Roman Road Works

I've decided to try and blitz all my terrain problems this week as I had a few days of work. Next up on the production line were my Roads I had bought from War games Terrain. They are nice pieces and most of the 'heavy' work has already been done. I just thought they needed a little extra something to pull them up with the rest of my collection.
Above can be seen the original and on top, my fresh start with sand and grit extras. Already, even without paint I think there is an improvement. I plan to add all kinds of road side extras, like branches and planks of wood (fallen from carts). My friend gave me the idea of adding a Roman Mile stone to the roadside, a must!

Also muddy tracks and ruts will be added using PVA glue like with the river ford earlier on the Blog. My main worry is sourcing enough brown paint to cover them all, there's a lot. I think there will be a lot of watering down involved.

A Gift from the Gods!

My endless praying to the household gods paid off this week, with the release of another Stephen Dando-Collins book. These books are written so well and contain such descriptive writing that they can keep me enthused for months after finishing them. A matter of real importance to a painter/gamer and model maker. The new book is called 'Blood of the Caesars'.

This one though has deviated away from famous Legions and has concentrated on the story of Germanicus. I'm a little disappointed about that, but Stephen hasn't let me down yet. Germanicus's campaigns in Germany will more than make up for it I'm sure. Joy!

Thinking of making a marsh?

Now that my rivers have been brought up to speed I can start thinking about making some marshes for the battle board. I decided to make my marshes big to cover a large area on the field, this is so troops will be forced to trudge through them rather than skirt around the edges.
I used my old favourite, Daz air drying clay to make the shallow contours of the swamp. Again this is all being made up as I go along, so I'm not sure what the end results will be. Well, something is better than nothing so watch this space for the results.
Here are the two marshes in their early stages.

River Sections

This week I have been spending time working on my river sections for the Campaign. I plan to start on some marshes soon, these will be the last things i need to do to complete my terrain for the game. I can't wait to dive in and get going.

I created this muddy ford by using loads of PVA glue and mixing it with flock, then adding hundreds of tiny hoof and foot prints with the end of a brush. I later gave the mud a very light brushing with a gloss varnish to give it a wet appearance.These river sections were originally from War games Terrain, but as always I like to add my own little touches to things and so added rushes and reed beds. Also the colours were more stone than mud and earth, so that was another thing it changed along with adding grit, gravel and various flocks. Above are two fords, one muddy, the other stony. The shallow river bed was made by painting tiny stones and rocks on the river, then covering with gloss varnish.By adding small amounts of flock to the rivers edge and then varnishing, water plants/weeds were created.

The Eastern Promise

I've finally got round to starting those Armenian Cataphracts from Alanicus's army of Anatolia and I couldn't resist the odd conversion or two. The figures I decided to use were from Old Glory's Sassanid Persian range , their conical helmets seemed very Armenian to me

I used 'green stuff' from Games workshop to make half of them cloaks. These will be painted a light yellow/brown with reddish borders and highly decorated. The good thing about painting up Cataphract units is that you can use them for loads of different eras, these will also fit into my Seleucid army.
TIP; By marking on the anvil the spot for the best results, the whole process became a lot easier and took half the time. A simple tip I know but it really helped to cut down the preparation time.