A New Chapter Begins: Roman Velites

And so a new chapter begins. After working on the Carthaginians for the better part of eight months, it was nice to turn the page, even temporarily, and start fresh on a new army. The package containing the Aventine Romans arrived at my house on Saturday and I began preparing them for painting right away. There was very little flash or casting lines that needed to be cleaned up and so this was a very simple matter - for comparison, the Aventine figures were much nicer to work with than the Gripping Beast figures (which were bad at times) but not quite as clean as the Relic miniatures I have worked with.

On first picking up the Aventine Romans I couldn't help but think "Dang, these guys are huge!". But when I did an actual comparison to the Gripping Beast and Relic models the heights are almost exactly the same. The difference is in the bulk of the Aventine models and the proportions of the head and feet. Aventine goes big on these parts of the figure and so it give the appearance of a very large Roman! Once they are all painted and based as complete units I don't think they will look out of place at all on the gaming table facing off against my Carthaginians.

Since this is the start of a totally new army, I wanted to do some things differently, branch out, explore and learn. I went to the game store yesterday and bought a pile of some very nice new paint colors to force me out of my comfort zone and to stop using the same colors and techniques that I have been using this past year. What good is a new project if it doesn't allow you to grow and learn?

First up is the Velites. I have a total of eight of these that will make up two small units of skirmishers. Last night I was able to paint the flesh, tunics and helmets on these four.

I am having a lot of fun!