What 'ave the Romans ever done for us...?

This is the start of an irregular blog to help me focus on getting back into wargaming. I have been working in the Wargames industry for some years now and have found that my hobby has slipped away, replaced by work. Not a good thing as all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow!

The release (long awaited!) of WAB 2 has spurred me to once more take up gaming. I enjoy playing WAB, and although not the perfect game. it is fun, and thats the point of wargaming isn't it?
Enticed back into it by chum Tim Haslam I have had a couple of games now, all set in the classical period. As I don't make any figures for this period I had to look at what army I'd like for it. I settled on Caesarian Romans in the end. One reason is that I have always liked the Foundry ones made by Mark Copplestone, and two, because I was able to buy 4 well painted units and got given a pile of them all within the same week. So now, thanks to Steve Marshall and Dave Imrie respectively, I now have a lead mountain to paint up for the first time in a few years.

As I have already got 4x 18 fig units already I set about using these as the core for a 2000 pt army. The first unit up for painting was a unit of Elite Legionares to act as the armys shock troops. I've opted for 2x 15 man units, but this may change to just one 18 man unit yet. Still debating :)

Today I managed to get them started. I was going to use dip and then just highlight them, which is a wonderfully quick and effective method of producing wargames figures. Unfortunately I left my dip back at work, so I decided to paint them properly. They are the Elites after all!

I was rather pleased with my efforts for the first day. I managed to get 7 figures including the Centurian finished less the shields which will be done last. I have some LBM transfers for them, but debating whether to just hand paint a design on. I'll see how I feel when it comes to doing it :)