Romans on the Rhine

Having put together a force of Germanic tribes to use with the Infamy, Infamy rules, I felt an irresistible urge to then create an opposing force of Romans. Hole... Rabbit....you know the story.

The initial motivation for putting together that force of Germans was to trial the Infamy rules. At the time, Dave my regular opponent, had a good selection of figures in his collection for the period, but Infamy, Infamy is all about the Roman conflicts with the tribal kingdoms on the frontiers of the empire. Dave's collection includes several of Rome's enemies, but none of them are barbarians. My mission was to provide a suitable hostile force. Rather conveniently, it coincided with a sale by Victrix and that was all the extra incentive I needed. They produce a lovely set of figures for the Germans and I really enjoyed the project (more about it in this post).

As it turned out, we found Infamy, Infamy a particularly engaging rule set. It does a splendid job of recreating the asymmetrical warfare on the edges of the Roman world and I wanted to make the most of the figures I'd painted. The best way to ensure that was going to happen, was to create my own collection of Romans. 

Well, that was my rationale (or flimsy excuse, depending on your perspective). My starting point was the list in the rule book that's suggested for a force from an Imperial Legion. It's made up of three groups of eight legionaries; one group of eight auxiliary foot and one group of eight auxiliary archers. I'm really pleased with the way the figures have come out. The painting was very straightforward and the shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios set them off perfectly.

I gave a fair bit of thought to how I should base the figures. The Infamy rules use figure removal to mark casualties and my initial thought was to make use of my existing sabot bases. They would allow for figure removal and give me the regimented look suited to the Roman style of warfare.

However, I had second thoughts. The sabot bases are 60mmx60mm, with each figure on a 25mm round base. With hindsight I can see that both make for too big a footprint. Then there's the aesthetic issue of how to deal with sabot slots once a casualty is removed. I've never been prepared to have empty slots and so made up bases to fill them. These might hold a mini dice frame to mark shock, or feature a casualty figure, or in some cases simply left blank with matching terrain. 

The Germanic tribes were a different case altogether. I used a different convention, with either one, two or three figures to a base. It worked very well for my Mahdist Ansars and creates the less regimented look I want for tribal groups and irregular troops. It allows for individual figure removal while retaining some of the convenience of moving multi-based figures. 

However, the Romans more disciplined formations called for a more formal basing style. Instead of sabots, I decided I would go with multi-basing, putting four figures on a 50mmx50mm base. 

I did consider trying to squeeze this down to 40x40mm, but it seemed too crowded, especially for the second rank figures, most of whom are throwing pila. Although, to be honest, now that I've completed them, I do wonder if I should have gone for the smaller base and a more compact looking unit?

Having said that, the Germanic tribes are based in such a way that one of their groups of ten figures occupies a frontage of approximately 100mm, so the two 50mm bases for the Romans works well from a game perspective. 

I opted to use the Victrix set of legionaries in fighting poses, rather than those that are advancing. Given the game is very much about close combat, it seemed only fitting the Romans should match the dynamism of the German poses.

When paired off like this the two sets work well together. Ideally this is how they will be spending much of their time during a game and in terms of photographs for the blog it makes for a more compelling image.

The Auxiliary foot from Victrix come in only one set of poses and so I couldn't create the same dynamism for these groups. As the set includes enough figures for twenty foot soldiers and four command figures I have more than I need for this initial force, but, as it happens, not enough for two of the other suggested forces which are principally composed of auxiliaries. Back to Victrix then....add to cart. Sometimes this hobby is so predictable.

These are based exactly the same as the legionaries.

Last, but not least, we have the auxiliary archers. Once again, these are figures from Victrix.

Unlike the archers from the Germanic tribes these are more formally arraigned, whereas the German archers are in smaller groups and individually based.

Overall, I'm very happy. If I have one gripe, it's that the pila and spears are quite flimsy. During the process of basing I snapped a couple and had to replace the missing sections with wire. I suspect that won't be the last repairs I will need to make. That aside, the Victrix figures are lovely sculpts and, as you might expect, match up perfectly with the Germanic tribes.

