Celtic chariots

I managed to find some time recently, to clear another unit for my rapidly growing Celts off of the painting table. This time, it's the dreaded light chariots! Once again, these are the beautiful Baccus sculpts, perhaps the finest Celtic models out there. 

Regular readers may know that I had initially intended for all of these Celts to be an allied division for a planned Carthaginian project. Unfortunately, in-game, chariots can only be used as part of a dedicated Celtic or British army list. However, this isn't a problem for me (if nothing else, at this rate, the Celts will soon be numerous enough to be an army of their own...) For the myriad armies where Celts appear as allies, I will instead use the chariots as 'counts as' light cavalry.  

As there are only four models to a unit, I thought I'd dedicate a little more time on each individual chariott. I'm really enjoying the bright vibrancy of these Celts, but this time I was also able to play with different horse colours and markings. I think my favourite is the brown and white pinto, as I really didn't think that it would translate well to a 6mm model, but the chestnut horses are also quite nice. Note also that each chariot has its own 'markings' on the frame - probably not accurate by any means, but I'm enjoying any opportunity to splash more bright colours on these models!

That leaves me with almost a full division - just some light units with javelins to go, as a screen for the heavier infantry units, and we're there! At this point I could stop, but something tells me I won't...

Anyway, until next time!

Some Celtic reinforcements

The newest additions to the Celtic division / army are two units of warriors. The Baccus sculpts are absolutely beautiful figures (this goes without saying) and always a joy to paint, and I'm really enjoying the riot of colour that is a Celtic army in comparison to the Sumerians I've been painting. Again, as with the horsemen a few weeks ago, I've stuck to a colour trio of red, blue and green to try and tie the troops together a little bit:

I love that archetypal image of a mass of Celtic warriors charging towards the Roman lines. In order to recreate that, the units are a mixture of ranked warriors on the rear half of each base (in three rows to give a real sense of depth and numbers), and then a scattered number of the individual charging figures in front of these, to represent the front files breaking free and beginning to charge head-long towards the enemy. I think it works quite well!

This image is just to give a close-up of the shields. I think the slightly schematic dot-and-line approach I've gone for gives a quite good approximation of Celtic shield designs, whilst actually being paintable at 6mm scale!

As always, I hope you enjoy - until next time!