1st to 4th Century Roman WAB

Gladiatrix!

2011-09-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

I have painted a number of the Foundry gladiators which are pretty historically accurate although the figures, which are by different sculptors, vary in standard quite a bit. I am not sure who is responsible for this murmillo gladatrix, which I finished last week, but she is one of the better figures and certainly one of the better female ones.

She has been on the workbench for some time but two things caused me to finish her: firstly, watching the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which was good drama but terrible as regards historical accuracy. Secondly, I have just finished the second of Russell Whitfield's novels about female gladiators, Roma Victrix. This, like the first had excellent fight scenes, lesbian sex and a good understanding of gladiatoral combat; although I am not that convinced that there were whole ludi of gladatrixes! The second book also expands on the scope of the original and features scenes set in the Dacian Wars.

I always seem to have one or two gladiators lurking around the workbench and have just started a female retiarus who has a rather unappealling mowhawk haircut and, sadly, doesn't look anything like as attractive as Beyonce in that Pepsi commercial from a few years ago!

I had already painted one gladiatrix so at least they can fight each other now! Over the years I have used a number of rules for gladiators (we used to have games at school with the Paragon Wargames Group rules)including Morituri Te Salutant which are now published by Black Hat Games. I see that Warhammer Historical have a new set out too so will certainly pick those up in the near future too, although the cover is horrible!

The entire Ludus Hedlius watch the girls go at it!

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena is out on DVD next month so expect more gladiators then!

The Chariot Race by Alexander von Wagner (c.1882)

2011-02-13T14:43:00.000-08:00

Steve the Wargamer put up a picture of The Chariot Race by Alexander von Wagner (1838-1919) on his blog and lamented the fact that he couldn't find a bigger image on the web (I couldn't either).

I went to Manchester a couple of years ago on a boring management awayday, but managed to escape in the afternoon and visit the Art Gallery where I saw this painting. The picture is huge; about four and a half feet by ten feet and in real life is quite breathtaking.

Anyway, I bought a large postcard of it so have scanned it at a larger size.

Article on Battle of Medway Game 2005

2010-06-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Legatus on the left in the top and bottom. More importantly that's my Roman general on the right!

Someone on TMP was explaining that they had had a bad experience with a newspaper reporter writing about wargaming.

Prior to me setting up my blogs we did a demonstration game at Fishbourne Roman Palace and the Chichester Observer sent a rather cute lady reporter along who wrote, I have to admit, a nice little article. Of course the fact that she wanted me to be in all the photographs helped! I can't believe it was nearly five years ago!

3rd Century Roman Army

2009-08-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

I love Dr Phil Hendry's website; his Romans are always an inspiration and he has almost (but not quite!) convinced me of the merits of army painter (or the "dip" as the non proprietal method is called). Now, due to some technical issue that I couldn't make out (it's the sort of things Mac users always have-serves them right for wanting to be different) he has started a new one: http://web.me.com/philhendry/Phil_Wargaming_Website/

On his new site he has some pictures of his newly painted A&A 3rd Century Romans and Sassanid Persians which are, as ever, wonderful. However what really got me thinking was his proposed 1000 point armies for each faction as they come to ..well, not very many figures at all. Now, I don't plan my armies at all. I just paint bits of units and then put them away for two years and later maybe finish a unit, put it away etc. -part of the problem of not being able to concentrate on one period. But these sorts of numbers look acheivable.

So far I have finished two units for my 3rd Century Roman Eastern army:

1x20 unit of legionaries 325 points

1x16 unit of armoured archers 149 points

So, I've already got 474 points painted. A general will give me another big wodge of points and I have a few cavalry on the go to. I have another unit of legionaries based and ready for undercoating and, now I that have at last started to use spray undercoat, these could be on the go quite soon. So maybe now is the time to plan this army and see what I can do for it.

Thanks Dr Phil!

Romans v Britons WAB

2009-04-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

John's wonderful game board

I actually got along to Guildford yesterday for a WAB game and took my little boy with me as he is much better at dice throwing than me. Andy and I had 2,000 points of Ancient Britons against Dave and Keith's 2000 points of Early Imperial Romans.

My Warband. Only a few germans in there to make up the numbers!

As usual it was very tricky to fight against Romans with their double rank strikes, large shields and drilled and stubborn characteristics. One thing I remember from the battle we did at Fishbourne Pa couple of years ago was that slingers can be very effective at whittling down numbers so the Romans, who have small units, lose rank bonus. We had about 3 dozen slingers and whilst my small unit was wiped out early by a particularly annoying unit of Roman cavalry Andy's did sterling service.

One thing I had forgotten was how devastating Roman scorpions can be. I must make sure I field some when using a Roman army and also have some way of neutralising them if facing them.

