Thursday, January 2, 2014

From AndrewS: 20mm Nubian Infantry (200 points)


In an effort not to let Kent rest on his heels Andrew comes in with this great entry featuring Nubian infantry for his Hail Caesar collection.

From Andrew:
These were given to me as part of my Christmas Present from my boys. This year I want to build Several biblical period armies for myself and KevH to play with Hail Caesar. I decided to start with the Nubians as a long time adversary of Egypt, they were top of my wish list this year.
These 48 figures are all Hat 1/72 Nubian Infantry, and these have been split up to make three light infantry warbands. I have had do some conversion work to a few of the figures as the box sets lack enough spear/javelin-men in the boxes. A relatively straightforward task of taking a sharp scalpel and removing the clubs before drilling the hands and replacing with a blunted dressmakers pins. These 3 warbands took 8 hours to paint from scratch and I spent another 2 hours on the bases. 
I have kept the painting too a base colour and highlight over the primer. At this scale two colours can often be more effective than full 3 colour work and certainly at gaming distance there is no significant difference.
These 3 units will form part of the 1st Division so I have colour coded the loin protectors, in this case they are all green, however each unit has its own pattern, one with plain another with a stripe and the third with a series of dots so as to be able to distinguish them apart.
I have also given each units shields a different set of colours, one is plain hide another is brown and cream and the third brown and white as further definition. As with the Skraelings I decided to use the stipple effect to represent the hides, I was quite pleased with the final results. 
The hardest choice too make was for the bases something I do like to have just right as they can make or break the look of any army. With these being a step down from my usual painting style also a little bit of extra work on the bases give a better overall finish to the whole army, also I have been researching and at the time of the conflicts Nubia was a very fertile land, so I did not want to have the bases feel too arid.

So I raided my supply cupboard and mixed a blend of three various coloured flocks, to give a look of sun bleached grassland and a dryer feel as they will be played with on a desert table. I also scattered patches of rocky ground throughout the bases, painting them as bits of sandstone so in brown shades rather than the black and grey usually seen. They were then finished with a few tufts used sparingly.

What a great gift from your boys, Andrew! They look fabulous and I really like the basework you've gone with as the colour-tone works well with the figures.

These three units of Nubian infantry will give Andrew a cool 200 points, with a few points added for his conversion work for the spearmen and the great hide shields. After a little over two weeks into the Challenge he is less than 100 points away from his initial target. Well done Loki!

14 comments:

  1. Andrew

    Nice looking war bands. I'm sure the boys will be happy that you got them up and running so soon after Christmas.
    Cheers
    PD

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  2. Nice work Andrew with strong contrasts.

    Christopher

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  3. They work really well, there is something about painting the unit , and not being over fussy on individual details. The basing really sets them off. Top job!

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  4. These are great, I started last years challenge with 1/72's so nice to see you doing some early

    Ian

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  5. Nearly there Andrew - just 95 more points to go. Will you get there before Kev?

    Lovely bunch of Nubians :)

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  6. Inspiring work Andrew! I should try your basecolour + highlight technique with my 15mm stuff.

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  7. Great stuff Andy going to be a super looking army

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  8. Well done my friend! You're back in first place. Huzzah!

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  9. I think you made the right choice with the two layers they look just right and another great entry into the comp it looks like you will well exceed your goal target keep them coming

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  10. Excellent execution sometimes simple works better than complex.
    Really good result.
    cheers

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  11. I think you've nailed the uncomplicated but attractive look you're going for with these. Very nice indeed sir.

    You're spot on about basing making or breaking an army. I spend about 20% of my time on it now and a fair chunk of the total cost as well.

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  12. Some of the best painted 20mm plastics for wargames I have ever seen/

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  13. Very nice painting work. They are fantastic!!!

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)