Balaeric Slingers (Iberians)

Ok, it has been a while once again. I have slowly been painting up a few Samnites, but for now I thought I would show you the figures I am using and am going to use as Balaeric slingers. That is the famed slingers from the Balaeric Islands.

Here is a picture of the first unit.

And a picture of the second unit of them.

Notice how the figures are the same, but the feel is quite different. The ones in white with red trims are perhaps the most original, and correct, but the pictures in Ospreys books also shows them in brownish garments with brownish trims. So a unit of slingers in these would not be too far fetched. Personally I like the brownish unit most.

Here is first standard poses for each unit

I made the headbands red, before I read that they were supposed to be used as extra slings, for other ranges. Apparantley slings have different ranges, according to how long they are. It makes sense I suppose,

Here is the other standard pose for the units.

The legend goes that as children the Balaerics were given a sling and told, that from now on they would have to find their own food. It is no wonder that they were expert slingers. Notice that unlike the pose in the Orion set, these slingers, from the HäT set, have a dagger each. You never know if you are going to be involved in some hand to hand combat.

I of course, as I do mostly when I can do it, preformed some simple conversions, with these figures. Mostly headswaps, but also one where I removed a hand from a sling. So here are those four poses.

This is a rather old paintjob that I did perhaps some 10 years ago. Glad it is still holding up pretty well...

~Claus

Iberian Caetrati, armored

So back to the Iberians, and these fellows are a strange bunch, but here goes.

The Iberians are distinguished ordinarily into three types of troops: Slingers, Scutari and lastly Caetrati. The Caetratri are like the Scutari destinguished by their shield. Where the Scutum is large and oval, this shield is small and round, in fact one might call it a buckler. Ordinarily the units would be light and agile, but this unit is different.

The reason why it is different cannot really be seen on this picture. But there is a hint, some unusual straps of leather on the back. They are used to hold a round plate in place over the breast. Which is unusual, but not unheard of. From my google searches I found at least one representation where they had this plate and a "buckler".

Here is another view of the unit.

Notice how big the shield of the Champion of the unit is. I did not find any small enough shield I could use, so his bigger shield will have to do.

I have spoken alot about the unusualness of this unit, and of the pose in particular. Well here he is.

Another thing that is unsual about this figure, is that his sword is not the usual falcata type, but it is straight. So is the scabbard. Very strange and quite unusual.

The champion too is interesting, if not for anything else, then for the weapon he is holding.

It is an axe, from the Caesar set of egyptians. You get a few spare ones pr. sprue, so, I thought why not use it to denote someone special. The uniform is not that strange, white with red trimmings. Just like most texts say the Iberians had. But the shield is also something I found online. Not sure if it is something the Iberians used; black shields that is.

The officer is the standard pose from the Orion set. Here he is, once again:

He is however interesting because he must be rich. Why do you ask? Well he has a purple cloak. A color that was extremely difficult to manufacture back then. So only the richest could afford it. Perhaps this unit is this fellows personal bodyguard. Would explain why they are so different.

~Claus

More Iberian Scutari

Finally it is time for some of the Iberians to leave the painting table. This time it is a unit of Scutari, so named because of their shields, the Scutum. Here is a sideways view of the unit. It is the best way to show off the shields. 

 

Notice the colorscheme, it is the same as on the box, that you get from Orion, when you buy the Iberians. Here is the unit seen from the front. 

The unit is composed of 8 spearmen, wearing a single metal plate over the breast area, and carrying Scutums and a spear. They also have a scabbard for the traditional spanish sword. There is also a single officer, this time with a red cape, as well as a standard bearer (from HaTs carthaginian command set)

Here is a close-up of the infantry type.

The shields were really fiddly and was perhaps the part of the figure that took the longest time. The motif is molded on, so no choice there if you want a different design. Unless you want to carve it off that is...

The officer is by now the well known type. Crested helmet, breastplate and greave. The colorscheme is more traditional Iberian than what I have done the other officers in.

The standard bearer is as mentioned earlier from the HäT command set, for the Carthaginians. Ordinarily I would have given him a brown cloak, for lack of word of what the garment is he is wearing over his armor, but I chose red to tie him in with the unit.

And that was one more Iberian unit ready for the tabletop.

~Claus

Iberian Slingers

So what do we have here... Well the title says it all: These are Iberian Slingers. That is slingers from the Peninsula, what we today would call modern Spain (and Portugal).

