These all look fantastic, you've now sold me on the idea of getting a 6mm Ancients army (well two if I'm to play). In order to seal my fate, please can I ask two questionjs:
First, would you mind sharing a step-by-step on how you painted the legionnaries?
It's really a very simple scheme. This ended up being a test for the new GW paints, primarily because I wanted to make sure I could keep the colors consistent. The Legionaries only use eight colors total.
The shields and cloth are basecoated Mephiston Red. Armor, pilum tips, and shield bosses are basecoated in Leadbealcher. Boots and pilum hafts are XV-88. Skin is
Cadian Fleshtone Bestigor Flesh. The furs on the officers are basecoated in Dryad Bark. Then everything gets a wash of Nuln Oil, making sure it doesn't pile up too much, particularly on the shields. Once that's dried the tops of the helmets and the shield bosses get a light drybrush back up to Leadbealcher. The top edges and the top and left side(as seen from the front) of the shields get highlighted back up to Mephiston Red. Then the bases are painted - Dryad Bark basecoat with sucessive heavy drybrushes (almost overbrusing) of Gorthor Brown and Baneblade Brown. This basing combination, by the way, is a very effective substitute for my old favored combo of Charadon Granite/Graveyard Earth/Kommando Khaki. A bit more red, but very similar.
The only new colors are for the Cav - while the dark horses are basecoated in Dryad Bark, the light brown horses are Mournfang Brown, and the white horses are Ceramit White.
And second, I'm wondering about putting twice as many on a base (four ranks, or perhaps three), do you think they'd all fit? (or is there a good historical reason for not doing this?)
They'd fit. The strips are 20mm x 5mm, with four men each. One of the nice things Baccus does is sells by the unit - for Warmaster style basing you can choose between two and four ranks deep. The link is kind of hard to find for this - I always have to do some searching. It's in the Products -> Ancient section of the site, all the way at the bottom, under 'MAGSAWMA (40mm)'
It's also important to point out that if you buy the army deals for WMA they come with units in two ranks, so if you want deeper units make sure to plan for it.
