Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of Myths, Gods and Empires => Topic started by: tuco74 on March 07, 2019, 04:07:48 PM
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So, I'm looking to jump into a new period/project later in the year. That gives me chance to finish my current projects and do some reading and research.
Ancients are appealing as a) I'm bored of painting rifles and b) it's a (very long and diverse) period that I don't know about in much detail.
In the spirit of b) I was hoping someone could answer the following for me:
How much variety is it possible to get into a Roman army? The thought of repeatedly painting exclusively flesh/red/bronze/steel is off-putting. Since I'm a (bad) painter more than a gamer I'd like to do something with some variety and always lean towards slightly more obscure units or themes.
How much research is needed for shield designs? Were they generic or specific to units/campaigns? Were they consistent within units?
Would each unit use the same weapon at the same time i.e. all attacking with sword or spear at once?
Thanks in advance for your help.
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Which era of Romans are you talking about? Pyrrhus? 1st Punic War? 2nd Punic War? Caesar? Augustus? Aurelian? Contsantine? Aetius? Justinian?
The answers change completely depending on which era from 300BC to 500AD you are interested in.
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Well...I don't know haha. Where should I be looking for a diverse and interesting force to paint?
I'd say I'm probably more interested in Imperial rather than Republican Rome and the thought of painting a force for somewhere far-flung or at least unusual on the tabletop appeals.
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If you're looking for a diverse army to paint, then you''re probably better of with Repulican Romans. For allies, they had other Italian states, Numidians, Creatans, and Balearic slingers
(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx23/ArchaicWarrior/Samnites.jpg)
(https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-81379388025cddab2d5c4cb361fdb70f.webp)
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I would either go early, or late. The early would be the republican romans (before the reforms of Marius at least, better still maybe during the time of the 1st Punic War or the wars against the other Italian states). Late Romans start to be a polyglot force - a mix of regulars and foederate troops (hairy barbarians). Early armies are really infantry armies and late armies are tending toward mounted forces.
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Roman Army is a trap.. Its many totally different armies through the ages.
Best check with potential enemies what era would be best suited to their enemies of Rome.
It would be silly to paint Patrician Roman Army of Aetius when all potential opponents wait for Punic Wars Camillian Romans.
And bear in mind that Rome is worst army for what you have written above really. Its one and only uniform army that existed through most of its timeline
Maybe it would be better to look for army of one of its enemies :>
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Roman Army is a trap.. Its many totally different armies through the ages.
Best check with potential enemies what era would be best suited to their enemies of Rome.
It would be silly to paint Patrician Roman Army of Aetius when all potential opponents wait for Punic Wars Camillian Romans.
And bear in mind that Rome is worst army for what you have written above really. Its one and only uniform army that existed through most of its timeline
Maybe it would be better to look for army of one of its enemies :>
Yeah, I understand that saying 'Roman army' covers a lot of ground in terms of time and geography.
In terms of people to play against, that's not such an issue as I'm a painter rather than player at the moment. Although I paint with a view to having armies ready when I get chance to play again regularly.
Funnily enough, I started off looking at ranges of Roman 'enemies' to begin with. I am actually leaning towards the end of the occupation of Britain and doing a Roman and Anglo-Saxon warband, the Footsore minis for both are really nice.
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Good choice.
Late Roman and post Roman armies are best fit to what interest you painting wise.
There is scope for everything there really.
I am building my Late Roman Warband lately (mainly due to books Ive read lately and availability of impulse buy cheap GB plastics)
And play with both uniformed units and un-uniformed.
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Yes, that sounds good. I have a Viking SAGA warband and have wanted to build another for some time. I may well start with early Saxons and the equivalent Romans while I do some more research.
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Yes, that sounds good. I have a Viking SAGA warband and have wanted to build another for some time. I may well start with early Saxons and the equivalent Romans while I do some more research.
That sounds like a great plan!
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The Late Imperial/Early Byzantine period would have a wide variety of troop types in it. Cataphracts, horse archers both armored and light, Legions, Auxilia, barbarian units like Huns, Goths, Vandals, etc. For shield patterns the Notitia Dignitatum has images of many different patterns used by specific units. There are free online versions of this. Two books from Wargames Research Group would be a good starting point for images of the various troop types and opponents faced. Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome and Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars.
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williamb, that's really helpful thank you.
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Late Romans are good for diversity, and nice shield patterns which are actually documented, and of course if you already play Saga, The Last Romans already appear as a faction in the Viking Age book.
