Paphlagonian Foot and Arachosian Horse

Paphlagonian Foot:  The kingdom of Paphlagonia was situated on the Black Sea coast between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east.  The weakness of the kingdom drew the attention of her two neighbors.  Mithridates of Pontus allied with Nicomedes of Bithynia and the two agreed to invade their mutual neighbor.  This drew the attention of Rome, who ordered a withdraw and planted the seeds of the Mithradic War.   Mithradates occupied Paphlagonia until the end of the first First Mithradatic War, when he was force to give up his claim to the territory.

In Impetus, these Light Foot are part of the many javelinmen units that make up the Pontic army.  I took the liberty of replacing their wicker shields with Hellenistic ones.  I don't think this was much of a stretch as it was reported that Mithridates used his enormous wealth to kit his army out very, very well.  The stories of his wealth trickled back to Rome and helped incite a rush to be the first to invade and sack Pontus.

I'm quite pleased with the vertical basing!   The process of creating these hills is incredibly messy due to the DAS air drying modelling material I used. It stains your hands and any surface it touches terra cotta.  And I have to soak it a bit to get it malleable.  At the art supply store, I found racks and racks of oven curing clay but almost no air drying clay.  Desperate, I picked DAS, which turned out to be a dog.  If you're going to try  vertical basing, find a good quality air drying clay and then let me know the brand so I can throw my DAS away!

For the tufts and white flowers,  I used Silfor Prairie Tufts 4/6mm Summer and Late Summer blossum tufts from Scenery  Express.  It was a bit pricey initially as I bought 8 packs of various colors and heights but these tufts go pretty far in 15mm.  

Arachosian Horse:  I needed javelin-armed Light Cavalry for the Pontic army and given the wide mix of troops employed, I grabbed these figures from Xyston.  You could just as well use Thracian or Greek javelin armed Light Cavalry.  Being an ancients gamer and painter is quite liberating and I played it to full effect here!

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Spanish Scutarii

Slight diversion!  After packing up the Gallic army for an Australian buyer, I realized I'd sold off my last unit of Medium Foot from my Field of Glory Carthaginian army. D'Oh!!!  I dug through my pile of unpainted Xyston and discovered I had enough Scutarii figures to paint up 10 stands at 3 figures a stand. With the size of these shields, I'm not sure how well they'd fit 4 to a stand anyway.  If I paint another unit of Scutarii, I might settle on a single pattern for the shields to give the unit a more unified look.  Its tricky because you want these fellows to look a bit irregular and wild looking but you also want them to be easy on the eyes.  In any case, my Early Carthaginian list now has Medium Foot again and I'll bring these down to the club Saturday for our 600 point double match.

I've always loved the look of Scutarii units.  From time to time, I've considered painting up an ancient Spanish army but truth be told, they'd be roadkill in the Field of Glory system, just like Gauls.  Plus, I'm not certain I have the stamina to repeat this drill 6 more times to get 200+ figures for the army!  Speaking of stamina, how about a tip of the hat to Mr. Roach, who finished painting 341 28mm Scutarii in spectacular fashion.  The rest of us can only dream!

UPDATE:  Sebasto asked how long these took to paint and the funny thing is, I intended this to be a  "speed painting" feature since I rushed them for Saturday's match. Then I forgot to time the last steps so I discarded the idea!  Here is the speed version of a speed painting article.  To save time, the shields and figs were primed black and I didn't paint the back of the shields.  I  used black in the color schemes for the shields.  I picked 4 or 5 styles for shields and painted each style in a batch.  Shields were painted before gluing them on the figures. I picked 2 schemes for Scutarii, block painted them, heavy Devlon Mud wash, highlights on cloth but not on straps. Kept the basing very simple, which is in keeping with my Carthaginians.  Ballpark 5-6 hours start to finish.  There's room to trim further on this as I painted the faces.  Clearly that doesn't help! 

I have 150+ Xyston Gauls to paint up for an Impetus Gallic army once I finish the Pontics.  I have some ideas for balancing quality and quantity.  For example, batching the shields is a good idea with so many "custom" Gallic shields.  And I'll do a better job of keeping track of time!

Triarii

I put my Mid Republican Roman project on the back burner when I got my Pontic figures.  It's been  gnawing at  me that I have a MRR army without Triarii so when I put in another order of Xyston figs from Brookhurst Hobbies, I added these and got them painted in short order.

I've belatedly concluded that while I can run my MRR army without Triarii, their A discipline makes them essential by allowing them good odds for  double and triple moves. Like their historical counterparts, I plan to hold these boys in reserve until a crucial moment in the battle. With a little bit of luck, they'll move out in double or triple time to smash their opponent in the mouth or better yet, the flank.  At least that's the way I imagine it in my head. Reality is often different on the tabletop.