On the Painting Tray: February 2014

A dozen Aventine Thracian foot and 144 North African infantry.  I will be needing some generic massed infantry from North Africa for the next phase of our ongoing club campaign - basically, medium foot to bulk out the armies.  They will see service for Carthage in the 3rd Punic War, and can also be used for Numidians and various other North African contingents up to and including the revolt of Tacfarinas, although that is a while away.  I think I'll also be able to use them for the First Servile War in Sicily, which broke out not all that long after the final demise of Carthage - basically, I'm assuming that most of the slaves will North African in origin.

I'm using Companion Miniatures figures for the rank and file, Gripping Beast for the command, and Wargames Factory for casualties.  I know that the Numidians were in fact relatively lightly skinned, unlike the popular conception, but since these are going to be used for various nationalities I'm painting them a deep desert tan colour, a sort of light nut brown.  Definitely no deep chocolate browns for skin here.  Hair will be shades of medium to dark brown, with some black.  Clothing will be a range of greens and off-whites, with browns and some grey for animal skins.  The Companion Miniatures guys came with small round shields because they were meant to be light infantry, but since they will form a battle line of sorts I bought larger Gripping Beast scuta and LBMS transfers for them.  These are plain white with palm trees of various sorts on them.  The good thing is they will be relatively easy to paint!