From MartinC - Iraqi Air Power and Roman Infantry (234 Points)

As my lead mountain has been extensively mined during the challenge, I have been a bit in limbo for a couple of weeks, trying to find something to paint that got my creative juices flowing. There is a reason why I have 3 half painted armies and you all know what that is.

Last week's flying carpet post really got me thinking about aerial battles in the Sinbad world, so I have scratch built the Caliph of Baghdad's Flying Corps, the Black Arrows (better names appreciated but I don't like the Rocs). Each carpet carries an archer and a spearman. This gives them missile and melee capability with the spearman acting as a spotter, using his shield to protect the archer and fending off the enemy. I also have a though that the carpets could charge into combat like jousting knights.

The figures are Perry Mahdists but some of the heads are ACW Zouaves, the spears are mainly from ACW flag bearers with the sleeves trimmed back, the shields saxon, bows wire and quivers from, well no clue there. I removed the bases and drilled holes though the feet to pin them to the carpet. As we have seen in the Challenge already black and red do work well together for the paint job.

The carpets are made from Super Sculpty and look a bit too much like they were bought from Trotters Independent Traders rather than the souk. Overall this gives a very light figure so they are mounted on a wire spear offcut in a cube of wood. These bases are on simple card at the moment whilst I work out how to change elevation. I have now run out of packing material and so cotton wool has been used to bulk out the clouds.

Paint job is a little rushed, I got excited to see them completed, but overall I think it's a cool unit. Plan to buy some proper Sinbad type heroes to give them an opposition and a Caliph to lead them on a storm cloud with lightning bolts, however time is tight to buy and receive suitable figures before end of Challenge.

I have however spent most of the week on this unit of 16 Republican Roman Triarii.

I'm pretty sure that this is the best unit I have ever painted. The figs are Aventine and a few North Star of unknown manufacturer. The Aventine guys are very muscular and have very determined faces. However both types have massive feet, more gibbon than human, hence their commander will be known as Hylobatidae Moloch.

There were only enough metal spears for half the unit so the other half are bristles from a yard brush. The ends were squashed with pliers and a cotton grip was added. They look good and hard to tell apart.

The shields designs are hand painted and not an onerous I as thought, with practice I could get quite good at this. Overall I'm proud of this unit.

Finally I have completed this unit of 10 velites. They are on round bases and have an officer and a musician. Not sure whether to re-base these last 2 figs and reincorporate into the heavy infantry. There were a lot of musicians in the army I purchased and the infantry are supposed to have 2 joint commanders, which is just stupid and can't be how it really worked.

The javelins are bristles and I drilled the shield hand to hold a 2nd javelin.

The shields have a hand painted stag motif, couldn't find an equivalent shield design on the web but animals such as a boar design were common.

So that's about 210 points plus any generosity Curt feels towards hand painted shields.  I remember when that was almost a points bomb, now it feels like I've brought a knife to a gunfight.


From Curt:

Martin my man, those carpet riders are off-the-hook brilliant!  So wonderfully conceived and executed.  You should be very proud of this unit - it's a corker.

'Hylobatidae Moloch' is a fantastic name and made me laugh aloud in the office (we have a fairly taciturn bunch here). Even though the feet may be virtually prehensile I still like the castings and you've done a cracking job on them. I really like the white shields with gold motif - very sharp - and speaking of which your broom-brush spears look fabulous. I also like that you added the second javelin with your velites. I've done this with some of my Dark Age figures as well and wish that more figure designers would sculpt light troops with the 'extra ammo' they would have had.

A wonderful entry - thanks for sharing it with us!