I have just completed the first unit of my new-old Late Roman Army, a Legio Comittensis: Lanciarii Gallienci Honoriani which I chose all those years ago for its striking but fairly easily painted shield pattern.
As mentioned before, although the consensus interpretation now is that 4th-5th Century Roman legionaries and auxiliaries most likely wore mail armour in battle, these old 1980s figures were based very closely on Phil Barker / WRG's Armies and Enemies of Ancient Rome which settled on moulded leather armour for legionaries and nothing for auxiliaries. It states that surviving colour images of such legionary armour show it as a yellow-brown, the same as the (presumably leather) pteruges. I used a mix of Valejo golden brown (actually a warm yellow ochre) with a touch of red leather to depict this, as much because that gives an attractive warm colour as for any historical logic.
Back in the mists of time, I had two legionary units painted before the project stalled. Each had 13 figures with a short spear, an officer, trumpeter, aquilifer and 8 archers. My legionary units for Mortem et Gloriam would need 20 figures with spear but no archers so I had to paint some extra figures.
Although this unit was the first to be finished, I actually started on another Legio Comittensis - Secunda Britannica - which hit some problems. With the intention of getting the Secunda Britannica finished quickly, I gave it most of the old painted spearmen so the Lanciarii Gallienci Honoriani started with only 6 Minifigs legionaries, an aquilifer, an officer and a trumpeter. In the lead pile I had some Gladiator Miniatures officers which I think are better figures than their Minifigs counterparts so I painted one of those too.
To get a consistent look with the old and newly painted figures, I decided to repaint all the shields and helmets, give the armour a wash (of Army Painter Strong Tone ink) and re-highlight and finally repaint the legs to look like trousers / leggings rather than 3/4 length shorts with classic roman sandals.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Gladiator Miniatures shields are much smaller than those of the Minifigs Legionaries so I filed the cast shield right down and made a new one from brass sheet with a Milliput centre boss. My Milliput sculpting was a bit rough but I smoothed it down with some fine sandpaper when it was fully cured and, under the paint, it isn't noticeable.
At the time I was doing these I wasn't aware of the shield transfers from Little Big Men but I prefer paint, where possible, and I'm not sure if they would have fitted as they are apparently designed for Legio Heroica or Khurasan shields. This design is quite easy but I'll definitely be using transfers for some of the more complicated designs involving eagles or faces.
I started with a base coat of Vallejo khaki grey then painted 16 very fine radial lines with a mix of Plaka green and some black before filling these in to give 8 dark green segments. Inevitably some of these don't turn out at equally spaced as one might hope so I thinned some slightly by over-painting the edges with the khaki grey again until I was satisfied. I painted a white circle in the centre to act as undercoat for the yellow. Next I filled in the centre with Vallejo deep yellow. The 'white' segments are a first highlight of Iraqi sand then Ivory and the green segments are the Plaka green - it is a brighter (and therefore less likely to be historically accurate!) colour than any of the Vallejo greens I have. the small red circle is dark vermillion, highlighted with a bit of ivory mixed in.
With hindsight, I regret not stripping the paint right off and starting again. I don't think it would have taken much longer and would have avoided some of the compromises, like losing detail over too many layers of paint and obvious bits of the old paint job - the trumpeter's face, for example, but they all blend in well enough at normal viewing distances and I'm pleased with the overall effect.
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