The Gaul to paint 2000 Germans!

Bob Barnetson

www.edmontonwargamegroup.com

“It’s not a stroke,” said the emergency room doctor.

“You can’t see properly because a blood vessel in your eye is spasming. It
will go away in a few minutes. Have you been doing anything that would
cause eye strain?”

“Well doc, I just finished painting 2000 toy soldiers, each 6mm tall. Could
that do it?”

And, with vision restored, what a glorious, menacing sight my 2000 Germans
are!

I’d started this project in October of 2005 when Stu at Milites Minimus
mentioned his stock of Baccus’ new Germans had arrived. I’d just finished
painting up some Imperial Romans and had read a book on Teutoburg Forest so
the timing of the German range couldn’t have been better. And one army pack
lead to another and sudden there were 2000 Germans glued to painting sticks
on the dining room table.

Drastic steps were necessary to get them painted!

So I took them to work, shunned my colleagues at lunch, and consistently
managed to finish four units of warband (196 figures) a week. With some
work in the evening or on the weekend, I could knockoff another 4 units and
the entire army was done in just over a month. My wife calls them the
Christmas tree army, in honour of the red, yellow, green and blue shields
(each with an individual shield pattern).

Their first outing was a playtest of a Teutoburg Forest scenario that my
buddy Dave and I worked on. The sight of 2000 Germans streaming onto the
board perfectly conveyed to the Roman player the “oh crap” feel of
Teutoburg. The massed effect of 6mm is simply amazing. You can see the
scenario in Issue 2 of Battlegames magazine.

Several games of Teutoburger Vald have never failed to yield an interesting
outcome. The number of figures available allows us to divide the German
forces into two: a hammer that drives the Roman rearguard to the bridge
mid-board, and the anvil that appears suddenly on the other side to block
the escape of the Legions and their precious eagles. The Roman player must
divide his attention between the machinations of the two German players and
make difficult decisions about when and where to stand and fight.

The time and money required to do this in a larger scale—even in
plastics—is simply prohibitive. The Germans are also hugely versatile, have
been Saxons, Celts, Huns, Gauls and various other barbarians. And, my trip
to the hospital aside, the painting work was a breeze. How many of us have
completed an entire army in 36 hours of painting.

Well done Baccus!