SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND

I saw this trailer for an upcoming Gladiator Tv series based on the historical 'Spartacus' to be aired in the states in January, I saw this about 3 or so months ago, I thought I would share it, looks great and has a 300-ish feel about it, check it out:













Here is another liitle bonus trailer for the lovers of the sword and sandal genre - 'Clash of the Titans'





Awesome cant wait ......

TEAM - CHAMPIONS OF ROME

 

** MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !! **

So, here we are again one week later, team #2 is now complete, despite any previous posts these three are the Champions of Rome, Gladiators who won their freedom and are now in the personal service of senators, and the upper class aristocracy, they have come back at the Emperor's request to entertain the MOB (people of Rome) ! the two outer miniatures are BTD (Black Tree Design) and the miniature in the middle is from Crusader, again great miniatures plenty of detail from both manufacturers.

The Gladiator on the left is fighting with a small shield and a unusual long sword which appears to be attached to a hand protector of some kind, the Gladiator in the middle is fighting in the dimachaerius style (dual swords) and the Gladiator on the far right is fighting in the hoplomachus style.

Note : Pictures can now be clicked for a larger version

TEAM - LEGIO CONDEMNARE

This is the first of my Gladiator teams - Legio Condemnare (The Condemned Legion), The idea behind these guys is that they are all ex - military, either deserters or legionaries that some senator took a disliking too and managed to get condemned to the arenas of the Roman Empire, simply put, they were shafted big time ! in the picture above from left to right, the first Legionary is fighting in the Velite style, one pilum and a sword but no shield, the second legionary is fighting in the legions traditional style sword and shield but no pilum, and the third legionary is fighting in the dimachaerius style (dual swords). As mentioned last post there will only be four to five Gladiator teams, for when I get enough people to play a multi player arena combat event or if I ever do a Gladiator type campaign, either way it will be lots of fun, now as far as the other teams go, I'm thinking along the lines of :

1. Team Legio condemnare - Completed
2. Barbarian team Germans - Part Completed
3. Hellenic Team (Greek) - On Order
4. Team Champions of Rome - Completed
5. Celtic Team Gauls - Arrived

Next week I should have the Emperors team finished ... I'll see you then.

CONVERSION WORK

Hi all, this week was mostly spent doing some conversion work and reviewing my Gladiatorial rule set (will speak more on the rule set on a later post), one evening while I was reviewing one of the many Gladiator rule sets that I have, I noticed that on one rule set they make an allowance for an unusual Gladiator class, a Roman Legionary deserter, now I thought to myself wow wouldn't that be cool to replicate in a miniature !? so I jumped on my horse and went about converting an existing Foundry Caesarian mini into a Roman deserter, as a matter of fact while the conversion process was going on I ended up visiting a fellow bloggers site where I happened onto another idea, he was painting up Gladiator teams, in colour themes, which I thought was cool, so I decided to merge the two ideas - make a team of Legionary deserters !, in addition to that I would have other teams based on different themes, I decided to have teams made up of three Gladiators, and to start with there will only be four or five teams for now, starting with the Roman deserters, which I ended up calling 'Legio Condemnare' Latin for the Condemned Legion, I have nothing to show this week but will work on them for you to see next week, other conversion work included a couple of tridents and the replacement of a badly moulded sword blade.

Anyway for the meantime I took a group shot of all my gladiator troope, I am about halfway through my painting quota for gladiators, I still have about 14 Gladiators and the teams to paint up, and then its onto the Gladiatorial wildlife, fun fun, see you all in a week.

GLADIATORS ... MORE OF THEM

Here are some more Gladiators I painted up this week, from left to right we have a Condemned Criminal - No personal armour just a lousy shield and sword, the middle guy is a Secutor, these guys were often paired up with a retiarius(dude with the net), and the last guy is a Sagittarius, an archer, this particular one is of the Greek persuasion.

The two outer miniatures are Foundry and the centre miniature is a Crusader.
I still have plenty more to paint, including another Champion, and various other unfortunate souls that have ended up in my Gladiator school.

