15mm Republican Roman Penal Legion

The penal legion was hastily raised from convicts and slaves after Cannae, and equipped with Gallic equipment most likely captured at Telemon nine years earlier. I have read various accounts where they were used as fodder, but given the choice between the promise of freedom and having to spend the rest of your life as a slave or in debtor's jail, it probably seemed like a good way out for the six thousand or so who volunteered:

I was wondering if there were any Gauls among Hannibal's allies who may have lost a shield or helmet at Telamon, and recognised it being carried by one of the penal legion. Very unlikely I suppose, but I would not have liked to have been an untrained slave up against an angry Gallic warrior if it did happen:

The figures are as usual Xyston, with the shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios:

That's sixteen elements in all completed. Given that they are rated inferior I'm not sure how often they will be used, but they are nice to have to give the army a little variety:

Next up, some incendiary pigs which, although cruel and inhumane in practice, makes an appearance in the early Camillan Republican Roman list.

WWII Royal Navy Ships

To give myself a break from the ongoing Republican Roman project I thought I'd give a few GHQ 1/2400 WWII ships a go, starting with a dozen Royal Navy vessels. I was inspired by a video tutorial posted by Ken at Yarkshire Gamer (http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/) where he demonstrated a technique which involved first attaching the ship to a base, and then building up the base around the model before starting to paint the ship itself.

This approach resonated with me, as I like to paint faces on miniatures first, tighten up the area around the face, and then watch it "come alive" as the rest of it is completed. Anyway, first off where some Tribal class destroyers, which are among my favourite WWII ships purely due to their names. Here are HMS Maori, Cossack and Ashanti:

Along with Zulu, Tartar and Eskimo:

This was my first attempt at painting any GHQ models and, even though these were small models and single-piece castings, I was very impressed with the details. I managed to find photos of all the ships online, so the camouflage schemes were as close as I could discern them to be. This was helped by my purchase of some AK Interactive WWII naval paint sets with ready-made colour palettes, which again were enjoyable to use.

Next up are a couple of heavy cruisers in HMS Suffolk and Cumberland. These involved gluing on the guns, superstructure, cranes and spotter plane which was fiddly, but made much easier as the pieces all fit perfectly and did not require any filing or drilling:

Next up I thought I'd turn my hand to a few battleships, with HMS Warspite (another long-time favourite of mine due to the unique angular superstructure:

Then HMS Hood. I can remember my grandmother telling me that she went on board for an officer's dance a few days before it put out to sea to hunt the Bismarck, of course never to return having suffered a catastrophic explosion the result of which only three of the ship's complement of over one thousand four hundred survived. I wish now I had asked a few more questions, such as who she went with and where on the ship the dance was:

The last two are HMS Rodney, which I have always enjoyed due to the unique design which has always reminded me of a boot. This involved sticking on half a dozen 6" gun turrets with a pair of tweezers while trying to remind myself that this is supposed to be relaxation:

To finish off this first batch I then completed the Prince of Wales, with more 1/2400th secondary turrets to tweezer into place:

I was happy with the results for a first attempt and managed to get completion time down to between three to four hours per ship. I have since prepared a batch of eleven German warships which I am looking forward to getting stuck into, once I have finished the last of the Republican Romans.

More Crescent Root 15mm Terrain

 I have made a couple of Crescent Root purchases over the last three or four years and, being a huge fan of what I have received in the past, decided to treat myself to some of their 15mm industrial buildings. As with the previous two purchases, I was extremely pleased with what arrived a couple of weeks ago. Here they are, split across two arrangements:

The buildings are all mdf again, apart from the chimneys, and I really like the way they have been put together with texturing that I haven't often seen on other mdf terrain:

I purchased the set of ramps to provide a bit more variety. These are separate so the buildings can be positioned on top or alongside:

The walls are also very nice:

And the roofs lift off most of the buildings to reveal internal floors:

I also purchased one more house from Crescent Root's 15mm Series 3 range which I had missed in the last purchase:

Not particularly cheap when compared with other mdf terrain, but the quality is definitely there and they arrive ready to put on the table. I just need to complete a few WWII 15mm armies to go with them now, although many of the pieces wouldn't look too out of place in a Napoleonic game, especially the Series 3 pieces.

Speaking of WWII, I'm just finishing off the last of the first dozen Royal Navy WWII ships and hope to have them ready for a few photos by the end of the week; a welcome break from Republican Romans.

15mm Cretan Archers

 A quick post on the latest unit completed toward the Republican Roman army, this time a sixteen-figure unit of Cretan archers, and a quick apology for not having replied to people's kind comments as I hadn't realised that they were all being diverted to await moderation:

I liked these figures a lot, mainly because they are quite dynamic but also because they are single-piece castings so there was no messing around gluing on spears or shields:

Also, being only sixteen figures I was able to complete them within a couple of days, so it was fairly instant gratification:

I'm putting the finishing touches on some WWII British ships which I should complete within the next couple of days and hope to post shortly, and which has also been a welcome break from the Romans.