Plastic n' Metal The Late Roman Era.

Well, I have an interest in the Late Roman Era.
I am not an expert painter of figures, and often I have been up against the clock.

Therefore my style is very basic. I use 20mm plastic, mainly Hat and some Miliart. I also mix in some metal Newline Designs as being 20mm these seem to fit  with the plastic figures.
I think a company called Tumbling Dice also make 20mm metal figures for this era.

To prep the plastic;

1) I wash them In warm soapy water scrubbing
them lightly with a nail brush.

2) I then assemble the figures with shields and spears, and attach any cavalry figures to their horses.

3) The figures are then glued to cardboard strips.

4) Next, I undercoat the figures with PVA glue. This can be watered down a bit. This stops the paint flaking off. I then leave the figures to dry.

5) Once dry, I completely coat the figure brown paint.

6) When the paint drys I go through the figures
putting on various colours.
Having wrote that, I use a minimum number of
colours and rotate them.

7) Once the paint is dry, I brush on some gloss acrylic varnish. Again I water it down a bit if needed.

8) I don't worry about flocking the base. I just paint a basic colour on.

9) Having done that, I base the figures.
It's basically (for me ) about getting the figures on the table.

Here are some illustrations;

These are a mix of Hat Goths and Miliart German Tribesmen.

Hat Industries Cataphracts. The Spears are from North Star Miniatures Javelins.

Hat Sassanids. The flags are scratchbuilt. North Star javelins.
The standard on the light cavalry archers is a dressmakers pin.
The round bases are 40mm mdf from Minibits.

These figures are Newline Designs Late Roman Infantry ( metal) painted in conventional fashion with North Star javelin.

These are Hat Industries Huns.

These are part of my Pict army. The cavalry are from the Hat Goth cavalry.
The chariot is from the Hat Celtic chariot box, using some twine for the reins.
The hooded crossbow are from Hats Enemies of Rome box.
The Pictish infantry are from Redbox and the archers are from Hat Saxons, part of the Enemies of Rome box.
Apparently it was not unusual to find Saxons amongst the Picts.

This was my attempt to recreate the Del Riata ( the people of the chariot). They had a thriving society on the West coast of Ireland and the East coast of Scotland.
The chariots are from Hat Celtic Chariots with converted occupants.
The infantry are from Hats Gothic Infantry. Over time the Del Riata merged with the Picts.

I found myself with too many Sassanids. This is because I had bought Hats Parthian cavalry before they released their Sassanid range! So the Palmyran army came into being!.
All from the Hat Sassanid and Parthian range. The standards are made from masking tape. 

This is Zenobia!. Made from the bottom half of a camel rider from a hat box of Arab camels and the top of a figure from a Hat Celtic Chariots.

Supply wagons and civilians. The middle waggon and mules are from Ceaser miniatures Roman Waggon train set ( I think there are 4 different ones).
The civilians come from the same sets as are the oxen. These look large but apparently this breed were large in real life. The spearmen are from Hats Gothic range. The wagon with the big wheels is scratch built. I used cardboard for the body.

The wheels are made from pre-cut sponges that you put on the bottom of chair legs.
They come in sets and sold in D-I-Y stores. Once I stuck them on, I painted them black
and painted on the rims and spokes. The Goths used waggon lagers and nobody make any. I'm hoping Hat will do some one day.

Sassanid War Elephants. These are from the Hat range. Hat were going to produce actual models but these went on the back burner. Those shown are from the Carthaginian set. The mahout is the body with a Sassanid head. The archer is Sassanid but I had to pack out the Howdah with a piece of eraser.
The heavy cavalry are Sassanids.

These were known as the Savaran. During sieges they fought dismounted.
In the field a Sassanid army was nearly all cavalry and elephants.

These are Newline Designs Goth Cavalry. The spears are North Star Javelins.
The standard is my own paint job on masking tape.

 Lastly, these are Hat Auxilliary Infantry. They could easily be used for later Goths or Saxons. As the Roman empire started to break apart foreign Auxiliaries struck out on
their own as they were not being paid.

That is the best part of this Era. You can mix and match western armies. In the 400,s and 500,s there were very few pitched battles. If there were more they went undocumented, so there is an opportunity for a few " what if " scenarios, especially
concerning the Arthurian legends.

Also, there is recent evidence to suggest that although the Federated troops broke away from the Roman Army some of the men had basic engineering or surveying skills. As people are finding out the Dark Ages were not so Dark after all.