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.