A few new arrivals

February and March have passed in something of a blur and the blog has been a little quiet. I came back from Cancon to discover we were acquiring a new dog. While this had been discussed, I was not expecting the arrival quite so soon. Nor was I expecting the hard work. A six week old rescue puppy, as gorgeous as she is, has required an awful lot of attention. Meet young Lottie.

It's been fifteen years since our last puppy and I'd forgotten how exhausting it can be, let alone for one that is really too young to have been separated from mother and litter. 

As I'm the only family member based at home all day, the burden has fallen on me, so my time hasn't really been my own for a few weeks. That said, a young puppy sleeps a lot and that's meant, with a bit of reworking of my hobby space, I've managed to paint a few things. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for playing games. Hopefully that will be rectified in the coming weeks as things settle down into a more regular routine. She's come a long way in only a couple of months.

At first, I decided to simply focus on a few small unfinished projects. The first were a final few groups of Romano-British that I had bought at Cancon. I wrote more about these just last month in this post.

Realising that painting armour and mail was relatively quick and straightforward, inspired me to come to grips with the outstanding Romans that I wanted to put together to oppose my Germanic tribes. 

For that I'd acquired enough Victrix sets to make up the force of legionaries, auxiliaries and archers that form one of the units for the early imperial Romans in the Infamy, Infamy rule book. I've made great progress here and will shortly be able to compile a post on the project with the completed figures.

While Infamy, Infamy has single figure casualty removal, I've decided to go with multi basing for these Romans, it's something I'm more inclined to do going forward for a couple of reasons. 

Firstly, in the past I've been basing my figures on 25mm rounds and for that I need a 60x60mm sabot base for four figures. That's a big footprint, especially if you compare that with multi basing on something like a 40x40mm. That's a substantial difference - from 3600mm square down to only 1600mm square. After a bit of trial I decided 40x40 was just too small and crowded, so in the end I've opted for 50x50mm, which allows for more space for each figure while maintaining a smaller footprint. 

Secondly, I've never been a fan of empty sabot slots and in the past I've gone to great lengths to create blank terrain bases to fill those slots. With multi basing I can avoid that altogether and maintain a more pleasing aesthetic. Yes, I do need to come up with a way to mark casualties, but I think there are solutions with less glaring visuals than empty sabot slots.

One much smaller project was eight Perry Miniatures plastic British colonial figures for the Second Anglo-Afghan War. These I had made up while doing the figures for the Sudan (which could work equally well for the Afghan War). 

However, I'd always wanted to paint a few as the 72nd Regiment of Foot in Afghanistan, after seeing this picture in one of the Osprey books.

I'd actually done this once before many, many years ago, when I converted a 54mm Airfix multipose US Marine figure.

Fortunately, the tartan is not overly complicated and reproducing it in an abstract way for a smaller scale was fairly straightforward.

Now, you might be asking, why the Second Anglo-Afghan War? Well, that's because another uncompleted project is putting together some of the Perry plastic Afghan tribesman. These were purchased a few years ago in a sudden rush of blood to the head when I was immersed in the Sudan project, but have since sat in the stash. My motivation was driven by a couple of things. One, my Sudan British could work just as well for the latter parts of the 19th century on the North west Frontier and Afghanistan. Two, I already have a collection of Afghan style buildings that I scratch built for modern games. 

The Perry plastic sets gave me an affordable and attractive entry point and so the new puppy can take some credit for resurrecting this particular project.

I have to say, I'm really impressed with the figures, I think they are some of the best Perry plastics I've worked on. The sculpting is terrific and that's matched by the myriad options for poses that can be created with the various combinations of bodies, arms and heads.

So, while it's been great to watch the collection grow and to see various projects come to fruition, I do need to start thinking seriously about getting these figures into action on the tabletop.