W.H.A.C.'M aka We Were TOY SOLDIERS Throws our Hat into the Ring
The War-gamers and Historians Association of Coastal Maine, formerly the Toy Soldier group of Bath has gotten our feet wet with a gathering to build Romans.
The lady of the house provided some homemade brownies, and the gentleman the lunch. (Home made pulled pork)
Long time group members Andrew Niven, Dale Blodgett, Bryan Watson, David Cormier, and Tim Richter (in no particular order) gathered at Richter's home in Bath, on Tuesday the 24th, and Saturday the 28th to raise a cohort or two.
We are happy to report that 144 Romans (three boxes) of Romans are now assembled, and the first box has been primed and has its flesh base coat.
In addition all of the shields for the cohorts have had their decals applied, save one unit which had its shields applied to the figs first, rather than applying the decals to the shields on the sprue.
A couple of observations. After gluing the heads with solvent glue, and finding the fit unsatifactory; we moved on to using Hot Melt glue. That set much faster, and filled the gaps. If this holds up under the handling of painting, i think its the winning method. This may also hold true with the shields, as they really need more structure than the solvent glue can give.
I am not sold on the shield transfers. For anyone else doing Romans a word of warning, you get ONE shot with these things. Once it sticks your committed, so its important to line up the transfer well with the hand boss before you start burnishing. Once on they look good and a little touch up around edges will turn out very nice shields... I think. More on that as we finish some Cohorts.
The secret weapon for removing the parts from the sprue? Basic nail clippers (viewable in one of the photos) they cut the plastic easily and closely. And we all have several pairs laying about somewhere.
I hope to be able to report some finished cohorts in the next couple weeks. The ultimate goal of WHAC'M will be a completed Legio.
Photos to be posted soon.
Well done! Thanks for the update and I cant wait to see photos when you have a moment. This is great news. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Bryan Watson & Dale Blodgett
Base flesh coat, and goodies in the background
Andrew Niven, Dale Blodgett and parts everywhere
Parts Pile:
sheild transfers going on:
Shields showing issue of lining up the transfer, one shot at it....
There we go, buncha photos. More as progress happens.
"We were Toy Soldiers"..... Very nice. I love the group name lol.
Nice looking stuff. I am looking forward to see the finished project in May.
Update Time
Tim Richter and Dave Cormier of the WHAC'M group and Dean Emmerson got together on Friday the 15th to plug away on some Romans. Progress continues and the first several cohorts will be complete soon. I'll post some photos later today I hope. Its definitely painting weather.
Go Tim and company - nice to see photos of YOU guys. And NICE job
putting the little buggers together. It was the one part of all those
old Romans we did back in the 90s that I absolutely hated. Mostly
all I did was stick their heads to the ends of my figures and then lose
them to Allana who was more than happy to make off with them! I still
have a few headless types in the collection. Lol
Also know how you feel about decals - yuk. However, when you have multiple painters it's probably a good idea . . . Andy
Here are a couple of photos from the other night when I stopped by and Tim and Dave were hard at it. 
Tim's cohorts.
And Dave Cormier, applying flesh to more of the little buggers.
