28mm Heruls / Heruli cavalry for my Early Byzantine army

 Hello guys!

After a year without any posts about my late antiquity collection, now is the turn of a little update, a couple of bases of Herul cavalry, for my Belisarius army, based for Impetus.

My plan is to complete my Early Byzantine army of Belisarius at the battle of Dara, 530 d.c. and there was a Herul contingent commanded by Pharas "the Herulian", one of the commanders of Belisarius.

These horsemen were painted a long time ago (2014!), but never placed them on bases. Also my painting style have changed a little bit since I painted them.

Appart from being my Herul foederati, they also can be almost any generic germanic cavalry from III d.c.-VI d.c. in my opinion.

The miniatures are a mixture of Gripping Beast metals, some Crusader and Westwind.

The Heruli were often mentioned during the times of Justinian, who used them in his extensive military campaigns in many countries including Italy, Syria, and North Africa. The afordmentioned Pharas was a notable Herulian commander during this period. Several thousand Heruli served in the personal guard of Belisarius throughout the campaigns, and Narses also recruited from them. They were a participant in the Byzantine-Sasanian wars, such as the Battles of Dara or Anglon.

I used this miniatures because all the illustrations and reconstructions, like the previous one, I have seen so far, depict Heruls as (mostly) unarmored horse lancers.

In further post I will show here the complete Early Byzantine army I have so far for the battle of Dara 530 dc.

Terrain month: 28mm Artillery position

 Hello mates,

I read on Twitter that October was indeed #Terraintober, a month in which a wargamer should paint a piece of scenery, so I thought about my half built earthworks that have been laying around for months and started working on that unfinished project (from a long list of unfinished projects!).

So here it is, I just have finished the artillery position from scratch, made of expanded polystyrene, beach sand, wooden stirring sticks /balsa wood and Renedra's plastic gabions. I added Warfare Miniatures  "Chevaux de Frisie" and also some bits from good old Warhammer 6th edition Empire cannon.

It has been a pretty easy project, with just some basic airbrush and drybrush paintjob.

 

I added also some static grass because the whole thing seemed a littled boring to me, just in earthy brown tones. Also the details here and there break the monotony. 

the building was easy and fun, although not as quick as I initially thought, because of the 2 part plastic gabions. I built the artillery position before getting my 3d printed gabions... So next time I build earthworks, I will use my 3D printed gabions and my recently ordered Avanpost positions !

For the sand, I mixed PVA glue with beach sand from my area, and art store cheap brown paint and covered the whole thing (but the gabions and wood!) then just I airbrushed the main colours with Vallejo paints thinned with airbrush thinner (Ammo Mig) and It worked perfectly, the Vallejo Model Color range is fully "airbrushable" I recommend it for terrain and big things.

Here is the finish result with different miniatures just  to give an idea of the size 

I hope you like it !