Warlord Games Roman Starter Army

For a while I have been contemplating starting Ancient Wargaming. One reason being I need to stop smoking and having to paint a lot of miniatures will help with this another being I am a bit too old now to pop into a Games Workshop store and play Fantasy Battle - I usually get met with "have you got a list?" by one of the enthusiastic staff members. Informing them I worked for GW before they were probably born and have been playing Warhammer since 1984/5 is getting a bit tiresome. I am not saying that Ancients and Historical wargaming is for 'old' people but I am likely to find opponents more easily than I can for GW systems.

So, to this end I went online and looked for a ruleset and figure range that appealed to me. I don't know whether it was the GW connection that drew me to the Warlord Games range of Imperial Romans or just the fact that I am quite interested in the Roman history of Britain but I settled on ordering the Warlord Games Imperial Roman Start Army boxed set. The package arrived yesterday and I thought I'd put together my thoughts on the contents in the box (I have ordered the Hail Caesar rules and they ought to arrive any day too).

Firstly, I was impressed with the delivery time, I chose the free delivery offer and the order arrived within five days, not bad at all that. The actual packaging was excellent, plenty of padding and contained in a very sturdy outer box - no chance of damage to the contents while in transit. I also like the fact that I can use PayPal on their web store, much easier for me as I am lazy and don't like having to fiddle about with debit cards and what not when ordering online.

OK, what's in the box. A humungus amount of figures to say the least. The box costs £60.00, you get 124 figures so that about £0.48.4p per figure. You can't argue with that at all. You'd think that for such a small amount per figure then the quality would be poor, but no. The figures are fantastic quality and good detail. There are very few major moulding lines, I have not seen any flashing at all on any of the sprues' and the injection points on all of the parts look to be in places that will be hidden when the figure is assembled.

The units in the box set are 60 Legionaries (with command figures), 20 Pretorian Guard, 20 Veteran Legionaries and 24 Roman Auxiliaries - these look quite Germanic btw - well to me at least.

Also, you get enough shield transfers for each figure and they look really good - can't wait to see them on the shields. Ought to give a pretty impressive uniformity to the units - but that's a while away yet I imagine.

I have cut out ten of the Legionaries to assemble for my test paining run. Cleaning them up last night was really easy, in most cases it was just a case of a quick scrape with my knife over the obvious mould lines, mainly on the legs and arms - as I said they are very slight to start with. Same for the injection joints, using clippers to snip them out - hard plastic is a great material as it seems to cut very cleanly with clippers - then a quick flick of the knife on the mini to even out any remaining burr mark and hey presto, a really easily prepped figure.

I am considering how to paint these currently. Do I assemble them minus shield or flat paint the bits then stick together (I do this for plastic GW minis) for finishing highlighting and washes. I am also considering using the 'The Dip'. Phil Hendry seems enthusiastic about it in his blog - besides painting 124 figures in short order seems an ideal candidate for this method. I don't know yet. I have used the base coat and highlight up method for too many years … but it does take a long time per figure, even rank and file ones.

To sum up though, you can see the GW pedigree at work with these miniatures, the thought gone into the sprue layout and quality of 'casting' (dunno if thats the right term for plastic figures but hey, it'll do) are second to none. I am very impressed and the deal is real value for money. I'll get some painted up and report back on that at a later date. So far though they looking a great buy.