With the arrival of my two packages from England (Warlord UK - http://www.warlordgames.com), I've begun to think about how I'm going to model the enemy facing off against the 2nd Cohort, 8th Legion and other attached Roman forces. I'm focusing on the Gallic Celts of what is today, France and Belguim (then known as Gaul). The Warlord figures are mostly the plastic variant of 28mm and seem nicely made. And numerous metal minis are included. Overall they seem well done as minis and will match well with my excellent Roman minis from Aventine UK.
Here I'm cleaning the "flash" off of the minis and preparing them for primer. Wasn't too bad overall; and much better than Foundry minis I've purchased which require a lot of cleaning and sanding.
These minis are two packs Warlord's Celtic "Line Breakers". These figures represent the Berserker style of fighting common with Celts as they grow frustrated with the Roman army Shield Wall and attempt to break it through their brave leaping chargers.
A few of the Warlord figures are naked and I don't want naked enemy minis (no matter how true to life it might have been). So with some Squadron Green Putty I've made loincloths. A few of the minis needed extra attention for attaching the heads to the bodies; using a gap-filling CA glue along with some Green Putty this was pretty easy. And I really like the idea of some customization with the figures. For primer selection, I purchased Army Painter's primer in Barbarian Flesh color.
A few pictures of my work area. I normally have several minis going at the same time. I like this method in order to allow for each layer of paint to dry on the various men I have going.
Of Note: About my selected enemy there is some easy confusion between the Gallic Celts (i.e. Gauls) of Western Europe and the Gaels (also known as Celtic peoples) of Briton Isle... Gallia/Gallic (Gaul) is the ancient Latin word for Western Europe and the Celtic peoples who occupied most of Western Europe (primarily the area that is Belgium, Normandy region and France today). Gaels (Goidelic Celts) is an early Briton word which roughly means "Savages" and refers to most of the Celts of the Briton Isle. But there are many similarities between all Celts; Gallic (Gauls) and Gaels, the differences were mainly language and some customs.
Interestingly, the Romans called all the unconquered (and conquered) peoples/tribes of Europe, "Celts." The word "Celt" meant "Stranger" in Latin. Even people of northern Italy were called Celtic during the early stages of the Roman Republic; i.e. Milan is originally a Celtic name. It is very hard to know exactly where any of these ancient groups came from, but the word "Celt" orginially came from the Greek word "Keltoi" meaning Barbarian and they as well as the Romans, put this name on anybody that was uncivilized and living outside of the Empire... so the name "Celt" was placed onto a lot of different groups/tribes of people. In Irish, Gaelic is interchangeable with Celtic/Celt. Hence the easy confusion between the different peoples called Gallic and Gaelic, the former refers to Western Europe and the latter refers to those of the Briton Isle.
With the arrival of my two packages from England (Warlord UK - http://www.warlordgames.com), I've begun to think about how I'm going to model the enemy facing off against the 2nd Cohort, 8th Legion and other attached Roman forces. I'm focusing on the Gallic Celts of what is today, France and Belguim (then known as Gaul). The Warlord figures are mostly the plastic variant of 28mm and seem nicely made. And numerous metal minis are included. Overall they seem well done as minis and will match well with my excellent Roman minis from Aventine UK.
