Chariots Ready for Battle

My Senone Warriors are now joined by the elite of Senigallia in their chariots. They are ready to take on the Romans in Andy Hawes’ Dux Italica campaign set in 4^th Century BC Italy.

They come from the Victrix Celtic Chariots set and I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. You get three chariots in the set, 2 driver options, and a plethora of possible warriors with lots of different heads, weapons and bits and pieces. It is a shame there are only two horse options. A third would have been nice to mix things up a bit more. That said I decided to give each chariot a matched pair of horses.

I painted the crew first, then assembled and painted the chariots, then painted the horses and finally the reins with attached drivers hands. Putting it all together is a bit fiddly especially fitting the reins to the drivers arms then fitting the other ends into the horse yokes while at the same time gluing the driver and horses in place so that everything lines up. I did one chariot first and got the hang of it so was easier with the other two.

I used Little Big Man transfers for the shields and also the decorations on the chariots.  I found it easier to leave the wheels off to apply the transfers to the sides and paint the chariot body and wheels separately. I then painted over the transfers a little to make them look more realistic and then distressed them with a ragging of raw umber.

The chariots are led by the formidable Domina Aetrix.

One would be well advised not to get on her wrong side!

I used up one of the spare figures in the set to create the Druid Getafix who will no doubt cast his spells to strike the Romans with terror.

Although I have painted these chariots with the intention of them representing the 4^th C BC Senones they could happily serve as Ancient British with Domina Aetrix becoming Boudicca and the Druid still discomforting the Romans of a later era.