Saga: AoH Celtiberians

I love Mark Copplestone sculpts and have been waiting for an opportunity to use his Gauls and Iberians that were sculpted as allies to Wargames Foundry’s Cesarean Romans.
Working around the packs available (with a few additions from Crusader and Gripping Beast), I’ve come up with this list:

Warlord (both mounted and foot versions) (Crusader and Gripping Beast)
4 Mounted Hearthguard (using Gallic heavy cavalry)
8 Mounted Iberian Warriors
8 Mounted Gallic Warriors
8 Iberian Foot Warriors
8 Gallic Foot Warriors
8 Celt-Iberian Foot Warriors (Crusader Minis)
8 Balearic Slingers

Enough variety here for 6 points with options including making sure 12 are javelin armed to use together as Levy. Here they are already prepped:

I’ve varied my usual undercoat of white zenith over black or grey. This time I’ve gone sand colour basecoat with a heavy white zenith. I’m hoping this will look like unbleached linen and not need any more painting. Colours used were Badger Stynylrez Neutral Yellow Primer and White Primer

Here is the Ruse card that I’m using as the concept behind the force which has allowed the mixture of Gallic and Iberian miniatures:

First point on the board.  Balearic slingers.  They are half Warlord Games (with cloaks) and half Crusader miniatures (without cloaks).  Speedpaint but a bit of extra to match the Warlord figures who had already been painted and were debased from a Swordpoint unit to go on individual based for this SAGA force.

Method:

Over the basedcoat already shown I highlighted with Bone White and then filled in an Elf Flesh based skintone and picked out accessories with either Vallejo  Light Rust or Japanese Uniform WWII (an olive yellow).  Soft Tone Dip and Mr Hobby Matt spray to finish.

Bases are sand and small stones scatter painted Vallejo Earth and highlighted Vallejo Bonewhite.  Then Woodland Scenics flock scatter in patches and some Tajima tufts; Gold, Gold Extra Long, Straw and Brown.

The Swordpoint unit I raided the Warlord minis from has been filled out with the duplicate Crusader poses.  Much better now here too:

Here are the choices for the colour scheme.  The rear row are the base tone ands the front row the matching highlight.  I’m planning on leaving a lot of the linen colour that I have from my air brushed zenith primer.  These colours will feature as stripes over the linen.  I’m hoping for a celt-ish look that fits with the Iberian aesthetic.

This is based partly on wanting to be different from my Gauls who are primary red, green and blue colours.  This time I’ve based the scheme on some shades of madder, the red dye which was widely grown across the Celtic world.  Here are some modern swatches showing colour variants, I’m interested in the lighter tones as I see these as representing the sun bleaching effect of the hotter Iberian climate.

Celtiberian warriors wearing clothes dyed using madder could look like this:

Finished half of the warriors.  Particularly proud of the tattoo freehand work.  Mark Copplestone designed Gallic warriors in Foundry’s Cesarean Roman range.

Also did some Crusader Miniatures Celtiberian spearmen who are armoured.  They will be suitable as warriors in the Iberian/Celtiberian force but could serve as foot Hearthguard for a Gallic force.  SAGA allows a small force to provide very good flexibility.

Another unit of warriors finished.  These are the Iberian horsemen.  LBMS transfers on the larger shields.  Can’t remember who made the smaller bronze bucklers which came out of the bits box, but this studed style is found in the archaeological finds.

Finished off another batch including the other four of the Crusader Miniatures Celtiberians.  They now make up another unit of 8 Warriors.

Foundry Copplestone designed Iberian Caetrati.  Either another 8 warriors or can be used alongside some of the Crusader Celtiberains to create a 12 man unit of Levy with Javelins.  I love the range of poses offered here.  Shields are using LMBS transfers, I put some small slits around the centrally punched hole to fit over the larger bosses on these minis.  This means the decal runs up the sides of the boss so I only painted the top half metal colours, cool.

Also did a leader from a Gripping Beast set.  He doesn’t fit onto the Warlord on foot base so I’ve done him separately.

The Hearthguard in this warband are these Gallic cavalry. Copplestone designed models for Foundry. Shields are Crusader and a couple of plastic ones which were Wargames Factory all with LMBS transfers. Please check the descriptions in earlier entries for the painting guides and colours used.
Only one unit and the command bases left ?

This Warlord and his companion standard bearer are from Crusader Miniatures.

Warlord on foot by Crusader with champion and standard bearer by Gripping Beast.  Not normally a fan of dramatic blood effects but I couldn’t resist on this occassion.  Celts were noted for head hunting by many ancient sources.

Only one unit to go which is 8 Celt warrior cavalry.  I’m most of the way there now and should have finishing touches sorted by the end of the weekend.  I’m out of varnish though so I hope my regular supplier has some in stock.

Last unit complete 🙂  Here are the 8 Gallic Mounted Warriors.  They are all Wargames Foundry sculpts with a mixture of Crusader and Gripping Beast shields with LBMS transfers.  Painted and based in the same style detailed in earlier posts.

Really excited to play a game.  My friend is still working on his Republican Romans.  He stil has 1 1/2 units to go.

I’ll shoot a video of the whole force and that will be the final post.  Thanks for looking in.  I’ve very much enjoyed this project.

A quick look at the finished force together.

6pts options from either:

Warlord either Mounted or Foot
4 Mounted Hearthguard
2x 8 Mounted Warriors
3x 8 Foot Warriors
8 Balearic Slinger Mercenaries

Or

Warlord either Mounted or Foot
4 Mounted Hearthguard
4 Foot Hearthguard
2x 8 Mounted Warriors
1x 8 Foot Warriors
1x 12 Javelin Levy
8 Balearic Slinger Mercenaries