The sling was a cheap and accurate weapon back in the days of the Punic wars. It was deadly too. Famed where the Balaeric slingers, used much by the Carthaginians. These however I have decided are just regular slingers, from Iberia. Here is the first unit, clad in brown.

As can be seen, they are pretty much just armed with a handweapon, and a sling. The hand weapon is something along the lines of a long broad knife or dagger. Here is the second unit, clad in the traditional white cloth with red brims.

They are the same figures, just painted up differently, and as it was at different times. One is painted some 18 months ago, the other a mere hours ago. The ones in white are the oldest, they have wear and tear, as can be seen on the figure on the extreme left. Part of the paint covering the base has flaked away.


Here is a close-up of one of the two poses, in their different painting scheme: The loading slinger.

Note how I forgot to paint the iron on the scabbard, on the white clad figure. While i remembered on the brown one. These kinds of mistakes annoy me alittle, but not much. I paint in volume not in detail, so if there is detail, and I remembered it, good. If not, I will fix it later, maybe.

Here is a close-up of the second pose, in the different painting schemes: The slinger who is swinging his sling, ready to fire.

Again, the little details are missing on the white clad one, but at least I am consistent. If these where elite slingers, like the Balaeric slingers are supposed to be, they would have extra slings, for different ranges. Such slings would usually be in the form of a headband or hanging from their belts.

So here they are, the Iberian Slingers, from Orions set of Iberian Infantry.

~Claus

More Heavily Armored Iberian Warriors

So, these guys had been sitting on my paintdesk for nearly a year, mocking me. But now they are finished. Yay!

Perhaps they do not look so impressive lined up like that, so I tried to take a photograph to make them look less flat, on more "in action". This is how it turned out.

Looks like there are more of them this way, and they are sporting their good sides too. Like the other heavily armored Iberian Warriors, these are from Orion, except for the Standardbearer, which is from HäT. These too must have plundered the battlefield and found some armor. So I guess they are in roman mail, although it could be Iberian in origin.

Now for the individual close-ups.

The Officer of the group comes first. He is easily recognizable with his cape and crested helmet. He might even be of Cathaginian decent, with such equipment, or perhaps he is just rich. Notice that on this one, that you have seen before, I have painted a shinguard, which I am not entirely sure is there, or not.

Then there is the standardbearer.

This fellow is sporting some very nice armor. A full breastplate, unlike the officer that just has a metal plate protecting his chest. Also he has a round shield, which makes him somewhat different from his fellow infantry friends. I had glued this fellows shield on before I decided he should be part of this unit, hence the difference. He is holding a Bull Standard, which is also from HäT.

Finally the Iberian Warrior himself.

The shield he is using is the standard Scutum, and the spear, was much longer on the molded figure, but I cut it down to a more reasonable size. It was the length of a small pike, this way it is just a spear. The typical Iberian sword can be seen in its scabbard, and there really is not much more to say about this figure.

Stay tuned. I think there may be an update more coming within the next couple of days.

~Claus

Iberian Heavy Cavalry

The Iberians had some heavy cavalry, but it was not the most common component of their armies. These would typically represent some more wealthy men, perhaps nobels. Here is a unit of them.

Notice how they all are armed with swords, and armored with chainmail as well as having a scutum shield. They are part of the Spanish Cavalry set that HäT make. There was only one pose of them, and I found I would not make any conversions of them. Here is the pose.

Basically he is a warrior waving his sword. Also notice how the camera captures everything, down to the pieces of bit and tackle I have not painted. You get 3 of this pose in each set. I bought 2 sets.

The standard bearer is also one of those poses from the set. He is special, in the sense that it is actually a multipose. You can get a standard, or a spear, simply by cutting off the boar at the end of the standard. You also get 3 of this pose, and as it is unlikely you will need 6 cavalry standardbearers when buying two sets, the multipose is a good idea.

Finally we have the leader of the unit. He is a conversion, made from the HäT Punic Wars Command set, and a headswap. He has been given one of the lose swords. Notice he does not have a shield, I think it may have snapped off. But I did not find one, so I have taken the picture of him without it.

Finally here they are all three poses, that make up the unit, seen from the front. I tried messing with the picture alittle seeing if I could get them cut and pasted into the above pictures, but it just looked wrong. It is also somewhat easier to see the special Spear/Standard that the standardbearer is holding in this picture.

