Retiarii

Italeri Retiarius

I've at last finished painting the last highlight colour on the bases of all my gladiators (not just the retiarii); it was being held in abeyance until I'd settled on the final colour of the arena floor.
The choices of Retiarius between the two sets (Italeri and Pegasus) are very limited to one in each set.
Both sets suffer in my opinion from 'problems' though.
Firstly the trident is very flimsy in each set and in my Pegasus set I managed to snap the damn thing (But see below)

Italeri Retiarius still on sprue

The sparcity of Retiarii figures for variety, if nothing else, was a bit disheartening too, especially as the Italerii figure was stood like a pudding with his trident pointed at the ground as in the photograph.
For each of my two specific Retiarii from the Italeri box I did cut the trident free from the base of the figure and tried (with only a modicum of success) to bend the arm into a more appealing stance.
(In the photograph above-right, the head has also been adjusted slightly)

Second Italeri Retiarius

Looking only marginally less static than the original is the second Italeri retiarius painted as an African which for some reason has almost become a cliche for this genre - and of course I've gone along with it too.
 The tridents on both these figures hardly looked very threatening (from my point of view) and were a bit thin and spindly, so I looked to making my own to replace the feeble.

The inspiration for these came from some Renedra fences  which as I had one of a mere three that came with one of their buildings I utilised mainly because the three tines (the prongs) of the trident would all be inherent in the piece. Any breakages etc. that occurred would be turned into broken weapons and other weapons I will need to litter the arena with. In the rules I've opted for tridents can be broken, resulting in either a useful end and a useless bit or vice versa. Tridents can also be thrown (as can all weapons), so some separate weapons will also be needed.

From the photograph above and top the left, you can see I only managed to make a couple more broken trident ends (the useful bits) and a couple of spears. from the photographs above and to the left, you can see I only managed to make a couple more broken trident ends (the useful bits) and a couple of spears.From a single fence piece I can get two full-length tridents and be left with pieces, long enough  to make spears from.

Here's a photograph that shows, firstly an 'ad hoc' retiarius, again from the Italeri pack. Originally he was stood passively with his left hand resting on an axe - hardly a dynamic pose!  He's obviously had one of my trident conversions added, though the fore-shortening of the photograph does make the tines look huge!
He does have some armour on his left arm, which passes fairly well for the arm-guard (manica) but he's missing the signature galerus the shoulder armour), even so I think he makes for a passable retiarius  and I really wanted to have four !

 Being quite pleased with the results of my trident program, I gave the Pegasus retiarius one of the fence conversions too, to replace the broken one.
This figure is by far the pick of the bunch and actually looks as if he's moving; it's a bit sad that his victim is almost an unusable figure, in that he covered in the retiarius' net !
He has the galerus shouldert armour that instantly points him out as a retiarius but the armour on his right shoulder is  a bit suspect
It does begs the question though, where are their nets ?
I have made the nets (honest guv) but haven't glued them to the figures, especially as the bases hadn't been painted, but also because of time.
I reckon the nets should have a 'square' design, unfortunately I've tried and been unsuccessful in obtaining anything close, in a size that looks right. I eventually settled for a hexagon patterned net from something I found in the bathroom.

That's it for this week then, next week I'll show just how the WWW has helped me in this project !