Second Early Byzantine Torsion Engine Added

I keep wanting to call the Torsion Engines Bolt Thowers, which they might well described as, but the image conjured up in my mind is that of my 1980's Citadel Orc and Goblin army which it does not sit well with my idea of an Early Byzantine force! 😅

As you can see the second in a series of four Torsion Engines is now complete. I am not suite sure what is is but out of all the Early Byzantine units I have painted up so far I think I have have enjoyed painting the Torsion Engines and the command bases the most. Certainly being able to play around with the composition and interaction of the miniatures has been a big part. I suspect that getting a unit table ready at speed, four miniatures per unit as opposed to 24, makes the four miniatures a strong candidate for such indulgent pleasure. I have a particular penchant for vignette style basing that dates back to when the Perry's released their metal Agincourt to Orleans range in metal, long before the plastics were available. 

All the images are "clickable" and the files are large, very large in some cases vis a vis it is a case of warts and all. I am pleased to say that I managed to avoid the varnishing annoyance in the unit painted prior to this one.

The Torsion Engines together in a battery; two thus far but four planned for the whole army. Who knows, it may be even more by the time I am finished!! I have painted the Engineers in the colours of the two Unarmoured Legions tunics painted thus far, off white/red and green/yellow respectively. I now have plans for four Unarmoured Legions and the next two bases of war machines will reflect the uniforms as they do in the picture below.

Lastly, just a quick picture (and a very large file!) to show how the uniforms of the Legion reflect that of the Engineers on the base.

Second Unarmoured Early Byzantine Unit Close Ups

 

I really surprised myself by managing to get up very early this morning and taking the rest of the close ups after only managing the first two bases yesterday- the lure of painting my new Boukellaroi/Bucellarri was too strong to resist yesterday! This is going to give me time to keep working away at the beautifully sculpted Boukellaroi/Bucellarri later today.

If you look closely at some of the images you will notice that there has been some sort of reaction between the Humbrol Gloss Spray and the Windsor and Newton Matt Pro Spray. I usually use Humbrol brush on Enamel as it is easy to control thus I'm wondering if this might have been down to possible "pooling" of the gloss with the spray? If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear from you as I really want to avoid a repeat of the problem. You can either leave a message for me by leaving a comment of contact me through the email facility on the blog.

The images are all "clickable" so you can really dig in if that is your thing. There is also a brief description of how I wanted the models to mesh with one another above some of the images.

The moment in a melee where the highest ranking officer in the unit has been forced into the unenviable position of having to take his place in the front rank in order to hold the unit together. Perhaps the standard bearer is gesturing to a possible flank attack?

Here the musician blasts out a specific note to indicate to the officer placed in the back rank (see below) to order the archers to loose.

The stand in the back rank officer moments after he has heard the blast of the "horn" to indicate that he needs to order the archers to loose.

Second Unarmoured Early Byzantine Skutatoi Unit Complete.

 

Happily I now have the second unit of Unarmoured Early Byzantine Skutatoi complete. I decided to stick with the test models with the green and yellow from my earlier Unarmoured Skutatoi Unit Two- Experiment with Different Colour Schemes post for the basics on the tunics and trousers, though it was suggested that there was a striking resemblance to Norwich City's football kit! I'm not much of a soccer aficionado so I can assure you that any resemblance is purely coincidental! As a life long native of the North, be that Scotland or the NE of England it did make me chuckle! 

The miniatures are, like the rest of my Justinian era army thus far, all from mighty Aventine Miniatures.

I has some problems with the varnish. I tried a tin of Humbrol Gloss Enamel Spray to see if it could help speed up the varnishing process but after leaving the unit for the requisite week for the gloss to fully go off, when it came to matting down with the usual Windsor and Newton Artists Professional Matt Varnish there an unusual interaction between the two opposite layers. Disappointing as I tend to be very anal about these things but not to the extent where I was particularly worried about the unit making an (eventual!) appearance on the wargames table. I'm not sure if I got a bad batch of the Humbrol Gloss or whether it is best to avoid using a gloss spray altogether in the future thus I would be very interested in hearing what experiences any of you may have had. I may yet just return to the brush on version but if I have missed a trick it would be interesting to find out what that might be(?). I intend to take some close ups of the bases so if anyone has any ideas about how the two layers of varnish might have interacted the annoying results will be clearer in those pictures. Probably in my next post. 

As the army has now reached 108 miniatures, not including commands and war machines, I am hoping to get some  shots of the army in its entirety in the very near future. I still have not managed to get my damn wargames table put up yet. It is still buried under a whole heap of stuff, most of which needs chucking away. I really need to pull my finger out! 

So, without further ado, here are the pics taken of the completed unit:

Eye Level:

The units commander has had to resort to moving into the thick of it in the front rank of the unit. Perhaps reflecting the desperation of the moment? This being the first time I have placed an officer in the front rank of any of my Byzantine units.

The officer at the back with the white shield was included to add a bit of interest but also to echo officer in the back rank of the Extra Heavy Infantry/Dismounted Bucellarri in an earlier addition to the army. He stands proudly as the plebs loose their arrows! 

Higher Angle: