1/72nd scale HaT Dacians, Follow along as I paint these guys!

Hi guys!

This thread will be an ongoing blog of my little 1/72nd scale Dacian Army Paint-up.

The Dacians were the original Romanians that lived at the time of the Roman Empire under Trajan.

The company "HAT" made these figures as well as Thracians, which can also be fielded in the Dacian Army.

Currently, I have 2 boxes of Dacians and 1 box of Thracians. That's 144 figures.

I haven't got into the Thracians yet, but here come the Dacians!


The Standard Bearer - Only one completely painted so far.


The remaining army - Wide Screen


Heavy Weapons


The Archers



The remaining Standard Bearers.



The completed Heavy Weapons figures.
Here's one of each pose, front and back.




This post has been edited by Ursulescu on February 08, 2010 11:52 pm

The ever growing army. Warriors were painted blue. More detail to come!



Standard Bearers are now ready for duty. I had to reverse the colour order on the standard as I discovered that the Romanian flag is "Blue to the post".

And here's all eight of the Standard Bearers.



And here's a little picture for size comparison. (The Canadian Quarter is the same size as the American Quarter and some English, Australian, and New Zealand coins I have in my coin collection.)

Here's the archer.




That's it for now!

This post has been edited by Ursulescu on February 08, 2010 11:56 pm

If you don`t mind I`d like to make a small observation.
The characters that are half naked can`t be dacians. The dacians did not fight naked , they can be thracians or bastarnae ( I hope that I spelled that correct)
And second you should try to remove extra material left from casting! That`s only if you are a modeller and not a war-gamer.

P.S. also Try here http://www.cartula.ro/forum/padure-t397.html&hl=dacians

And what is with the Romanian flag on Dacian standards? Here's what it should look like:



This post has been edited by bansaraba on February 14, 2010 11:31 pm

uh, painting dacians in red-yellow-blue is like painting goths in feldgrau.

Some works about romanian flag says that the origins of red-yellow-blue are in antiquity, at the dacians, which used these colours on their flags. Anyway, I believe that this hypothesis are speculative, because I never saw a solid proof in this direction.

Talking of gross inaccuracies, what has the Dacian wolf-head standard to do with the Christian cross (see photo above)?

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 15, 2010 06:09 am

just in case someone is intrested:
new "Vlad Tepes" troops kit
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1514

I was at the event were the photo was taken, no intention meant by dacian reenactors to combine dacian wolf standard with the cross. Below the first "arm" of the "cross" it is another one. That wood work served also as weapon "rastel".

In that case the resemblance is only by chance. Thanks for clarifying the issue.

Gen. Dénes

First off, I'm both a modeler AND a wargammer. I've won numerous awards in model shows including special awards, gold, silver and bronze. However, I still find it hard to remove the seam lines off this paticular type of plastic (polyethelene) mainly because it's that semi-rubberized stuff used on these small figures. The knife tends to push it off instead of cut it off. I've even attempted using a stainless steel knife (Which supposidly stays sharper for longer) with no good results.

As for the 1/2 naked "Dacians" - they were in the box from HaT, so either the company got it wrong or they included them as something else. The fault isn't mine.

Also, I don't see why Blue, Yellow and Red would be wrong. They're the primary colours. It may not be "accurate" to the one posted above, but at least it represents what i want it to - Romanians on the battlefield!

The Dacians weren't Rumanians. They were.. Dacians.

Gen. Dénes

Flash bulletin: Dacians were not Romanians!! And the tricolor flag dates back to the early 19th century. So, no connection between the two.

The biggest mistake about the Draco is that they are cavalry standards (signum), not infantry flags (vexillum). So there should be horses arround...

I think you guys are taking this too seriously! It's wearing me down, so forgive me for leaving an "Angry post" so earily in my life on this fourm.

Pardon me for my historical inaccuracies on these inaccurate models made by some manufacturer that I so inaccuratly painted and how dare me for even purchacing such models in the first place, secondly, posting them here on this ever so accurate web site. Maybe I should find out who the HaT sculptor was and beat the hell out of him for sculpting 1/2 naked Falx wielders, and also facing the blade in the wrong direction, which none of you guys picked up on. I should probably smack him around and tell him to put horses in the box, probably a machine gun or two so I can mow down the Romans and laugh as they bleed into the earth, however historically inaccurate that would be.

Now, let me explain about them.

You know, in Canada, where I'm from, there is hardly anything on Romania to draw from. Romania isn't a #1 priority here. I'm only interested in it because it was the home of my Grandfather and I'm trying to know what it was about, and in the process, try and figure out what he was about.

Here's MY history concering Romania.

When Romania went Communist in the 1940's-1989, all info was locked up for the western world, save for Brahm Stoker's Dracula. I was born in 1974. All I knew of Romania was Dracula and that my Grandfather came from there. Kids at school thought I was a vampire because of this.

Grandpa never taught my father the language or culture, so I don't know the language and am trying to learn a bit of it from some books and tapes I purchaced in the last 10 years. It's only now, some 20 years later, that the info, for Canada/America, is becoming avalible, and it's so hard to find. Sorry, I don't have volume after volume of books on the subject. I'm spending more time trying to research all this stuff and not finding much at all. Even the net is 75% useless unless you know exactly where to search, and that's even a chore on itself.

I am glad I found this web site for the fact that now I FINALLY have some info on Romania's past. I am NOT glad, however, that I'm meeting up with some overly critical, non-too-helpful nit-picky people. Where are your modles, if you're so damned good? I'd like to see them and be humbled by them, if they exist, that is.

Where did I get my Tri-Coloured banner idea from? It was in a painting in a book I saw that some Romanian person posted the pic online in a You-tube video on Dacia. (Can't find the link right now.) Therefore, I assumed it was correct and appropriate.

Did not the Dacians BECOME the present day Romanians after Trajan conquered them? Didn't they live on that land? Don't most of the present day Romanians trace their origin to them? That's my understanding, and history's too. Therefore, calling the Dacians "Romanian" is not such an insult, IMHO.

Forgive me for "lashing out", but I am getting quite angry at this whole thing.