Caesarian Romans: Cohort IV, Scorpio and General Part I

Contrary to even my own expectations I'm back into my Caesarian Romans again a bit earlier than I had thought I would be. My Hail Caesar rule book made it to Tonga along with two scorpio bolt-throwers and I'm straight into them.

As I flagged in my previous posts, my challenge is to make each centurion I have representing the cohort commander different to his peers. This time I remembered to chose a body with the awards on his belt and I believe a different face to his two plastic predecessors.The first shot is the original centurion head with the crest top half carefully removed - doesn't look happy does he?

Above is the new centurion ready for undercoat. It's my intention at this time to paint his crest a natural white horsehair colour. I also have the metal centurion from the Warlord Command set who I was going to have escourt the general and his Vexillarius but I may swap them over ... we'll see. Also, I've filed back and done a little carving of the standard bull signum to represent what I hope is a passable sheep onto which I am green-stuffing horns (oops ... gerand alert).

Here we have the two face plates of my scorpios. I was careful to scrutinize several pictorial and video references to confirm the riveted face is to the front and the torsion ropes detail is to the rear when fixing to the main-frame. Also the domed end of the breach should be to the top just in case anyone needed to be reminded.

I thought I'd play with one a little and set one to 'actioned' ready to shoot. To do so I bent back the torsion arms as far as the casting allows (left) and then carved a niche behind the rear end of the bolt - see below.

These models come with bolts cast onto the table of the scorpio and with the torsion arms set to the unloaded position. I am fixing a thin cotton thread into the niche and then wrapping both ends and fixing them to the tips of the cocked torsion arms. Also, these models come with no winding levers so I have created create a couple of them - depictions vary as to how many leavers are required on the capstans.

As stated, my general will have a Vexillum carried by his Vexillarius and escourted by a centurion. The figure I am using is the Warlord Pompey the Great figure. I will create further general options in the future including Caesar with a couple of lictors when I get them.