Bones

Nothing says the Holidays as much as bones. Going ‘caveman’ and gnawing on the thigh bones of the turkey is a particular favourite treat for me, so not surprising, during these Holidays, I am painting up bones, many bones.  Skeletons to put a fine point on it. 

My Romans “were getting lonely” so I decided to make an opposition for them. The spur was a box of plastic Celtic Chariots (formerly made by Wargames Factory).  I had sold the other part of that force to a wargamer friend who decided that the chariots were not compatible to the Victrix versions he had just picked up, so I was left with them. They sat for a while, but during the late summer, I had tried to make some plastic horses from melted sprues (*see note below) but as you can see from the photos they did not quite come out as I would have wanted…. However, they still had the shape of a horse and the rather ‘rough’ surface did look like decaying flesh. Skeletons in the making, as it were.  The original ponies are now set aside and these de-fleshing horses will transport the chariots driven by Ancient British skeletons. 

The reins are from the Victrix versions which were given as the wargaming buddy decided to do his in thread.  They were the perfect length, fit into the yoke fittings perfectly and had the hands attached so could be given the boney arms with ease.

I consider the whole collection less fantasy and very much a historical armed force…. well, OK, minus the flesh.   

Firstly I have bulked up the Roman force by adding an Auxilia unit.  I managed to find some faceless Roman helmets. Recent research suggests that Auxilia and Legionnaires were more closely equipped than once thought and it is offered that only the oval shield would be the major distinguishing feature.  But I did not have any oval shields laying about.  As I was pondering this, I noticed that I had not thrown away the bases cut away from the previous batch of skeletons used for the Romans placed on the flat ‘palace tiles’.  As seen from the following photo these former bases are of a perfect shape and size.  The newly repurposed pieces were quickly sanded down a bit flatter and received a new GS boss using a paint dropper bottle top as a mold.  It was surprisingly easy to do.  As these shields were, presumably lifted from the ground by their users and so would not be factory new, I did not worry overly about perfect copies.  

note the similarity of the shields to the bases of the figures!

The mold for the shield bosses

The other Roman unit created are archers.  These are helmet-less but do have a small shield which came in the box, along with the quivers (duly scraped smooth of any ‘fantasy decorations’!) and used strips of styrene for the belts to hang all the equipment upon.

note the two markers in the foreground for those units who have 'legged it' (these lower legs were not needed but I try to repurposed most plastic bits) 

Photos of the rest of the Roman force.

(*  The sprues - the frames on which the plastic parts hang and of the same material as the models themselves - are not recyclable. Rather that throw away, I thought to melt down with acetone and try doing a few different things with this mash.  The horse molds did not really work but the bubbles and miscasting certainly have a zombie jive to them!)