My Warlord was busy racing around using his leadership value to stop my warbands from fleeing all the time

In the end it was quite close with the Britons winning a marginal victory (according to the Romans but then they would say that wouldn't they?). On my side I was lucky to have Guy throw some critical high dice throws when needed!

John produced another great scenic picee for the game and it really does enhance a battle to have such nice scenery to fight over.

Now I have to see if I should get on and finish either my Celts or Ancient Germans so that I have an anrmy to field against Keith's Romans in a 1 to 1 fight.

Great fun

Flee, Roman scum!

3rd Century German battlefield

2009-01-06T03:36:00.001-08:00

A marks the spot.

The site of a battle between Roman troops and Germans has been discovered in Kalefield, south of Hannover. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,596720,00.html It is very rare to discover an unknown ancient battlefield like this and this one is particularly interesting because of how far north it is and how undisturbed.

Some of the finds

After the defeat by Varus in the Teutoberg Forest in AD 9 (when is anyone going to make suitable Romans, with the early lorica segmenta, for this in 28mm?) it was generally believed that the Romans kept well away from Germany apart from the occasional raid. However, if this was a raid they were deep into German territory and coming south, according to the archaeologists.

Markers indicating some of the over 600 finds so far

The archaeologists reckon from the missiles that they have found that about 1,000 Romans attacked a German force on top of a hill. From the boot studs, arrows and ballista bolts it looks like a mixed force of auxiliaries, archers and ballistae. Carbon dating of wood found in an arrow head points to 200-250AD. This ties in with a known declaration of war on the Germans by Emperor Maximinus Thrax (i.e. Maximinus the Thracian c. 173–238).

Emperor Maximinus

Thrax was a big (possibly even a giant- there is a theory that he had acromegaly), uncultured , low-born Thracian who became Emperor (much to the Senate's horror) when his predecessor, Alexander Severus, was killed by the Praetorian Guard partly because of his appeasement to the Germans. Maximinus probably had little option, therefore, but to declare war on the Germans. The Senate later withdrew support for him and he was in turn killed by the Praetorians in April 238AD during his unsuccesful campaign to march on Rome.

This has wargames scenario written all over it and would make a great game with my third century Romans, especially as their are suggestions that there were many eastern Archers involved in Thrax's German operations like the ones I have already painted.

For troops I would use the A&A figures. As they are likely to be auxiliaries then probably chainmail equipped with oval shields, archers and a ballista or two. One of the finds was a "hippo shoe" a sort of overshoe for a horse or draft animal so there could have been cavalry or maybe only equipment mules or carts (for the ballistae?). Perhaps three units of infantry, one of archers and two balistae again (about 100 figures) against a bigger force of Germans on a hill.

Were the Germans encamped on the hill or just fighting on high ground? Was it a settlement? We may know more after the archaeologists get back to work on the site at Hazhorn Hill this March.

Goths are coming!

2008-11-13T09:30:00.001-08:00

I like the new Crusader Miniatures late Romans and they go very well with the Black Tree Design figures of which I have quite a few so it is very good news that Musketeer miniatures will be producing a line of Goths. As they are being sculpted in the same style as their excellent Early Saxons they should go well with the Crusader and BTD figures.

I never painted any of my Late Romans as I couldn't find an opposing army in a modern style that I liked but this should solve it!

Warlord Games Early Imperial Romans

2008-10-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

After much humming and hawing I bought a box of the Warlord Games plastic 28mm Romans. Like many people I got a free one with miniature Wargames and was subsequently disappointed by the small size of the figure. This was especially so as my current EIR army is made up of the big Steve Saleh sculpted Foundry figures. Warlord have won me over by just turning out a huge number of figures in their first year which include all sorts of interesting figures such as marching figures, carts, mules etc. This means that I can really build the sort of force I want, which the lack of variety in the Foundry figures didn't allow me to do. Warlord are also promising interesting opponents like Dacians and Samartions too. Finally, the Warlord figures match the older Perry Foundry ones quite well so characters and such can come from the Foundry line.

I have now made a few of the figures from my first box and so I will start to do some over the next few months.

Because of this project I have decided to expand the coverage of this blog to all Romans from 1st Century AD until 4th Century AD. Several armies, I know but it means I will update it a bit more often hopefully.

Armoured Archers finished!

2007-10-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I got the armoured archers done: 15 figures in two weeks to join the one I had done a year or so ago. I probably won't need another unit of these: the next archers I get will be skirmishers. 16 armoured archers are 144 points for WAB using the EIR list.

I have based five more cavalry and the mounted general who is, I suspect, supposed to be an Emperor. I will need to give him lots of purple and gold and spend a bit more time on him than I did with the archers which I rushed a bit. Never mind, they look good en masse.

Roman Cavalry

2007-10-26T13:48:00.001-07:00

One of the things that attracted me to the A&A range was their fine horses. This is my first cavalryman. I'm going to get some more based tomorrow evening and work on them over the next few weeks. Gradually over this period there were more cavalry being used as the infantry dropped in quality until you end up with the typical Late Roman Army.

