Wargames Factory Numidians - part I

Okay, lets see if I can write a more lucid report than last time.

I spent a little bit of time putting together two units out of a package of WF Numidians this weekend, and wanted to report on it.

First of all, organization. I am doing two units of skirmishers for Warhammer Ancient Battles with these figures, but in order to maximize usefulness I will base them on WRG basing (two figures to a 60mmX30mm base). Each unit will have 14 figures in it.

I chose to model a standard bearer, leader (with sword) and musician as part of each unit. That left 11 skirmishers in addition. For the first unit I chose slings as their main weapon, and for the second unit I chose the bow that comes in the package.

My leaders and musicians were identical. I chose the ornate helmeted head, as well as a sword for the leader. I chose an unhelmeted head for all other figures in the unit, and the musician is given the curved metallic horn. For the standard bearer, there are two ornated poles in the set (presumably unit standards). I used these, unmodified. The more ornate one (for no particular reason) with the disc and the crescent, I gave to the archer unit. The other one (with the "horsetail") I gave to the slinger unit.

I chose a variety of arms and arm poses for the warriors of each unit, and also the heads are all at different angles. It took me only a few hours to clean and glue together all 28 figures - not much more than it would have taken to sort and clean a similar number of lead/tin figures.

The next step (painting) gave me a bit of a quandary. I could have taken a couple of routes, but I'll describe the one I did.

In order to paint figures this scale, I usually will mount them on popsicle sticks with a dot of white glue, and then remove the finished figures to glue to bases. This might have worked, but with the plastic figures, I was unsure. So I have glued them directly to the bases (which is quite spacious, since they are on WRG light infantry style basing). I will proceed to spray and paint them on those bases, and then decorate the bases once the figures are completed.

My next steps are to spray the figures black, dry brush them white (my usual technique) and then paint in all the detail layers over that. I'll report back when I am finishes (and will test my photo skills to see if they have improved).

ps- note, the term Nubian was not used once in this article.

Tags: numidians