Impetvs Romans Progress: A&A Sarmatians

In amidst the great basing debate, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and also show some actual painting progress by me. Basing and the figure ratios that go on these, are just something that is part-and-parcel of ancients gaming. We don't like to over think our Impetvs to the degree that something like FOG requires but we have changed from the 'standard' so have to think through how best to model our forces accordingly. We use 8cm frontages for our 28mm Impetvs but haven't quite settled on a standard for fig density. Some have suggested that it is good to make figures go further, which due to not exactly being  rich, I can agree with. However, tabletop wargaming is a visual hobby, and that was a key motivator for going to 28mm (now that plastics make this viable). I always thought DBA elements with two horsemen on a base looked distinctly odd, and am keen to avoid basing standards that have that as a lower end. So the last thing I want is a system where it is: four for CP, three for CM and two for CL.

 As you can see here with the CP however, four really is the physical maximum for our base frontage. You simply cannot fit more and if you want to avoid them having to be based knee to knee with no variety, you need quite a bit of depth - 7cm in this case. Some figures will quite probably need to be based in an almost wedge or diamond, with a little more depth, to fit. So four is probably an upper-limit. However, I think CM that likes to shock-charge (Heteroi or Maximus' Equites bodyguard unit) should not have less figures just to preserve some descending ratio. They look different enough from the armoured battletanks that are CP, that equipment is enough to distinguish them. This means that I can distinguish LH from the CM by basing them in threes, a lighter CM unit could also be based in threes.... that way, I avoid having to base only two to a base for all but the lightest of scouting cav.

Enough of that though, here is my own painting progress - in a real rush by the end (see the bits I missed painting on the base edges?) but I am happy I at least got to apply a brush to models between all the assembly, lecture writing, and army basing.