"Any above-view photos of Ancients miniatures out there?" Topic

I'm looking through FoG, like everyone else. I don't have surplus DBx armies lying about looking for a chance to come out and play. So I'm projecting out what it would take to build my Roman and Carthaginian armies. I'm writing up lists of figures and base sizes and looking at where I could find them and how I could make them. I wonder if I could pull together a game in, oh, six months.

Then the thought occurs to me. If I had some decent artwork, I could get my bases NOW, put some art on them NOW, and actually be playing the game NOW while taking a few months assembling the legions. Bases with paper art could slowly be replaced with bases filled with figures, as each set gets pulled together. I've been reading my Roman history books, with above view sketches of the Romans marching in rank and column, and I'm sorely tempted to use something just like this to label my bases. If I had something representative of foot troops, and something else showing horses, I could label them any way I see fit for purposes of playtest.

So does anybody know of some photos showing an eagle's eye view of some miniatures? Decent clarity would be pretty, but in all honesty I don't need to distinguish too much between Hastati or Velites or who's got a spear or who's got a sling.

I know exactly where you're coming from. I had this same question a year or so ago and even went as far as contacting artists to do some commission work. I was able to find several places online that have artwork available for free, but the quality wasn't as nice as I would have liked and the selection was slim. In the end I modified some of the files that were available in order to stretch number of armies I could field.

Anyhow, enough rambling, here are a couple of places to get you started:

link
link

You could try sites like these:

link

andjo.free.fr/dbp.html

The in between is to paint one figure, photograph, then cut and paste to make stands of 4-6 ot 8 figures. You could probably paint just 12-18 figures and then have an army a day later….

Excellent links – now I can try out some armies with "Warrior Kings" whilst I try to find my long-ago barely started Hawaiians. Thanks for the links.

Another place to look is juniorgeneral.org. Mostly flats but there are some top down cutouts (Imp Roman…) that look good. I hadnt thought about going the paper route while I'm building an army…

Here is an extensive collection of graphics.

link

John

Thanks for the links, there is some great stuff out there.

"I hadnt thought about going the paper route while I'm building an army…"

I'm just surprised the rule publishers don't do this up front. Or why the people who make custom bases aren't jumping all over a new game that has garnered so much attention. Imagine one of the laser etchers putting four Romans on a plastic base, the right size to later be flocked and have the appropriate troops mounted all over the top. Mmmm.

take a look at wargamesdownloads.com top down Macedonians and Republican Romans.

whoops hit send to fast. Also paperarmies.com

Napoleons Battles did just that in the first edition. I have seen others do it as well. I always thought someone should do DBA that way but they someone did do it for DBA on line. I mean how hard can it be!
VR
James Mattes