Hope you enjoyed the view

~Claus

Iberian Warriors, Scutati

So, after what seems like an eternity, here I am again, writing a blogpost about my Iberians. This time its the Scutatis turn. Named that way because they carry the large spanish shield, called the Scutum. It is sort of oval in shape and covers most of the body.

Here are the guys.

I was probably better at painting when i painted these than I am today. Notice the shield pattern. Aparantly this kind of pattern was quite common. As for the colors i cannot say, but it seems reasonable to me.

Actually the unit consists of figures from up to three different sets; three conversions, in total and the standard scutati from the Spanish infantry set that HäT produces.

Here is a look at the most common type figure in the unit:

Notice how "heavily" armored he is. That´s right. Apart from the shield and a breastplate, he has no armor. Until Orion came out with their set of Iberian Infantry, this was the heaviest common unit type that the Iberians had. That is unless you make a few conversions, and convert some of the Command Set that HäT produced to Iberians.

Here is a look at the first conversion.

 Please note how the head is split in two by bad molding. Some would have fixed this, but I generally do not do that kind of thing. I simply don´t have a steady enough hand, I think. The conversion is a simple headswap. The body is a light infantry man (or levy infantry man) from the Punic Wars African Infantry set, also done by HäT. I made two of these figures, just for the variety.

Here is a look at the officer of the unit.

He is much more heavily attired. He too is a conversion, made by swapping heads onto a figure from the HäT command set. The shield is much too big, but so is the figure, when compared to the others in the unit. I guess he is somewhat of a giant, this officer.

Well that was my first post in almost a year now. I hope you enjoyed it.

~Claus

Iberian Warriors, Heavily Armoured

After a break painting, I can feel I am yet as good as I once was, but nevertheless i finished a few figures here today, and thought i would show them to the readers of this blog.

They are the heavily armed swordsmen from the Orion Iberian Infanty set. There is some controversy to the existance of this type of unit, as heavily armed Iberians is something that really does not fit in their style of fighting, which is guerilla warfare, basically. There is something about being heavily armored that just does not fit in with those tactics.

I guess one could assume that they have stolen the heavy armor from fallen romans, and that would explain the chainmail. They would then be troops fighting for Hannibal in the Punic wars, in Italy. Which is probably how I will use them when fielding them anyway.

The standard of sculpting is somewhat more lumpy than i am used to, having painted alot of HaT figures. These are the first troops I have painted from Orion, so the style is foreign to me. But I must say that i think that they overall are pretty good.  There was one figure that was alittle mismolded. The shields are supposed to be the Scutum, and the figure to the left in the picture below shows a shield that is improperly molded. The one to the right is how it is supposed to look.

The unit I have presented above, 10 figures all in all, is composed of 1 officer, 1 standard bearer (from a HaT command set), and 8 swordsmen. The swordsmen look like this up close.

I chose to paint them more or less like the box backside specifies. The picture is not that clear, and the shield design was not readily visible, so i had to use my imagination. It turned out OK, but nothing more than that. I am not good with engraved shields.

The officer was simple to paint. That is apart from his breastplate which seems to be less well defined on some of the officers. I expect I will show more pictures of this pose, later on, as more units have been painted. I think that the officer might be a Carthaginian, but he might be an Iberian. It´s hard to know for sure.

The standardbearer is as mentioned from the HaT Carthaginian Command set. He probably should have had a scutum instead of a round shield, but now i am just nitpicking my own choices. As you can see i tried to use the same shield design that the other Iberian warriors had.

Stay tuned for more Iberians.

~Claus

PS: I think I might be the first to paint up this set. I have not seen the pictures of these figures painted anywhere else.

Carthaginian Army, HaT

Back in those days when I was living in Roskilde I had more space, and fewer figures. So today, it would be harder to do what i did back then. I basically had a place, on top of a deep yet low bookshelf, that was simply perfect to set up an entire army. So thats what i did with my Carthaginians.

The above picture shows the entire army lined up. The army consisted of Carthaginian War Elephants, my Carthaginian Cavalry, Iberian Infantry, Carthaginian African Infantry and of course Numidian Cavalry along with Numidian Infantry. Quite a colorful army.

Today I have an entire Army composed of Carthaginians without allies, and each of the allies (Numidians and Iberians) have their own army as well! In all three cases painted. This could only be done thanks to the many manufacturers that have dared to dive into the subject. So thank you Zvezda, Orion, and HaT. Especially HaT for their groundbreaking work.

~Claus