers.

The Triarii (armed with big sticks) and the Velites (armed with light throwing sticks) were easy. It was the Hastati and Principes that provide the problems as they could appear the same.

Luckily I had both the Victrix’s “Rome Legions of the Republic 1 and 2” as a starting points so started building the figures with the intention that the Principes would be wearing chainmail from the 1^st box and the Hastati would be wearing the armoured discs out of the 2^nd. While this may not have been 100% historical it would allow for easy identification on the table.

So worked commenced on building 120 figures.

Now we had the second bone of contention were the troops uniformed or not and did they have the same shield designs (if any).  On the uniform the balance of probability was they were not uniformed and that they were wearing civilian clothes. On the shield design there is no hard evidence either way as far as I could find.

This is where the wargamer stepped in. These were regular units so of course they would be uniformed (and easier to paint) and they would have shared shield designs to ease identification of units on the table.

As with the Carthaginians these troops will be used for both skirmish (Infamy when released and Clash) and “rank and file” rules mainly “To the Strongest”.

For skirmish level rules troop ratios do not really come into consideration but for “TtS” I needed one each of the Hastati, Principes and Triarii to form “Quincunx” (no giggling at the back). If I ever expand the army to play “Hail Caesar” I would need to add an additional Hastati and Principes unit as they really should be 2 for each Triarii but that is in the distant future.

So now on to the next 6 units before I start on the cavalry.

The next units completed were some Numidian allies.

The first unit represents the Numidian javelin, light troops with no armour and hide covered shields (again LBM Studios). The figures are again Victrix.

The 2nd unit completed used the heavier shields and even some helmets! These represent the attempt by the Numidian king to train some of the foot to fight in the “roman” way.

I did these to introduce a bit more variety and they will also be used as javelin skirmishers if needed (if my opponent objects they will receive a blow from the metal pachyderm  for being picky.

Next up we have the Numidian Cavalry skirmishing horse. To differentiate and try to make them stand out the horses were either painted as greys and light browns. The only problem is that the Victrix horses are too big really as the horses described for the Numidians were noted for their smaller stature when compared to the Gallic horses. This must be saying something as the Gallic horses would probably only be the size of a modern pony.

What will be a couple of units of the “Veteran” Infantry, these figures have replaced the traditional Carthaginian armour and shields with equipment salvaged from the Romans so have Scutum shields and also chain armour. The historically the chain could either have been looted or obtained from Gallic allies.

These figures were undercoated black (apart from the shields) and then had a heavy drybrush of the metallic (either Gunmetal or Bronze depending on armour type).

The next set of troops completed for the Carthaginians are the Citizen Spearmen, while these troops rarely if ever fought abroad they can also double as additional spearmen if needed.

The figures are once again Victrix with Little Big Man shield designs. Painted mostly in neutral colours and carried older Thureos shields.

Well I manged to finish the rest of the crew, varnish and get the elephant based.

It was time to tackle the Pachyderm someone bought me.

Now this is going old school with a metal elephant from Armorum and Aquila miniatures. A nice enough model but did require a load of plastic putty to fill the gaps when putting it together.

It was first given a base coat of grey and then a wash of Nuln Oil to dull it down.

Next after that was dry it was a matter of giving it a coat of Army Painter soft tone to introduce a “browner” tone, this was followed by a couple of dry brushes first of dark sand and finally a dark flesh tone around the truck and the ears.

It was then a matter of picking out the details and adding a couple of shield transfers. Nearly there just need to varnish and sort out the crew.

The last of the units I completed so far were the Libyan skirmishers that came in the Victrix Carthaginian pack.

These were straightforward to paint in undyed cloth and the flesh colour was the same as I used for the spearmen.

The tricky bit were the shields as for some reason I didn’t get the transfers (old age must be creeping in). For a couple I used some spare LBM transfers for the Numidian cavalry I have but had to cut these down. These were the giraffe and zebra shields (again I hate HD photos as the white showing on the edge of these shields doesn’t show that vividly on the actual figures and I am now going to have to revisit them to touch them up ??).

For the rest to get the animal hide effect it was out with the cut down brush and stipple the colours on to try and get a reasonable effect that I am happy with.

Next up on the unit list were the Libyan Spearman. These are Victrix figures and the pack contains both troops equipped with the more traditional “hoplite” cuirass and those equipped with captured roman equipment. The first figures are the more traditional ones.

The figures were block painted with the cuirass being painted an off-white and then washed to bring out the details. The flesh tones used are from the Foundry range for North African Mediterranean flesh washed and highlighted. Shield were completed with my go to Little Big Man studios transfers.

The only regret I have is that I have based these on my usual 2p coin bases but on reflection if I am to use them for To the Strongest it may have been better to base on square bases.