A Baccus 6mm Phalanx or Three

Strictly speaking it's eight if you include the ones I had already painted. I am now caught at the point where I need to either buy more and continue to grow the army or move onto the Persian opposition. At this point I am leaning towards the Persians to add another gaming option.

So another three blocks of Baccus pikes have been painted up. I got these done in a little under a weeks painting so they were quite a quick paint by my standards. Base coated in black with a dry brush of white for the leather armour to pick out the detail then on with painting them for real.

It's the first time I have painted three units of 96 figures at the same time but it was not as boring as I suspected and I will probably do the same again when I get more pike in stock. I pulled out one of my previous blocks so I could cut the pikes to the right length first time.

I did not worry about getting the length just right on all the pikes as I give them a trip once all are in place, I keep a bag of bristles I bought at the same time as the figures, I have far more than I need for the 20 blocks (I think) so should be fine as long as I don't loose them. I cut the pikes in batches splitting up the various stages of finishing making it a little less boring.

I continue to paint up my pikes with blue or red tunics but sooner or later I will have to select a third colour and probably a fourth to help show which division they belong to.

The blocks are eight figures deep with the front two with pikes slanted forwards. By putting on a 60x60 base and glueing the rear most figures on the back edge the pikes don't hang over the edge of the forward edge of the base. 

Each block costs £6.60 for the figures alone so it's not the cheapest option for a 6mm army but the result makes it worthwhile to me. Of course all the other units need a lot less figures so the overall outlay remains a lot less than other scales for comparable units.

All eight blocks together, the look I wanted to achieve is starting to come off. Obviously once on a proper table with other units they will really start looking the part.