Early Imperial Roman Tortoise

Here are the first shots of my Early Imperial Roman Tortoise - a HOTT Behemoth (DBA El), but classed as foot rather than mounted since I imagine all those shields would make Bow fire ineffective. Afterall, that's what they were there for aeh?! The shot of the top side didn't focus quite as well as I would have liked, but there you go.

I got the idea from some HOTT Trajan's Dacian Wars lists from The Stronghold. It's a bit silly I know, but it kinda took my fancy. And after all, I had all these spare Esci EIR shields left over from my Orcs!

I got the idea for the Vexilium from some photos I had seen of some Games Workshop 40K Space Marine Dreadnoughts. Might make it a bit bigger accordingly...

The whole thing is simply a balsa wood frame with a hole cut out for a [complete] Esci legionary to poke his head out - a 1st C Tank Driver, if you will. The Esci shields were glued to the frame (top and sides but not back), Polyfilla spread on the underside of the top of the frame and 16 Italeri Romans chopped in half and stuck into the filla while it was still wet. Then I flooded the underneath with PVA and presto! Not very elegant I know, but it seems to have worked.

Gonna shove some Esci Pilums under the side shields, like I've done with the front, and then spray paint the whole thing black, do a simple paint job on the legs and shield rims and paste paper shield covers on to hide the hole in the Esci shields (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wargameswithminiatures/files/romanshields.zip - you'll need to sign up/in). I just haven't got the time to paint all those shields myself!

I'll then plonk the finished article on a 60 x 60mm HOTT Behemoth base (I think the smaller base looks better - makes it look more compact, and indeed bigger in relation to the empty space on the base) covered in Polyfilla so's to "even out" the slight differences in some of the leg heights.

And presto! An Early Imperial Roman HOTT Behemoth element.

Add a...

• [mounted] Hero Generals element (@ 4AP),
• a Pegaso Models 54mm Samnite Warrior in the role of Mars, the Roman god of war (@4 AP)
  or
• some converted Legionaries as miners (Sneakers @ 3AP),

...and wha hoo! My DBA Early Imperial Roman army morphs into a fantasy one for HOTT!

...well, so long as I can downgrade the price of my EIR Artillery element (now compulsory in the DBA 2 EIR list) from 3 AP's to 2. I mean, it's not as if it's a fantasy element (in fact, I find DBA Art rather hard to use at the best of times, let alone having to pay extra for it).

Otherwise I can only use my artillery alongside two of my new HOTT elements at a time!

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