2mm Strength and Honour: Buildings

 

Bit of a work-in-progress here, as I’m looking to add some 2mm scale built-up areas and other terrain/scenic pieces for the Strength and Honour project.

I’ve been making use of the excellent small scale Roman scenery range from Brigade Models in the UK, which includes a variety of buildings in various styles, ranging from an enormous amphitheatre to domestic architecture via mile forts and sections of Hadrians Wall:

https://www.brigademodels.co.uk/SmallScaleScenery/Roman%20Buildings.html

I know the Strength and Honour rules emphasise the use of camps for the protagonists, so perhaps a marching fort for a Roman Legion, or a wagon laager for a Barbarian Horde, but I’m reserving those for another time, being as I’m still easing myself back into the Hobby, and those will likely be quite large scale undertakings….. I’m also torn as to whether to splash the cash and buy the pre-built ones from Antonine Miniatures, or go for something scratch built….. there’s also the point that my Punic Army needs a home - but maybe the walls of Carthage might be a bit ambitious !

So for now,  thought I’d use the Roman buildings pack from Brigade to do a farm compound and some urban tiles - I had a 120x60mm cavalry base left over, so painting up the bare label strip at the rear as a stretch of road, I used a pin vice drill to pop in some holes for Brigades poplar trees - gotta have Lombardy Poplars lining a Roman road ! - and added some grass tufts in as vegetation or cultivated vine or olive trees:

The poplar trees are in metal, so aren’t as irregular as actual trees, but I think give a good representation of the originals seen from a distance. The Brigade buildings are lovely scale models, with some fine detail, although I did find that the fact that the masters are 3D designed/printed meant that in some areas it was hard to actually bring out what was there - not being an expert in Roman architecture, I also just went with putting what buildings looked right together, rather than faithfully following historical convention - I know the guys at Brigade always meticulously research their models - so apologies if I don’t know my Thermae from my Insula !

For the urban one, rather than doing just one large area, I used a number of 60x60mm bases to give me some variety in how they might be placed, tile-like - four making up a 120x120mm square:

I painted the tiles with just some free-handed contrasting greys as the ground surface, and then grouped the buildings as I saw fit - so maybe we have a Temple area, an administrative one, and then some domestic buildings and a bath complex?

I do feel that the bases definitely need something more - I did add in some more of the poplar trees, but when I can find them in the chaos of my Lead Mountain storage, I want to put in some walls from Brigade, as well as their excellent Triumphal Arch - it occurs to me that in future I could also make use of some of the Arab-style buildings from the Middle Eastern range to add in as further domestic dwellings….

As a final flourish, I placed a 6mm figure of a Roman Legate from Rapier Miniatures’ excellent ranges as a suitably impressive statue - the Emperor demands his due !

These were great fun to do, if a little intensive in working with buildings that small - I went with a spray undercoat of brown and then blocked in over the top with colour - no way I was going to be in-filling windows and doors at this a scale !

The next phase will be thinking about doing some woods  - I have a lot of Irregular Miniatures’ large scenic metal pieces that could be employed, as well as some clump foliage on acrylic basing that I did for my 2mm French and Indian War project - but again, if the mood takes me, I might want to do some bespoke, scratch built ones just for this project, looking at covering much larger areas.

As an aside, I also spent some time adding a couple of additional bases to my Roman force, namely two units of Latin Allies, forming the two supporting wings of a Legion:

These were from Irregular Miniatures’ Hoplite blocks - I figure that hoplite-style troops were in keeping with the Italian allies of the time, so I did some twenty blocks per base in four ranks, giving a bit of contrast with the Roman formations - same basic paint job, wielding the paint pens, and some variation in shield and banner colours to add a bit of visual ‘pop’ - these give me ten infantry bases for the Romans alongside the lighter troops and cavalry to face the Carthaginians.

So, overall, things are humming along - I’ll be adding more details and terrain as and when I can, and if I can eventually dig out my terrain cloths from storage, get some battles underway !