Ave Aventine! A new Roman army!

Marcus Aurelius prepares to lead his army into Germania!  Little does he know that he will be murdered by Johnny Cash!

Just over a year ago when I was playing favourites I opined that if I had to paint only one wargames army it would be Early Imperial Roman.  And yet, not long ago, I sold nearly all the figures I had to BigRedBat, whose Greek and Roman armies are simply awesome.

How could Romans be my favorite wargames army if I didn't have any of the classic EIR figures any more?  I looked at the plastic Warlord Games figures again but they are not very inspiring, I have decided, despite lots of supporting figures (all in different scales and styles).  I loved my Steve Saleh figures but there just wasn't enough variety for me to happily build an army: no command, no cavalry or artillery and only a few poses.

But the problem was that for the period I wanted to do (invasion of Britain in 43 AD) there were no other EIR figures I liked.  I looked at the Warlord plastics again but still didn't feel inspired, partly because there were no Little Big Men decals for the Legio II Augusta who I really wanted to paint.

My 3rd Century infantry unit

I really want to paint some Romans, though. I haven't painted any since October 2007!  Recently I have had an epiphany, however.  I was looking at the wrong period!  Now, I already have a Republican army which I finished in 2007, although recently I picked up some figures on eBay so I could push it from 12 man to 24 man units.  I have quite a few Foundry Caesarian Romans of which I have only painted one centurion.  I am wondering about the new Warlord plastics as they are supposedly bigger than their EIR figures.  I have painted two units of A&A's lovely 3rd Century Romans which I intend to pit (eventually) against Palmyrans.  I even have some late Romans from Black Tree Designs (they are much nicer than their EIR figures which have very short legs) which I am now thinking of matching up against some of Musketeer's excellent Goths.

A couple of years ago when I was bemoaning the lack of good, modern 28mm EIR figures an anonymous person commented on one of my posts as follows:  "You would be suprised. Wait some months ;-) There would be saleh style legionaries in Dacian war armour, new gladius poses, legion command, artillery etc, all in 28mm scale."   I had no idea who left this comment but now wonder whether it could be someone from Aventine Miniatures.  I knew that they were doing Etruscans but had missed the fact that they had started an EIC range or, strictly, a late EIC range because these figures are supposed to cover the period from 100AD to 190AD.  Too late for my invasion of Britain but they would work for wars against the Dacians, Sarmartians and Germans.  I looked at their website and was surprised to see how many packs they had already.  This is when I had my epiphany!  What had started me buying (initially) Peter Pig 15mm EIR figures was seeing the film Gladiator.  I also bought some Germans.  I even painted a lot of them.  Then I started to buy and paint some of Foundry's Mark Copplestone Ancient Germans.  I actually have about 70 figures painted which is a huge amount for me.  Why not go back to my original Gladiator inspiration and have an Aurelian army to take on the Germans?  The Aventine figures are just the right period (although I wish some of the figures had beards which, it seems, was common during the reign of Marcus Aurelius).

Then BigRedBat announced he was looking for unpainted Foundry Germans and we realised that maybe we were planning a similar (identical?) project at the same time.  Normally this would put me off because he is so focussed and will no doubt churn out huge numbers of (lovely) figures in a very short time.  In the meantime I had ordered some sample packs from Aventine and when they arrived they were just beautiful. Large, like the Foundry Saleh figures, and very similar in look but this time there was enough variation.  No cavalry yet but this does still seem to be an ongoing project.  

Today I have based Marcus Aurelius and a supporting primus pilus and have sixteen Praetorians to get started on.  This time I am going to do what one of the WAB books suggested; start with your commanding officer and what better way to start a  new Roman army than with the Emperor!

A new home for some of my Romans...

Skulking in the vineyard 

I've never sold any of my painted figures before but when I saw BigRedBat asking if anyone had any of the big Steve Saleh sculpted Foundry Romans for a game he was planning at Partizan I volunteered to sell him mine.  I was delighted to see a picture of my auxiliaries on his blog post of the superb looking battle of Ad Castores at last weekend's event in Newark (where on earth is Newark anyway?).  Even better he had hidden them in a vineyard and named the cohort after me.  I really do feel that the figures have gone to a good home!  He has just put up a post about them here and they now look fantastic.  Many of these figures had to be painted very quickly overnight as the game they were painted for at Fishbourne Roman Place was not going well for the Romans and we needed reinforcements.

Here they are in action at the epic Fishbourne Game in 2005

Now given that I said once that if I had to give up all other wargaming periods except one it would be Early Imperial Romans it may seem odd that I sold all my EIR figures. The thing is that while I liked Saleh's Roman there were hardly any different poses as he never finished the range; the consequence of the implosion at Wargames Foundry a few years ago.  In the meantime, we have seen the launch of Warlord Games and their extensive Roman range.  I made the decision to move over to their figures as soon as I saw their "tortoise".  I own about four boxes of their plastics and have constructed and based up a unit but haven't' started painting them.  They have been sat precariously perched on an old tray on top of a pile of file boxes of old Penthouse magazines from the sixties and seventies in the corner of my study for well over a year.

Legio Secunda's interpretation

I find Romans quite quick to paint so why haven't I started them?  The answer is lack of shield transfers.  I want to do the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 which means the II, IV, XIV and XX Legions. However, there is reasonable evidence to suggest that Legio II Augusta, commanded by Vespasian, featured a Capricorn design on its shield (the Arch at Orange being a source for this as it was partly built in honour of the successes of Legio II Augusta in the Gallic Wars).  Yet nowhere can I find a shield transfer for this famous unit. I really don't want to have to paint every shield but it looks as If I might have to!  The Legio Secunda Augusta re-enactment group have come up with their own version of the shield design and it wouldn't be that hard to paint; just time consuming!

While scanning some older posts on my Punic Wars blog I saw all the posts I did while preparing a force for the Society of Ancients Cynoscephalae game a few (five!) years ago.  In fact it was attending that event where I met BigRedBat for the first (and only) time.  Given I have just finished painting a unit of figures (a rare occurrence) I was wondering about digging out the next unit of Carthaginian veterans that I have somewhere.  I think they might even be undercoated!  Maybe then I might expand my Roman legions from the current 1:100 figure ratio to 1:50.  I used 12 figure units as that was what the WAB Hannibal supplement suggested but 24 man units would look better and would be better for Hail Caesar and some of the other new ancients rules I have bought recently.

So maybe it's time to return to Rome!

Gladiatrix!

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)

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

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

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

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 piece 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 army to field against Keith's Romans in a 1 to 1 fight.

Great fun!

Flee, Roman scum!