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Painted: The army of Spartacus with figures from various manufacturers

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A few years ago (2019 to be exact) I won an unpainted army in a raffle at the L'Art de la Guerre Worlds in Rome. The figures were from Italian manufacturer Strategia Nova, and the prize was actually an Arab army, however as I have Arab figures in abundance I asked the guy who'd provided them if I could swap for a different army. And, of the ones he had, the Slave Revolt army of Spartacus looked like the best bet

I'm...

After all, it's not an army that was really even feasible to collect in previous rulesets (with much larger figure counts), it's never going to win any competitions but it is still as cool as hell, so really you do need to own one at some point in your life, and so the chance to get most of the figures for free seemed too good to pass up on

The figures languished in the painting pile for a few years, not even reaching the top of the heap during Lockdown - but, with a choice of them or starting a 28mm all-options Successor plastic force as my two options at the end of 2022 the army of Spartacus made it finally (after being topped up with a few Forged in Battle and other spares-box remnants) onto the painting table.

As I often do, I started by basing the chaps up on lolly sticks and undercoating them. The idea was to try a black undercoat with an Azimuth spray of white from above to try and give a dark/light pre-highlighted base for using a lot of Contrast paints

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The azimuth technique didn't really work as planned and I ended up with a kinda grey/white/dark grey semi-highlighted result. (I now suspect it needs an airbrush, not a spray can, to generate the speed of paint spray to miss the undercuts

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

To get a bit more contrast in the base layer I then "wet-drybrushed" the figures with white to pick out the highlights again to make the Contrast paints work better

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The initial stage was to do a test stick, finishing a handful of figures before starting the full process. For this army I also resolved to paint faces - something I'd always left to the ink wash to do on my behalf. This involved covering all of the flash areas with aDarkoath Flesh Contrast paint and then putting on noses, cheeks, a chin and sometimes (where the figure allowed it) a forehead and even occasionally a top lip.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

This proved - once I got the hang of it - far easier and more effective than I had ever expected, and soon there were lots of little faces staring back at me from the paint table

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Around 1/3 of the figures were actual Gladiators, and I had not asimuth sprayed them, instead leaving them in pure black undercoat as they had a lot of armour which I always do with a drybrush over black.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Doing the painting on lolly sticks does mean you can mass produce them with a stick all done in the same colour tunics - they then get mixed up when they are based

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The basing was using pre-cut MDF bases from Pendraken (the best value in bulk I've been able to find)

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

I then added sand as the first step in my "new standard" sand, woodstain, drybrush finish. The rest of my Classical era armies are based using pale sand-coloured wood filler, but as this is a stand alone army with no real opportunity to morph the figures into any other Classical era force I decided that these would be based like all of my newer Dark age and Medieval figures, as I now prefer this look and feel anyway.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The use of a woodstain darkens the sand, but also evens out the tone a lot. Once its dry you can then add a couple of levels of drybrushing to pick out the texture and lighten the look and feel. I use Bleached Bone and a very pale grey as the two drybrush levels

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

And, with some static grass, tufts and a few flowers here and there, here is the full army!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

I picked up a pack of Foundry Gladiators to use as Heroic-sized larger than life generals to round off the complete force.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

And now, some lightbox photos - first up some Unarmed Slaves, with the odd Gladiator figure sneaking in to stiffen their resolve

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Unarmed Slaves, these are nearly all Strategia Nova, but there is a Xyston dude on one of the bases as well, somewhat towering over his shorter and chubbier felly liberated individuals too

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

These are medium foot Armed Slaves, using a pack of Forged in Battle infantry and Escaped Gladiators, and a fair few Strategia Nova gladiators too

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Some of the faces on these got a bit lost as the FiB figures don't have such clear features as the S&T ones

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

There are a handful of pseudo-Roman shield designs here, done by painting black stripes with thin white lines over the top of them. To get the yellow colour I then painted over the whole shield with Iyanden Yellow contrast paint - painting any normal yellow onto black I find just doesn't work

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The chequered pattern looks better at 3 feet!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The Roman-style patterns can be seen pretty clearly here

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The laurel wreath pattern is just a part-circle of black dots, with white dots on top of them and then a wash of Warp Lighting green


Not a bad effect really for a super simple design - especially on 15mm

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Gladiators with black undercoat. I can see now I've missed a face on a guy at the back - the advantage of taking lots of photos!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The net guys I'm not totally convinced about, but if you don't do a black undercoat the "net" wont be so obvious.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

From the back.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Spartacus himself, on a horse leading his Gladiators into combat

Clearly in an actual ADLG game having an included Strategist General would be insane, so I suspect this chap will end up being one of the minor characters not the actual start of the film!

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

A different view of the chin

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Not totally sure how happy Kirk would be about this representation, but it does look better at tabletop distances!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Here's two of the 28mm Commanders.

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

And from the back as well

This paint style isn't quite a suitable for 28mm figures IMO, but I wanted to keep it consistent across the army

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Everyone needs a commander in a Gimp Mask

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The Main man himself - slightly squinty, and having stolen Sid James' outfit from Carry on Cleo apparently too

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

And from the back

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

There's a possibility I may decide to go back and try and add some eyes to him at a later stage, but it often ends up not helping

At least his face has a lot of personality - if perhaps not the personalit yof a great and inspirational leader of men!

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Slingers - some S&T ones, supplemented by a few Essex and Museum Gallic ones that I liberated from the bits box as they were surplus to requirements in my ADLG armies

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Some very obvious musculature on show here

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

More revolting peasants

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ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

The Contrast paints on a black/white background have worked really well on these guys IMO

Aggaros Dunes is the mucky brown one, which is especially good for these figures.

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

More peasants. I do really like the ex member of Saxon at the front - he should have a long necked bass guitar instead of a pitchfork really

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

There are all sorts of figures in here - a Spartacus army is a great way to soak up some junk lead.

As well as Gladiators and Peasants I can spot some LKM Velites, and Xyston Greek hammiopoi too

Spartacus!!

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

Another closeup showing shield designs on the Heavy Foot warriors

ADLG, The army of Spartacus: various manufacturers, 15mm

And, that's your lot.. unless you want to watch it all again on YouTube ?


That's the end - so why not go back to the Links Page and find some more stuff?


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