Warlord Imperial Roman Legionaries

Just finished my first batch of Warlord's Imperial Roman Legionaries which I based on Gale Force Nine's magnetic 20mm bases before placing them in on a scratch-built magnetised movement tray/base for use with the Impetus rule set. This way, they may also be flexibly used individually with WAB for a skirmish game. I decided to reduce the Impetus recommended base width of 120mm to a more manageable 100mm and the figures to eight for the legionaries to represent the Roman army's contubernium unit while keeping the figure count per base visually appealing. The appeal of these rules is that they allow you to get going with relatively few bases per army. I haven't decided who the foe will be yet, but am edging towards the new Warlord Dacians.

It took me a while to finally get round to painting the first batch and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Much has been written about the quality of Warlord's Romans and while stylised in appearance they are high quality and full of character. Their selection of interchangeable arms and heads further add to the possible variety available.

Easy to paint, well-defined and proportioned, they and the similar hard plastic offerings now available from a variety of different manufacturers represent the way forward for affordable collectibles and war gaming generally.

When painting these chaps I deliberated over among other things the colour of their tunics. Much speculation surrounds this subject with many theories being forwarded. I wanted to stay away from the uniformal bright red, so I followed the latest thinking and tried to give them each a slightly different appearance based around faded madder red or the grey/brown of undyed wool.

As per usual I used the Army Painter to produce the effect you now see, on which I am totally sold on and wouldn't consider going back, even for individual figures - too much hassle!

The only real issue I had was with the supplied water slide transfers, which I feel don't really work that well. I followed the various snippets of advice published and applied them after first coating the shields with the strong tone dip and prior to application of the matt varnish, which was straight forward enough with a little care. However, once the matt varnish was then applied, some of the transfers decided to peel away - most frustrating. I have since solved this with a little PVA, however it is a mar to an otherwise quality product. I will probably look to other suppliers of transfers with a little more adhesion in future once I've seen if non application of matt varnish on the shields works .

I am now alternating my time between the remainder of the Warlords and the start of a Baccus 6mm Warmaster army (Romans, again of course) which all gets bit confusing...oh well!

That's all for now,

All the best,

Monty