~THE CHAMPIONS OF ROME~

Here we are again for another week, as mentioned last week we have the Champions of Rome on show this week, the idea behind these guys is that they are veteren Gladiators that have come back to fight for the emperor even after recieving there freedom and being handed the Wooden Gladius - the symbol of there freedom, you can tell these guys apart from there better quality armour that is decorated with gold trim and good quality Iron, there belts are also decorated with there many victories, as is there helmet.






Im not sure at this stage but I may attempt to decorate this Gladiator's shield, I would like to, but well see, if I do I will repost him again next week, I really like this Gladiator, I like the way I painted him, his pose and stance, this dude will leave a trail of dead Gladiators in his wake, there is no doubt.






This Gladiator is a Numidian from the shores of Africa, having proved himself in the arena he was awarded his freedom, fighting in the Hoplomachus style, small shield, thigh high greaves and armed with a spear this guy is a regular lean mean killing machine.

First Gladiator is a Crusader miniature - Great job on the sculpting guys.
the Second Gladiator is a BTD - Black Tree Design, this one has some great detail going on, great fun to paint.

There are a couple more Gladiator champions I want to paint up but these two guys had so much deatil that it took me a while to paint them to my statisfaction, I will post the other two up when I finish them.

~ THE GLADIATORS OF ROME ~

This was and still is my first project, back in july '09 I posted up my first batch of gladiators on the WAB forum, if your interested in checking these photos out click on the link below.

http://wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6006

Photos are a little big, but hey first post no big deal.


since then I added a few more projects (Roman and wild west projects), just to keep me from going stale working on the same old thing, but having said that I painted another gladiator the other night, I think he turned out well.

so again the other night, I got an idea to paint up a group of gladiators that would be labeled 'The Emperors Champions' Gladiators that are bigger, better, bader (is that a word ? lol !), and faster than the rest, so I sifted through all my Gladiators and picked out Physically the biggest and best armoured minis that I had, these will become the Champions of Rome ! , I prepped them up and primed them I should have them done by the time I post another Gladiator update, but, below are a few primed and ready to paint Gladiators.










Next week - The Champions of Rome, see you then.

FUTURE PLANS

So, what does the Ancient Warrior have in store for us ? did I hear you say?
ok, here goes:
Immediate projects

1. Gladiators of Rome - Approx 30 Gladiators, 1 Gladiator school(terrain), 1 Arena skirmish ruleset
2. Legions of Rome - Two small Roman armies, Pompeian Legions vs Caesarian Legions, 4 cohorts each, 1 group of skirmishers each, 1 group of cavalry each and 1 ancient artillery battery each

Medium term projects

1. Bronze Age chariot wars - Israelite army (maybe), Chariot squadron (w/- chariot runners), Skirmishers, Archers, Band of infantry, Ark of the covenant, Levites, protectors of the Ark
2. Wild West project (really small skirmish project), Mexicans, three tribes of Indians, Lawmen, Outlaws, US Federal troops - 7th Cav etc... 1 western town (terrain).

Long term project

1. Classical Greek army - Mixed Greek army, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and Athens
2. Samurai Project - Perhaps a smalll skirmish project

This should give you an idea of what you will see in the posts to come, hope you all stick with me, it will be fun.

INSPIRATION

Well this is the first post, I decided that I wanted to blog after reading and following many other blogs and was especially inspired by a couple of blogs that centred around the time period that I have been interested in, "The Iron Mitten" and the "The BigRedBatCave", if you haven't seen these blogs you gotta check them out .... you can find the links to these sites to the right of this post in the 'my blog list' section, so very cool.
So, This blog will cover areas such as wargames rules, the painting of miniatures, played out scenarios and all things historical, I have a few projects on the go that I am making my way through, the first one started was my Gladiator Project, this is one big ass project, and quite ambitious for a beginner like myself, but i will speak more about this in detail later, and from there I have also started painting Pompeian and Caesarian Legions, to help keep the interest fresh, all these Romans are foundry minis. I hope to blog on a weekly basis, fingers crossed, thats me done for this week.