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williamb, that's really helpful thank you.
You are welcome. I noticed in your original post about painting. I am not the best either when it involves painting shields. What I do is use a graphics program (I use Paintshop pro). I use the crop feature (dashed box in the left side tool bar) to select a shield pattern, copy it under edit, and save as a new image. The under image I resize it. For 28mm figures the shield would be about 15mm wide by 20mm tall. Unlock the aspect ratio and if making it smaller I increase the dots per inch. So if I reduce the width from 30mm to 15mm I would double the number of dots. I then copy an paste the resized image into a word document as many times as needed for the number of figures in the unit, print the word document on heavy cardstock, glue the cardstock to brown craft paper, and cut the shields out. I have done this for 28mm and 6mm figures. https://18clovehamhock.blogspot.com/2009/10/projects-completed.html (https://18clovehamhock.blogspot.com/2009/10/projects-completed.html)
https://18clovehamhock.blogspot.com/2017/04/ranks-of-bronze.html (https://18clovehamhock.blogspot.com/2017/04/ranks-of-bronze.html)
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For Variation, what has been suggested is true. It all depends on what time you want to do.
I don't collect anything beyond Early Imperial Rome, so my two cents here end with the Early Imperials...
My opinion here is all based off of Wargaming miniatures out there, as well as a bit of history.
The very early Roman Kingdoms and the very Roman Republic are very limited to what troops they'd have. They would have had at first Etruscan / Hoplite style warfare, and fight in Phalanx formations with few horsemen. Following that, they ended up fighting Samnites and Italian hill tribes, found the Phalanx worked horribly against the Italian's irregular fighting style, and then developed the maniple system that is used in the Republic until Marian comes along.
For the Pre-Republic and Earliest republcian warfare, you do not get a lot of options for fielding troop types, I'd reckon. Rome was a regional power in Italia so anything nearby would make sense for fielding.
When you start getting into the Punic Wars, the Republican Roman army and kingdom grows - it begins to flourish into the Empire. They expand into Sicily, southern Italy, Cisalpine Gaul, illyria, Iberia, Attack Carthage.. their hand of influence grows and with it, tons of mercenary forces appear. You can field celts, numidians, Iberians, Illyrians, greeks etc. etc.
The Late Republic is also great. You have legionnaires and native troops as mentioned in the punic wars.. and legionnaires are not only from Rome, but you get Spanish Legionnaires, Germans work for Caesar, and allied gallic tribes. The Republicans in this era take Gaul, eventually all of Iberia, lots of eastern territory, and other areas. You do, sadly, lose the Hastati, Principes, and Trairii looks as everything becomes standardised.. arguably as well you don't have Samnites or Italian allied with specific looks running around anymore, but it is still a period of variety.
When the Romans go full on Imperial for wargaming, I find that variety vanishes in most armies. You get legionnaires in their regular lorica segmentata look - auxiliary are all decked out in chain, and everything looks rather standard. The Imperial legions are powerful and are a devastating, near unstopable force in this period and they're certainly one the most popular for wargaming. Of course, if you want to have native numidians, germans, or something else accompanying the army, that is fine, too!
For shield designs..I am not sure . I often see people change it up, it could very from unit to unit. Cohort to cohort.. I personally give my Republican Roman Hastati and Principes Red and Yellow shields, with boar / wolf decals from VVV , but my Triarii each have their own individual shield. I typically see Imperial's all sporting the same legionary shield.
Weapons for the Late Republic and Imperial legions are very standardised. Pila, gladius, and it is often the auxiliary troops that are given spears for miniatures. But the earlier times, had Triarii with long spears, Pila for hastati and principes, and even earlier, short spears or the hoplite style..
So there is a lot to consider! Do you want to keep it conforming as one major army? I say go Imperials. But if you want to do a lot of Variations and have tons of different troop types running around, I'd say the Punic War - pre-marian Republicans. If you want a bit of both, Caesar's legions with some nice Germans alongside would make for a great force as well!
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I've been following this conversation with interest. I'm certainly no expert on the Roman army, but have been an enthusiastic amateur from time to time.
