Velites (3)

The completed Velites

I've been working on some more light gladiators from the HaT Spanish box, specifically the ones that don't look too "Spanish".
Following on from the last conversion of four of the figures (two pairs) to represent the same figure with and without spear I've converted the remainder of the less-Spanish looking figures.
The conversion was simple enough, cutting the shields off two figures and adding one to another figure. The great thing from my pov is that you can hardly see the join.

"Mr. Blue"

Following on my already established protocol of  having the figures colour-coded I painted the remaining pairs each with their own distinctive colours, blue, red and green, having already painted a pair using yellow.
The only difference between these additions and the original is that I added a coloured stripe to the hem of their tunics.
*You can see in the photograph above that the nearest pair don't have this strip though I may add it at a later stage)
Mr Blue on the left, you will note is the only one with a large shield - probably completely anachronistic for "velites" in the arena, though it does add variety

"Mr. Red"

The spear-armed versions of the fighter are each carrying a a "pilum" rather than the more typical spear or javelins used by the velites - or more properly the "venator" or animal hunters.
The rules I'm using do allow for each of the different types of throwing weapon, but I'm adjusting the rules on pila to allow for their effect on shields (if these are used against other shield-armed gladiators). 
Spears have greater 'range' in melee (two hexes) but are at half effect (combat factors) when used single-handedly. If used two-handed then they have full effect but only at close (1 hex) range.

The photograph on the left shows the original figure (leftmost) and the three others; other than the original (Mr. Yellow") each has some variation on the position of the shield and spear arms which can be made out from the photograph hopefully.

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Here's the equivalent figures with only their sword, having dispensed with their spears (pila in this case)
All but "Mr. Blue" (far right) have had new shields added and very little else in the way of conversion. Their shield arms are joined solidly to their torso from the elbow to the shoulder and anything other than moving the lower part of the arm is well above my level of modelling, so there is little in the way of different positioning. I have however managed to cut down their distinctive Spanish weapon to a more representative gladius, though once again  not on all of them, purely for variation.

Finally here's another group-shot.
We're just about ready to feature some animal fights in the arena so these should come in very handy.

Next time I'll either be featuring either my Retiarii (again) as I'm working on their nets (and have finally arrived at a colour for them that I'm happy with) or I'll show how I'm getting on with even more "velites" , this time from the HaT box of Carthaginian Light Infantry.


That's it then for this week and maybe there's something here to interest someone.