"ROMAN SEAS: which Bacchus 6mm figures to purchase?" Topic

Contemplating taking the plunge, past experiences with Hotz Enterprises be damned. The paper boats seem fiddly but reasonably straightforward (I just bought the PDF download of the rules which go into how to build these.

Just a couple questions. What are the suggested Bacchus 6mm figures to make up the crew figures? I assume there are no "Roman and/or Greek Marine" figures in this range, I can't find any at least. So I'm looking for some javelin guys, some sword guys, a few bolt throwers, some catapaults, a bunch of archers… what's a good force mix for a beginner, with specific ranges spelled out?

Thanks,

Walt O'Hara

My tuppence worth on this would be to not discount the range from Rapier Miniatures in the UK,

link

some excellent sculpts easily the match of the quality of Baccus, and some useful 'active' poses – their Legionary throwing Pilum and Eastern archer figs are particularly good – you can see a quick comparison posting at my Blog here:

link

have to give a shout out for the Baccus bolt-thrower, though, a little work of art!

Hi Walt:

Drop me an e-mail at mark@scalecreep.com and I can help you out.

Rapier or Bacchus, what historical ranges would work for being marine romans and greeks, presuming spearmen, swordsmen archers and a couple of light siege weapons?

Thanks for the introduction to Rapier Miniatures, they do look spiff. Is there an American dealer for either Bacchus or Rapier these days? I knew of a guy in NJ that was dealing Bacchus, but I think he went out of business.

Also what do people base the individual 6mm figures on? The smallest metal base I know of is 1/4 by 1/4 inch, and that's huge in this scale.

V/R

Walt

I am the US dealer for Baccus these days. Don't know if Rapier has a US dealer.

Mark "Extra Crispy" Severin
ScaleCreep.com
FlagshipGames.com
DeepFriedHappyMice.com

From the Roman Seas group:

Brian Cantwell uses Baccus:

I use the Greek psiloi pack for rowers and deck crews. This pack has two poses
- one throwing a javelin and another standing with a javelin upright. I use two
of the throwing guys mounted side by side for rowing crew and two of the
standing guys in file to represent the deck crews. Has worked well so far.

> > I leave the skirmish figures (used for archers, deck crew, rowing crew, etc)
on the strips as they come (4 figs) for painting. I put 4-6 strips on a stick
for painting. After painting I snip them apart and trip the bases down so that
I can fit two figures on the 1cm square bases I use.
> >
> > For the Light and Heavy Marines I am putting 3 and 4 figures on each stand
respectively. For these I have been snipping the 4-figure strips into pairs and
put a dozen or so pairs on a stick for painting. After I get them painted I
trim the bases down to fit my stands and separate some of the 2-man strips to
use in making 3-man stands (based with 2 in the front rank and 1 behind).
> >
> > Brian

Eric Hotz has H&R figures:

For deck crew, I use MAC2 (Carthage Spanish Infantry). There are two
types of infantry in each pack, divided equally (about 25 of each…
although a few packs had 20-30 splits). The ones I used were the
light infantry with short swords and small shields -- these fit the
description of armed deck crews and rowing crew. I also use this
figure for Rowing Crews that are brought up on deck to fight. You
can color code the bases to help distinguish the two. The other
figure in this H&R pack are heavier foot, with oval shield, sword and
Carthaginian helmets, which can be used as Carthaginian marines (I
must have around 500 of these figs).

Artillery: Light Ballista is MAR6 (Imperial Rome War
Engines/Catapults). These work very well for Light Ballistas. For
Heavy Catapults you can use MAR15 (Imperial Rome Onagers) although
these are of limited use as warships did not employ heavy artillery,
but are useful for land fortifications. Onagers do not seem appear
until 100AD or later. I lucked out with Medium Ballista because I
had a pack of old H&R Roman Ballistas (pre-1985) and these are
perfect as medium artillery. I only had 6, but I just scratch built
another 18. If you purchase a few artillery packs, you will have
extra crew figures to man any scratch built models you may make.

Scratch building artillery is quite easy, although the Light Ballista
is a pain, which is why it is nice that H&R makes these. Saves a lot
of work. I made all my Medium Ballista, crewed, painted and based,
over two nights. Very easy and quick to make.

Eric

Brian uses both Baccus and H&R for ballistae:

The Baccus Greek Ballista is larger than the H & R one, so you can also get
those to be your medium ballista and use the extra H&R crews. I have gone the
opposite direction, using H&R Ballista from the MAR6 pack that Eric mentions as
my light ballista, but with scavenged Baccus crew and the regular Baccus
ballista with the supplied crew for my mediums. Works great.

Brian

I use cardstock figures (miniaturized Patrick Crusiau figures, photoshopped into little bands) myself.

Cpt Arexu

I've got both Baccus and Rapier. They match up nicely when they are painted and based. There is not a lot in it in terms of quality, although the new re-sculpted Baccus probably just have the edge. My advice is to use both for variety!

Quite helpful, Captain Arexu. Many thanks!

Walt

Cpt Arexu,

Is it possible to get a copy of those card stock figurs? I am doing my Roman Seas on 1/600 (half size) and the 6mm are way too big

Walt,

I went with the Baccus Romans and do the painting as described above. Then snip them apart into pairs for the light marines and will do 3 on the heavies. The command stands are good for that in that they have 3 command figs and another spearman so he can be added to one of the pairs. Bought bowmen for the same, though I sort of wish they did not have the bows tight to their body. The light ballistas are great too. You don't need many archers per ship per the rules. 1-2 stands would be average. You can crew quite a few Liburnians with one legion pack.

I am using Auxilary infantry for deck crews for the Romans.

Got a mix of Punic Infantry for the Carthaginians. Will do something similar there, but I am not sure how I want to represent their deck crews.

The longest part of assembling the ships for me has been cutting them out. I have the patience for about 2 before I quit. Once they are cut out the go together really easily. I am now cutting them out and just leaving them in plastic bags, then after a few cutting sessions then assembling them all at once. Otherwise I get impatient to see more progress and get less cautious cutting out the ships.

jaxenro, if you'll give me an email address I'll shoot you the files.

My goal is to make GSD cut files for my Roman Seas ships so that I can use my robocutter to do all the hard work of cutting out the parts.

Just need some of my Copious Free Time to sit down and trace the cut and score paths…

Thanks

you can use Yehya_61 @yahoo .com
and it should fine me
joel

Images sent.
Cpt Arexu

Hey, Dewey.. do you print the ships on special cardstock? What are you basing them on?

Sorry I missed this until now Walt.

I took them to Staples and used the paper recommended in the instructions. It makes a good model, but I suspect the next set I print there will be on the heaviest recommended.

Initially I was going to base them on heavy craft board, but I think I am going to pick up some of the wood "movement trays" I think Gale Force 9 (or someone) at the shows sells in the big bins. A bit more sturdy and able to be textured and painted without warping.