General

2007-10-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

This is the general from the senior officers' pack. He is bearded so that really puts him at the beginning of the 3rd Century rather than in the last quarter where I need him to fight Zenobia. There is a mounted figure as well so once he is done this chap will get demoted.

First Roman Infantry Unit

2007-10-26T12:15:00.001-07:00

This is the first Roman infantry unit I painted. Historically, there are all sorts of things wrong with it. The first two ranks have lorica segmenta whilst the back two ranks have chainmail. The front two ranks also have square shields rather than oval ones.

This mirrors a picture in the Osprey where Angus Mcbride shows his front rank with lorica, rectangular shields, armored sleves and a chainmail hood. A&A actually make these figures (the scale armoured ones too) so I will have to order some and then move my existing front rankers into another unit. Although there is reasonable archaelogical evidence for all these items mixing them in with scale armoured troops with oval shields is dubious. However, it looks really cool and franlky who knows what was worn nearly 2000 years ago. No one at Guildford is going to object, I suspect.

The figures in lorica, with rectangular shields and late Gallic helmets are probably really from an earlier era, say the late second century. It's likely that Marcus Aurelius' troops who fought in Germania (as depicted at the beginning of Gladiator) looked more like this.

One thing that there is evidence for is the colour of the tunics as a painting of Roman troops was actually discovered at Dura Europas in Syria in the 1920's. They clearly demonstrate a white (or more likely, off white) tunic. Amazingly given this visual evidence there are still people who won't credit it. As far as I am concerned this is more visual evidence than we usually have about uniforms of ancient times. The characteristic mustard coloured cloaks are much in evidence too. Note too the pink bands on the standard bearer's tunic.

Points wise this is difficult to judge as they are really too late for the EIR list (although it does say in the main rule book that the list is good until 250AD) and too early for the Fall of the West list which goes from the 4th Century. The general consensus on TMP seems to treat them as EIR but with more cavalry. Certainly the WAB EIR list gives statistics for Lanciarii, which were from our period.

Looking at 16 points per legionary plus 5 points for the leader you are looking at 325 points for this unit.

Another blog!

2007-10-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

On the basis that having blogs is definitely making me paint more and in a more organised way it is time to start another one!

This one will reflect the building of (initially) a 3rd Century Roman army for Warhammer Ancient Battles and their Palmyran (and eventually Sassanid Persian) opponents. I have always like Romans from the days I got my first set of Airfix plastics and fielded hundreds (all unpainted of course) against a Carthaginian army built from Ancient Britains, red indians and a Britains baby elephant with plasticard howdah. Surprisingly, it has taken me some time to start building 28mm Roman armies. I started with EIR using the larger Steve Saleh Foundry figures. There are hardly any different poses as he left Foundry before really starting on the range but it sort of doesn't matter so much with Romans. I needed the big figures because I had bought the Renegade Celts which were huge. Next, I bought a load of the Copplestone Caesarian Romans but other than a few officers I haven't painted any yet. This is odd as they look great painted (I have done a few officers). Then I started a Punic force which progressed well driven by the Cynoscephalae battle we did for the Society of Ancients battle day this year.

http://punicwarwab.blogspot.com/

Somewhere in between I bought some of the A&A 3rd Century Romans.

http://www.aandaminiatures.co.uk/

This purchase was entirely down to the pictures of the figures I saw in one of the wargames magazines. In many ways they are just the sort of figures I don't like: stocky with big heads and exagerated weapons but there was just something appealing about them.

http://www.aandaminiatures.co.uk/details.asp?code=mir02&desc=Infantry%20command%20(2%20senior,%202%20Junior%20officers,%202%20musicians,%20and%202%20standard%20bearers)

The reasons I like them are partly because they are unusual but also because A&A offer a good range of poses: rather than just one command pack you can choose from no less than four infantry command packs. Then again you have troops in mail, scale and lorica armour. No doubt you should use them all in the proper periods but there doesn't seem to be much agreement as to what sort of armour disappeared when so I am going to mix them all up.

The range was obviously inspired by the Osprey covering the subject by Ross Cowan and some of the figures have been modelled directly on Angus macBride's wonderful paintings.

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=S6011~ser=WAR~per=40

A couple of weeks ago A&A announced the start of their Palmyran range and I have already sent off for some cataphracts and Queen Zenobia on a camel, dressed as she is in the cover to David Nicolles's Osprey on Rome's Enemies on the desert frontier.

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=P1661~ser=MAA~per=40

The big advantage of a Palymyran army is that it consisted of a lot of cataphracts so that should mean not so many figures!

I am now well on the way to finishing my second eight archers to go with the ones above. Then I think I will start on some of the cavalry I have already got.