Late Roman Cataphracts

 

This unit started with three packs of Minifigs figures from the 1980s. Whilst the scale-armoured horses were quite well proportioned, the riders looked thin and decidedly un-menacing - certainly not the look one wants for a unit of cataphracts! 

The Asgard range that came along soon after had the opposite problem with much more imposing riders but perched on overgrown Shetland ponies with stubby little legs, 2 or 3mm shorter than those from Minifigs. I decided to mix and match but got no further than painting the first half dozen before the project stalled.

At some later point I bought a pack of Gladiator Games command figures with a couple of nice mail-armoured horses but riders that matched neither Minifigs nor Asgard figures.

When I picked up this army again I bought another pack of Minifigs for the horses - with a different rider to the original 80s version - and some more Asgard riders, now from Alternative Armies, who were kind enough to sell me only the riders I needed, rather than insisting on the rider and horse together - a standard option from them now I see, and very welcome. 

Sadly time seems not to have been kind to the Asgard moulds or masters and the castings I received were very poor, with lots of flash, thick areas of excess metal in the undercuts (visible under the right side of the cloak), miscast mace handles and feet, and a generally blobby and rounded appearance compared to the 80s originals. Lots of fettling work before assembly and painting.

My ideas for this unit was inspired by one of the pictures in the Osprey book: 'Late Roman Cavalryman AD236-565' which showed cataphracts with thin streamers hanging from their kontos. I was going to replace the cast lances with brass rod anyway and decided to make some streamers using thick aluminium foil from some old tube of paint or toothpaste that had been in my box of useful bits for years. 

One of the unsatisfactory things about these old figures is that there is typically only one variant. The Asgard riders had an officer and standard bearer with different crests and cloaks (I had 3 of these) and I got more variety by changing the angle of their lances, removing the crests completely from a couple of figures and carving the cloaks around on some figures. For the single variant Minifigs horse, I bent some necks to left or right and remodelled some of the tails into a plain un-knotted version or bent them to either side. In a few cases, this proved too much and the tails broke off altogether so I had to make replacements with Miliput on a wire armature. I also sharpened up the definition between the armour scales using the point of a knife.

My intention was to paint six bases of three figures per base - four packs of 4 Minifigs horses plus the two from Gladiator. However I belatedly realised that Mortem et Gloriam recommend four per base for close order cavalry, such as Cataphracts so changed my plans to four bases of four and duly painted sixteen figures. There was a problem though: the figures are too wide to fit four to a base without staggering them front to back so they could overlap and even then they would be almost touching. On the other hand, three to a base is just the same as the other loose order cavalry and looked sparse.

I asked for advise on the MeG forum to see what other players did but, though nobody thought there was any problem caused by basing three to a base, there was a split between those who preferred four for the added heft imposing appearance and those that preferred a bit of space between the figures and getting more bases for their money and painting time. 

The issue was decided for me because I couldn't find one of the two spare riders I would have needed for six bases of three. I suspect the cat is to blame - he takes much too close an interest and thinks small models or components belong on the floor. 

Now the basing is complete, I'm pleased I went for four figures to a base - those that said it gives a satisfying heft to the unit were right. In any case, all the troop types in this army are so expensive that I'll never have the points for a unit of six cataphract bases.

Because having the figures so closely packed would leave little space for access, I textured the top of each figures base with sand and painted it before sticking them down so I'd only have to fill the gaps and add the static grass and tufts afterwards. 

A couple of notes on painting. The cloaks started off with Vallejo 3/4 gold brown 1/4 olive brown. The mid tone is straight gold brown then with some white added as the high light. The bronze armour is an initial base of Vallejo bronze, a wash of Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone then high-lighted with bronze lightened with a touch of gold.