Gangs of Rome – A Return to the Hobby

My Roman builders have actually completed a building!

They started with some textured wallpaper for the cobblestone effect.

I used Army painter soft tone and dark tone essentially as a wash.  With a matt varnish spray to take the shine off the paper  The only appropriate paper I could find had a bit of a shine to it.

For the walls I used a technique that somebody at the club that I play at recommended. Use wood filler mixed with some water to get a toothpaste like consistency. Paint that onto your walls, wait a while then use a sponge to take some of it off and give it a rough looking plaster effect.

I have done a quick coat on the roof of fur brown – so that its ready to play. But I will be doing some roof tiles next

I wanted the plaster to be a rough plaster on the columns – I like the idea that my Roman builders are the original cowboy builders and just throwing up buildings as fast as possible to make a fast denarii.

4ground’s light red tiles added to the roof.

This is set-up for one of the scenarios of the game.  One gang has to get their dominus from the centre to the left or the right edge – straight through the other gang.

I must have a done a lot right in this game – I managed to escort my dominus to one edge, wipe out the entire other gang and only loose one of my fighters.

The Gods were kind that day.

Things seemed to be going my way here.  But that only lasted for a moment – I was charged in the rear and my final two gang fighters were killed off before killing anyone else.

But in this game reversals seem to be common.  In one game I had a fighter blended and hidden within a mob.  Another fighter behind that mob.  My cunning plan was to have the blended fighter jump out a deal out a devastating attack on one of my opponent’s gang members.  Then have the fighter behind the mob attack the mob sending it trampling in a mad panic over another one my opponent’s fighters.

However my blended fighter’s attack was a bit of a damp squib – he took more damage than he gave out.  The mob panicked and ran over my other fighter killing him.  His two gang fighters then made short work of my fighter.  At that point I was down to two fighters against his four.  But I still managed to win with my last attack being to throw his last fighter off a building for him to plummet onto the construction site below.

Rome begins to come together – sarissa precision – are doing some amazing scenery for this game.  I like the under construction buildings.  It feels like Rome is a living breathing city, always changing.

My painting for this terrain is fairly simple (the intent here to have something that looked decent to play on):

1. For all the wood I have used a dark brown weathering spray
2. For the walls I have primed with skeleton bone and then gone over in partial streaky coat of white.
3. I have then used a stippling effect on the wooden scaffolding for the paint left behind by countless Roman workers.

Again using Gerry’s technique for painting stone.  I primed this fountain in grey.  Then using some different colour chalks that I purchased from a local supermarket, which I broke up using a mortar and pestle and army painter quick shade.  I created the stone effect of the photo.

I like how some of the chalk has been too big to dissolve into the quickshade and looks like a loose stones.

I purchased some realistic water by woodland scenics for the water effect and found this simple to use.  Just pour in to create a thin layer, use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles you see, leave for 24hours for it to dry and repeat, until the water is as deep as you want it to be.

I also let it go over the sides in places to make it look like water had been splashed onto the sides of the fountain.

Watching the coverage on Beasts of War’s Wolsung Boot camp I came across how Gerry paints cobblestone bases (well pretty much anything stone). Here’s a link to the video https://www.beastsofwar.com/liveblogentry/painting-cobblestone-bases-flash/#snav. There’s a more detailed video that Gerry does on some Fogou scenery on the old forum (which I can’t link to at the moment).

I liked the technique for its speed and how easy it seemed so I had a go.

My painting skills are adequate for getting minatures painted and ready for the table.  I am essentially using the Army Painter method.  So:

1. Prime
2. Base colours
3. Quickshade
4. Matt Spray
5. A little dry brushing

I really like this miniature – the old, bald, grizzled gang fighter. You can just imagine him giving the new, young up and coming gang members sage advice. That they all ignore.

Stuff begins to arrive. I wanted cobblestone bases. But essentially being new to the hobby. I hadn’t really got any idea how to do this. In these circumstances google is your friend. After some searching I purchased a razor saw, some rolling pins and green stuff from greenstuffworld and following someone’s tutorial on how to remove bases. greenstuffworld’s tutorials on how to use their rolling pins I have based most of my miniatures

I saw a weekender where Gerry was talking about this new game coming, a 28mm skirmish game, with random fighters, set in Rome, where the Mobs of Rome would play a part.  I was hooked.  So I pre-ordered a two player starter set, some Mobs, some scenery and waited for my new shiny stuff to arrive.