Basic Impetus Carthaginians

The third and final phase of my Basic Impetus project is now complete - the Carthaginians are here!

Again, these were put together out of spare figures from earlier purchases and ebay wins, with the elephant being a notable exception: it was made from a resin elephant calf picked up years ago at the 100 yen shop.

The Gauls are from Irregular, the Spanish and Numidans from Minifigs, the Italian spearman (which are enormous!) could also be Minifigs, but I'm really not too sure.  The Carthaginian citizen infantry is a mix of Corvus Belli and Chariot, while the citizen cavalry is Chariot with an Old Glory chap for the commander.  The caetrati are also old  Glory, but I don't know what the slingers are.  They're a pretty rough and ready lot, but perhaps one should expect nothing less from the perfidious Carthaginians.

Anyway, to the pictures.

The first line, made up of skirmishers and the jumbo. 

The second line - Spanish and Gauls.

The third line - Carthaginian citizens and some rather beefy Italians who appear to be carrying sharpened telephone poles...

The cavalry of the right - Numidians and Gauls.

The Cavalry of the left - citizens with general.

Jumbo again, with tusks like toothpicks and a suspiciously Hellenistic rider atop him...

The lot of 'em.  They are so fearsome that even the trees prefer to get out of the way...

Of course, these fellows mix and match a bit - the Numidians, Spanish and Balearics will serve with the Romans occasionally, and the Gauls may revert to their old allegiances on occasion - but the total force comes to ten cavalry, eight light infantry, twenty-four tribal types, twenty-four close-order spearmen and the jumbo.  May they perform well!

Basic Impetus Republican Romans

This is the second Basic Impetus army that I've been putting together.  These are based around a core of hastati and principes from Lancashire Games supplemented by trairii from Museum Miniatures,  cavalry from (I think) Minifigs and velites from Chariot and Strategia e Tattica.  As for the slingers, I don't know which make they are.

All of these figures barring the velites were in ebay lots that I've purchased at various times, so they had already been painted.  I replaced a few broken weapons, touched up a few figures, added highlights and generally tidied them up before basing them.

Again, I was able to keep to my stated aim of making these armies from miniatures I already had about the place and which I didn't need or didn't use.  So, here are the shots.

The infantry. The hastati and principes are mixed in together on the bases.  Velites and Balearic slingers are in the foreground; triarii are to the rear.

Cavalry of the right.  I think these fellows are Minifigs, and same for the Numidians behind them.

The cavalry of the left.

A closer look at the velites.

A standard...

The lot of them.

There are nine heavy cavalry, two light cavalry, nine light infantry and fifty-five heavy infantry in this lot.  This should give a few decent options for games using Basic Impetus.  They could even be used as Caesarians with a few additions here and there...

(Many thanks to Andy McMaster and "Swampster" from TMP in helping me identify some of these figures, and to "Iosart" and "Tarantella" - also from TMP - for kindly providing suggestions on how to base these fellows )

Basic Impetus Gauls

Here are some picture of a Basic Impetus army I've put together out of bits and pieces figures that I never use.  The majority of the Gauls are I believe from Irregular Miniatures' 15mm range, with one or two that look as if they could be from Chariot.  I picked these up about five years ago off ebay before I was experienced enough to realise that painted figures are not necessarily a better buy than unpainted ones.  I'm afraid to say that I was so disapppointed in them that I put them away and tried to forget about ever having bought the things...

But, with my Basic Impetus project in mind (a project that limits itself to using excess figures from the collection) it seemed like a good time to pull them out and see if anything could be done with them.

After a few (not always entirely successful, it must be said!) washes, a tidy up here and there, the replacement of the odd broken sword or spear, a good spray of matt varnish to standardise the look and a rebasing they seem to be presentable enough for our purposes.  The figures are pretty rough, but they have some quite active poses so en masse they don't look so bad.  All in all, I'm reasonably pleased with the salvage job and I'm very glad that I've finally found a use for them!  Anyway, enough rabbiting from me - here are the pictures.

The infantry.

The cavalry...

...and more cavalry.

The lot of 'em.

There are twelve cavalry, six light infantry and forty-eight warriors all told, making up seven bases of warriors, a base of gaesati (or however you spell it!), three bases of  heavy cavalry, a base of light cavalry and two bases of skirmishers.  Hopefully they will prove adequate for the tasks that may await them!

The elephant appears

I haven't been posting for a while due to busy family life while we get used to having a new little one in the house, but that's not to say I haven't been sneaking in a bit of hobby time.  I've managed to put together three Basic Impetus armies using figures left over from other projects or acquired in ebay purchases, so that has been good fun to do.

In keeping with my recent spirit of improvisation, here is a shot of a 100 yen (.80c) shop baby elephant.  I've added tusks using toothpicks, repainted it, put some white-glue reinforced paper on as a covering and glued on a mangled slinger to serve as the mahout.  Here are some in-progress shots.

With half-painted mahout glued on...

With spare rider (kindly donated by Luke some time ago) chucked on.  This is supposed to be a Carthaginian elephant, but as I said, we are improvising somewhat!