As I had a grand total of 3 of the Pendraken mounted officers I stuck two to coins to be my Tribunes and then made a little vignette for my Legate. It is just a coin built up to a mound with pink foam, and the normal mounted officer figure with a centurion and a standard bearer. I cut off the normal unit standard and drilled out the bearer's hands, made a simple banner frame from florists' wire and then a square banner from brass sheets, which I got by cleaning and cutting up a tomato puree tube! I finally stuck the very top of the unit standard (the hand) onto the top of the frame. The figures themselves were not painted in any special way that was different to the rank and file. The only difference was the banner that was painted free-hand with a 00 brush.
These are the veteran legion, but are painted in the same way as the normal legion. I free-hand painted the shield design to add a little "pop" to the figures. I've varied the design across the 6 units I've painted up. These (the 1st Cohort) have 4 diagonal "horns" painted at each corner and then a single vertical line through the middle of the shield. The second and third cohorts have 2 and 3 vertical lines respectively. The 4th have a single vertical wavy line, the 5th a double vertical wavy line, and finally the 6th have a single and single horizontal wavy line. This helps me tell the units apart on the battle field.
The two Tribunes - one on a black horse, one on a white.
Medium or heavy cavalry, as these models are larger I tried to add a bit of variety to them by painting on markings on the horses, if you look really carefully you can see some have blazes or stars on their nose (2nd from left, front row) , and some have white "socks" (3rd from left, front row, left front leg). It was quite quick to add and I let the mood take me, if I was too messy with a star, it became a blaze, or a full white face for example.
A close up of the 1st Cohort command unit. I painted the animal furs on the musician and standard bearer as leopard, to add a certain prestige to the unit! It was actually fairly easy, just painted the yellow colour as normal (base coat and brown wash), then adding 3 black spots with a brush tip in a regular pattern.
Unfortunately the Onager model I got cheap was incomp
lete. Well I assume it was incomplete, but as there are so few pictures of Pendraken models, and no assembly instructions I just assumed it was incomplete! I've since seen this model put together completely differently, so I could be wrong! There were only 2 parts the base frame and then a 3 point frame. I studied the Onagers in Rome:Total War and also looked up some sketches on the internet of Roman Onagers, and built a throwing arm from plasticard tubing, then used a small bit of bent wire in the end and made a rope and throwing cup from greenstuff and twisted brass wire. God knows if it is a correctly put together model, historically accurate, or physically plausible! But it looks pretty cool, and to be honest that is my main aim.My long-term plans for this army are to buy some Triarii and use them as veteran legions in my Imperial List, but also be able to use them as Triarii in a Republican Roman List, just proxying my Imperial Legion figures for Princeps or whatever. As its 10mm and they are nicely painted I hope to never have the misfortune to come across someone for whom that would be a problem to play against. ;)
Thanks for looking and I hope to have some pictures of Carthage soon.
