I just received a boatload, 400-500, of used Baccus Dacians & Samartians from Col. Bill's today and expect the Baccus Dacian Hail Caesar package from here to ship sometime after SALUTE. Looking at what arrived today, my first question is: how do I paint these guys????

I mean, sure there are painting guides out there and I found a couple very helpful for my Romans... but they all address speed painting armies with some sort of uniformity.

So I'm curious, how do folks go about speed painting armies who are not only very colorful, but also so differently dressed as to having absolutely no uniformity at all? Where every shield is individually different?

The Samartians will be easy, I think. I'll try undercoating with Army Painter plate mail, paint faces, horses' tails, etc, and wash with an ink. But the Dacians seem to be another matter and I imagine it's the same problem for Celts and Germans, too.

In any case, especially after the HC package arrives, it looks as if my Romans will be extremely outnumbered... as it should be.

Thanks for any advice and techniques in advance,

Richard in Saxony

I actually finished a bunch of Dacians the other day. I'll use them mainly as "barbarian" allies/mercs in my Greek armies so they're not painted as Dacians per se but more like Balkan/Eastern Europe tribesmen in general. Will probably post pictures on my blog pretty soon. 

Since these guys are supposed to be rough types from the forests, I went for a slightly rugged look with a washed-out color scheme for the infantrymen's clothes (grey/pale blue/light brown in several shades) and some more color (blue/red/green) for the chieftains/standard bearers. The shields got a bit more color but I still kept it simple compared to the hoplite shields, were every damn shield has an individual pattern/color combination. The barbarians just got some dots and lines in different colors. 

My general advice would be to keep it simple. You can still achieve a colorful and varied look without digging a complete hole for yourself - just chose a maximum of four or five colors, then combine them in random ways (some guys get red pants, green shields, and blue tunics; others green pants, blue shields and red tunics, and so on). Paint one color at a time. Don't spend too much time on every shield, as most of them will be partially hidden behind the soldiers in front anyway. 

Stick to it and good luck!

Thanks Gunnar! I appreciate it. Someone over on TMP also suggested what you wrote, every 4th guy on the popsicle stick get green trousers, etc. I'll give that a go, then. Thank you.

Since you've got Dacians as well, I had a couple of questions on the basing. Did you base them on the strips? I was thinking of actually cutting the strips and gluing them individually or in twos randomly on the bases to try and avoid the 'dress-right-dress' formation-look that the Romans have and need. Or is that too fiddly at this scale?

Using the above technique, would you mix your falxmen in the warband or keep them as seperate units?

No worries, just happy to discuss the hobby. :)

I'd say it's way too fiddly to cut them apart, at least for large units. Skirmishers and light infantry I sometimes glue to the base individually or in pairs, but ranks of infantry would just take too much time (well, I always use two 30x30 bases for one unit so I cut some strips in half in order for them to fit).

Also, it's hard to fit any decent number of infantrymen on the bases if they're not ranked up in straight lines. Also, I'd not mix unit types too much, as it only gives a "blurred" impression in this scale - it's very hard to pick out details at table top distance and too much variation within units will not really add to the overall impression. 

As for basing: I always glue strips to bases and then glue sand and flock to the whole thing - it think would be a lot more work to base them first.