More Suebi Arrive at the Muster!

It's taken a while, with other projects holding things up, but the final draft of Suebi have finally arrived to support the Batavians in their revolt against the Romans.

The rear ranks of the Suebi warband are made up of a mixture of Warlord Games' Warriors of Germania and the beautiful Black Tree Design Ancient Germans.

The Warlord figures have all been fitted with the metal top-knot heads which come on sprues in the Warriors of Germania boxed set. I'm still not really sure about the debate over top-knots! In the end I decided that it would be a good way to differentiate between Batavians, without top-knots, and Suebi, with them!

As before, some of the shields are painted, with fairly simple geometric designs...

While others come from various sets of transfers I've gathered together over the years. Apologies to the V Macedonian Legion, who have supplied captured shields for more than one of my hairy barbarians.

The axe wielding chap, behind the clubman, is one of the superb Black Tree Design German warriors. If they had greater variety in their range, I would happily build my entire army with these figures, but the Warlords give you much greater variety because of their multi-part construction. Of course, being metal, the Black Tree figures are much more expensive per figure, but you can often pick up a really good deal through the regular sales they have on their website. The original figure here didn't have the top-knot, so he had to have one added through the medium of Green Stuff!

The final ensemble! The 24 figure Suebi warband, all with top-knots, ready to go into battle. I've really enjoyed putting this unit together, particularly the rear ranks, which involved all sorts of customization to avoid as much repetition of poses as possible.

A more head on view of this fearsome bunch charging into contact. This is what those poor Roman legionaries will see... just before they turn tail and run!

Back to more Batavian Auxiliaries next, as the IX Cohort gets an application of paint, ready to join their colleagues on the field of battle.