Pages

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Iberian Caetrati-lots of 'em

When painting an irregular army, one of the first decision points is deciding on a paint scheme and your primary color(s). You could paint every Caetrati  uniquely, reflecting that each man had to kit themselves out.  That would be historical but also very time-consuming to paint up.  An army painted like this can be a little hard on the eyes, or as my son describes it, a "clown army."  Alternately, you could paint every figure the same, which would be pleasing to the eye.  Visuals are important in our hobby but so too is an attempt at creating something historical.  I split the difference by limiting my colors here and in the rest of my Iberian army.  I picked 3 primary colors for the tunics-black, white and red.  I limited the shield colors as well.  You never know how it'll turn out till you hit the finish line and here, I think I have a balance that says "irregular" without veering into the "clown army."  All Xyston figures with a nice mix of poses.



Caetrati provide skirmishing support to the main battle line of Scutarii warriors.  As Light Foot skirmishers, their job in Field of Glory will be threefold:

1.  Protect my battle lines from enemy skirmishers and their missile fire.
2.  Pepper the enemy battle line with javelins in hopes of disrupting them.  
3.  Move, occupy and fight in poor terrain.  I'll drag as much poor terrain on the table as I can with this army.   

Livy mentions the Caetrati in The History of Rome, Book 23: "Several skirmishes took place between the two sides who  were alternately frightening and fearing each other, and the Numidian  trooper proved to be no match for the Spaniard, nor the Moorish  javelinman for the caetratus, who were quite as rapid in their  movements and possessed more strength and courage." Who's bad? We bad!!
Fear my Falcata

26 comments:

  1. Hi Monty,

    really cool! great painting work! impressive masse of skirmishers!

    I wish you all the best with them for their first meeting in V2.0 next weekend;

    Cheers

    Gilles "waiting impatiently the Scutarii ;-) "

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much, Gilles! I can't wait to try V2! Hopefully, I'll be able to give a run this weekend.

      Delete
  2. really nice Monty well done sir! I can them eat raw! :o)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Phil! I can't read that without hearing a tortured voice saying "Give it to us raw and wriggling!"

      Delete
    2. Hey, I also meant to say, when I was deep into the Pontics, I think you mentioned that maybe I should consider lighter basing colors. I did go a couple shades lighter on the brown and I might go even lighter still. So THANKS for the tip!

      Delete
  3. Very nice looking troops, a great idea to limit the colour pallet, seems to have worked well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ray! Hopefully it holds up until the bitter end! And if not, well, there's always another army to paint!

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. :-)

      o flail wielding Bishops here, I'm afraid.

      Delete
  5. Very nice army, colorful, a good choice of primary colours!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Phil! Thanks,I could probably go back and dress up some of the caetra at the end. Maybe the very end...

      Delete
  6. splendide !

    for the big shield i find my inspiration thanks to little big men and their wouderful design (http://marcofwar.unblog.fr/category/non-classe/page/2/)

    very nice !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marco, I'd missed these! I need to work through your whole blog one day. We both painted Xyston Scutarii, although, with 150+ shields, I didn't paint mine nearly as nice as you did. Great work sir!

      Delete
  7. These rock! It always amazes me how quickly you pump this stuff out. Good work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I've forsaken all my other hobbies and loves for painting. I used to be a good drummer in Rock Band II, having worked my way up to Expert and then pushing from there. I used to practice almost nightly but I haven't done that in nearly a year as all I do is paint. One trick pony.

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. Thanks Chris and hey, with your luck, you must get a game in with your newly won dice!

      Delete
  9. thanks monty
    i create two blog,marcofwar and marcofwar2, when the first one was full
    i create marcofwar2
    with marcofwar2 i try to organise category best than in marcofwar (spanish are not in spanish category...)
    i find very helpfull and simple to paint with the model of little big men studio
    very inspiring

    you paint very well : i like the colorfull aspect, your army will be wonderful

    (sorry for my poor english)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you sir, and you never have to apologize for being bilingual (or more!). I wish I could go into your blog and post in French. I can't, even though my daughter is studying 11th grade French. Helping her drill for her tests is no way to learn a foreign language!

      Delete
  10. Replies
    1. Thanks Pru and you've reminded me to post regarding the Roman conquest of Gaul.

      Delete