New 28mm Project: The Palmyrene Armies of Odaenathus and Zenobia (260–272 AD)

 Hi guys,

After finishing several armies over the years, I’ve decided to start a new 28mm project,  one that bridges my love for Roman history and the dramatic story of Palmyra’s rise and fall.

This time, I’m building a mixed Roman–Palmyrene army from the mid–3rd century, representing the forces of Odaenathus of Palmyra in his campaigns against the Sassanid Persians, and later, those of Queen Zenobia and General Zabdas during their rebellion against Aurelian’s Roman Empire (circa 260–272 AD).

It’s a fascinating period: the Roman East in turmoil, after the capture of Valerian...  legions mixing with desert cavalry, cataphracts, Camels and archers from the great caravan city of Palmyra. The project lets me explore both sides of this conflict, since I already have a painted Sassanid army and a half–finished Roman force from the 3rd century, perfect opponents for the new troops.

The miniatures come mainly from A&A miniatures, Wargames Atlantic, both in plastic (Romans) and 3D resin, with some excellent additions from Blitzkrieg Miniatures. I plan to base them for Hail Caesar and Impetus, two of my favorite rulesets for large ancient battles.

The plan is to build the Palmyrene army in stages , starting with the Romanized core under Odaenathus, then expanding into the later “Empire of the East” phase under Zenobia, with more Eastern cavalry, archers, and cataphracts.

I hope to see both armies clashing on the tabletop soon.

III century 3rd legionary unit.

 

Hi guys,

I have been working on a third century legionary unit. For this unit, I have exclusively used plastic and 3d printed resin miniatures, both from Wargames Atlantic, plus a couple of plastic Gripping Beast bodies.

I'm very pleased with the quality of the Wargames Atlantic Digital sculpts, specifically the chainmail hoods and Lorica Segmentata bodies are very well done and researched in my opinion.

The shields have a "Relic Miniatures" decal sheet  used on them, I really like the design that this Canadian company has made, so I placed an order from Spain and it arrived quickly and without any problems.

The unit is based for Impetus, because I love this basing system, but I also play Hail Caesar.

I painted the unit by airbrushing dark metal vallejo paint all over the primed miniatures,  then basecoated all the colors, washes and highlights using the good old triad method with Foundry Paints and Vallejo. After that, I applied Ultra matt varnish with brush in all the non metal parts.

This is my "army" so far, 3 heavy infantry bases, I also need archers, mid and heavy cavalry, a general, Praetorians, Palestine clubmen, Palmyrene dromedarii...  so a lot of work to do, besides my many other projects.

I hope you like this little update.

III century Romans: Legio II Parthica

 Hello guys,

After a looooooooooong stop, I painted another unit for my 3rd century Roman army.

Middle Imperial Romans are one of my favorite armies, they have a mixture of early and late antiquity features, chainmail (lorica hamata) and segmented armor (lorica segmentata),  spears and pilum,  gladius substituted by spathae... Old style Gallic helmets with newer designs like Niederbieber helmet, oval shields and rectangular shields/scutum. So very interesting and funny to convert!

It is also an era with lots of wars and even more enemies, being the most famous the Sassanians, Palmyrans, Goths (well, barbarians in general) and frecuently, Romans vs. Romans. 

It is an army that can play conflicts from Marcus Aurelius to Diocletian, roughly 100 years, If you are not a "button counter" of course. So lots of flexibility in my humble opinion.

Here is the first post about III century Roman miniatures in the blog:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2022/02/3rd-century-romans-project.html

Now my second unit fully painted and based: Legio Secunda Parthica:

                                   

Miniatures are a mixture of A & A miniatures with plastic Wargames Atlantic miniatures, which are very easy to paint and well sculpted. 

The most boring part was  hand painting all the shields, following the design of Legio II Parthica, at least in all the illustrations I have seen, you can see some in the previous post about 3rd century Romans here in the blog.

I added some 3d printed bits like some helmets , like the officer in the front rank, and a miniature in the back row.

I hope you like these little legionaries!

3rd Century Romans project

 Hello guys,

I have a semi abandoned project since 2015 or so...  The III Century Crisis / Middle Imperial Romans. But now, I got some inspiration and started again the project. 

Recently I bought Wargames Atlantic new "Late Romans" plastic miniatures, but they are indeed Mid to Late Romans, so I decided to use the box for my now resurrected project, and also for my other Roman army (Late/Patrician).

I had already a bunch of excellent A&A Armorum & Aquila miniatures, almost the whole army, although unpainted. My idea is to use them for Impetus or Hail Caesar, and I have a lead pile that consists of 4 legionaries unit, 2 Lanciarii or Auxiliares, 1 Unit of armoured archers, 1 unit of equites and some extras.

It is not my top priority project, but I will slowly be building up this army to fight against my Sassanids or even fight between themselves, as III century Romans often did !

I show you here the first unit I painted a while ago,  A&A Miniatures, with Littlebigmen transfers, based on the design of scutum/shield found at Dura Europos.

And now some test models of Wargames Atlantic and A&A miniatures with other design of scutum with Littlebigmen transfer, and with a hand painted shield of Legio II Parthica.

Here you have some artwork by several painters of the shield design I have used for this new legion :)