28mm Samnite 'Colorful' Legion

Despite having one of the most productive months at the painting table this past January, this blog hasn't shown it. It's been VERY cold and snowy here. Since I take my photographs outside with natural light, the to-be-photographed lead has been piling up. Today we got a small window of warm-ish weather so out I went to clear the photography queue. I'll be posting units over the next few days, mostly in order of how excited I am about the units. So here's the cream of the crop, a 28mm Samnite 'colorful' legion. These are based for Hanibal at the Gates and would actually represent a half legion, or a 'division' in HATG terms. Eventually if I ever plan to field these as part of a complete Samnite army I'll paint the other half legion. For now these will be used as mercenaries in my Carthaginian, Phyrric or Roman armies as needed.

The figures are Old Glory from their Italian Wars ancients line. I've added the characteristic Samnite shields which I ordered from Crusader Miniatures. An aside about Crusader Miniatures, their customer service I found to be excellent, even ordering directly from the United States. I'm putting these down in the painting totals as 25 figures. I painted one extra musician (not shown) which will be used in an upcoming re-basing effort.

The figures are comprised of three stands of peltasts, classified as 'soldiers' in HATG and three stands of psoli classified as 'foot skirmishers'. I've mixed in plenty of striped tunics and wildly colorful shields and helmet decorations to represent a Samnite colorful legion as opposed to the Samnite linen legion. The latter will be the subject of a future painting project which is currently on the table.