Hobby Update: Redone KoM Spears

Spearmen were some of the first Roman units I was hobbying up back in 2016, and around July back then, I had 4 Regiments worth of little dudes ready for action. I have been meaning to revisit them for quite some time, and working from home, I've been fortunate enough to have the time to do so now!

Ready for action!

I hadn't really gotten the hang of multi-basing when I first hobbied on the spears. I experimented a tiny bit with one of the regiments at the time, with a few larger bases (the first one pictured). I have since touched up that regiment and "rebased" it, that is, gluing everything onto an infantry MDF. I don't think I posted about this unit previously, so here it is as a little bonus. One of my first larger multi-base attempts.. from a year or so previous.

It appears I still need to repaint the edge... but other than that, good to go!

For the majority of my spearmen models though, I had opted for a few clusters of three models on 40mm squares, with most of the minis being individual models on magnetized bases, as I had done in WHFB. This makes for a very full-looking unit, but can also make for some potential spacial issues, if models have bits extending off their base, like GW Empire Halberdiers, or GW Bloodletters. These guys turned out just fine, though the backward-reaching thrusting/throwing arm bits can cause some trouble. 

The general intent with these was to individually base a lot, in order to be able to swap things around to fit various unit sizes, as I was still new to the game and didn't know how I wanted to run my army. I've since gotten better with my army concept and with multi-basing, but here I opted to keep going with their original basing premise out of ease. I'm still just getting back into semi-regular hobbying, and didn't need to punish myself with a huge project rebasing two entire hordes... plus I didn't have the MDF bases to do so even if I wanted to.

I had around 50 models ready, but they looked bad as units. Fortunately, I still have a fair bit of extra Roman minis around, and was able to up the count enough to mirror the unit (multi-based twos and threes on the sides, and a multibased command in the center), and then duplicate that, allowing for two hordes of spears. It all worked out, and I'm pleased!

The Base
For the base, I opted for an MDF unit tray from Ironheart Artisans, and magnetic tape. I had used such tape before, in my WHFB days, and oh boy does it want to curl. That's what happens when it is shaped into the roll, I suppose! I opted for rubber cement and used some binder clips to hold it all together overnight, and that seemed to do the trick. Nothing too special there, but worth mentioning, I suppose.

On the Table
I know enough to know that Pikes are the new hotness for Kingdoms of Men. These are not them, but I'm fine with that. I think the KoM can excel at fielding decent but numerically superior units, and these are 30 points cheaper that a Pike Horde, and should still be pretty solid defenders. While I'm not big on hordes and still want to emphasize and explore a more MSU style game for the Regnum when I can, these do look nice and imposing all ranked up, and will be nice to have in the roster. We'll see when they happen to hit the table!