Lusitanians, truly

The next element for my II/32 Later Carthaginians is out of HaT's 'Carthaginian Command and Cavalry'. It's four minis - two models - that are quite obviously sculpted from the Lusitanians in Head's Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, figures No. 113 and 114. The catch is that the sculptor decided to give them more generic heads. So they don't look particularly Lusitanian any more. If I was still a conversion enthusiast I would have done a Herr Sabel and swapped some heads back onto them, but these days I try to avoid unnecessary conversion. So they all have generic Montefortino helms.

The next little problem is that HaT provide two varieties of shield, but both are Hoplon size. Lusitanians apparently only use the caetra, or buckler. I solve this by heading down to my spares stash and grabbing Zvezda Russian Knights shields for the 'standing with javelins' mini (fig. 114 in the source) and an Esci barbarian round shield for the 'cloaked, arm upheld' mini (fig 113). They are still too big but now look somewhat believable.

I don't usually include any 'figure review' in these entries but I thought I should remark that the box I bought is plagued with misaligned mould, which results in uneven joins and requires a lot of trimming. The figures have, for example, thick shoulders where the detail is gone, and uneven helmets that are very hard to re-configure. They paint up well though and paint disguises a lot.

I've been revving up my painting ability by reading through Javier Gomez's Painting Wargaming Figures so I decided to switch techniques 180 degrees and work with black base, base colour/1st highlight/2nd highlight. And a lot of detail on the face. As a result they would go really well with my Marian Romans!