One thing that wargamers tend to miss when building their Roman armies (from almost any historical era) is that the actual Roman legions were usually only around half of any Roman army. The other half were auxiliaries and allies. Auxiliaries could be the uniformed type (often depicted with flat, oval shields to distinguish them from the curved, rectangular shields for the EIR legionaries), but could also be nearly any other type of warrior from the time period. German or Celtic warriors in their trousers and long hair, Cretan slingers, Numidian cavalry or skirmishers. In the year of the four emperors (a crazy, multi-sided civil war over the succession to Emperor Nero), Otho's army included 2000 gladiators! (in all likelihood, they would have looked much like other legionaries, but that's no reason to prevent us wargamers from adding a unit of retarii, secutori and the like!
It also means you can collect a core force of Roman legionaries, and fill in the rest of the army with allies and auxiliaries to your heart's content, even changing the support from one game to another as your army relocates from Britannia to Hispania to Judea to beyond the borders of the empire.
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I'll put in a a word for the late republic - post Marian reforms or Caesarean period. The reason I game this is because of the history - the 'romantic' heroes and famous/infamous leaders such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Crassus, Octavian, Vircingetorix, Jugurtha and Mark Antony to name but a few of the most famous. It's a period of ongoing civil war, wars of expansion with plenty of Romans on Roman action with allies as well as campaigns agaionst Gauls, Spaniards - the list goes on.
It's also a period with plenty of the best movies to entertain and inspire. I just have to re-watch HBO series Rome and I'm reaching for another batch of figures.
As far as variety is concerned, all auxiliary (support) for the legions was provided essentially by allies - so non-Romans with even more variety and colour. At this period strength is often referred to in numbers of cohorts rather than legions. I'd suggest armies can be made up of cohorts from different legions is you need even more variety.
The shield designs and colours for this period are also highly speculative. Red shields with yellow lightening bolts, wings and arrows are almost universally adopted by artists, movie makers and transfer suppliers but this is a 'convention' with less historical evidence than you might think. I personally use the same shield design concept to identify each legion and I use blue for one and yellow for the other - so far. There is nothing to stop different shields between cohorts because we just don't know.
So, your Roman world is your oyster.
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Thanks again for everybody's input - exactly why I joined the forum.
So, first off I need to improve my knowledge of Roman history!
The main thing I've taken away from the above is that I should be looking to the Auxiliaries to bring some variety into a force. I quite like this idea actually as (if I've understood correctly) I could have a core force of Romans and place them in different campaigns by virtue of their allies.
Has anybody read Daniel Mersey's book on Roman wargaming? Came across it on Amazon and it looks like a good primer for some ideas as to what I can look at in terms of painting and modelling.
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Out of interest can anybody recommend a manufacturer for Romans (and allies/enemies) in 15mm? I've been contemplating a 15mm project for a while and this might be a good subject.
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If you want a really good guide to the Roman Army, I can highly recommend "The Complete Roman Army" by Adrian Goldsworthy.
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Thanks Steve, I'll take a look.
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Before choosing a manufacturer it would be best to decide on which period of Roman history for the army. The iconic image of Roman infantry in Lorica Segmentata and semi-cylindrical shields only lasted for a century or so during the early empire. Before and after the shields were oval shaped. The Lorica Segmentat did continue to be used for a time after oval shields were adopted.
Prior to the Marian reforms local warriors were used to supplement the army. Scipio used Spanish warriors in Spain and Numidians in North Africa. Later armies used Hellenistic troops in Greece and Asia Minor. They even had a few North African Elephants. Following the Marian reforms armies such as Caesar's were almost all legionaries with a some Gallic or other local cavalry and some local light infantry.
While some of the information has changed since they were published the two books I mentioned previously do provide organization and drawings of troop types and equipment showing the changes the legions went through over almost 1000 years from about 400 B.C. to about 600 A.D. The book on the armies of imperial Rome also includes line drawings of shield patterns including those of the Notitia Dignitatum. I haven't read Goldworthy's book though he has been recommended on the Society of Ancients forums.
I can't recommend a 15mm manufacturer as my armies are 6mm. While I do have an early imperial army, I prefer the Republican army due to the variety of opponents and the later empire due to the variety of troop types.
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Before choosing a manufacturer it would be best to decide on which period of Roman history for the army. The iconic image of Roman infantry in Lorica Segmentata and semi-cylindrical shields only lasted for a century or so during the early empire. Before and after the shields were oval shaped. The Lorica Segmentat did continue to be used for a time after oval shields were adopted.
I can't recommend a 15mm manufacturer as my armies are 6mm. While I do have an early imperial army, I prefer the Republican army due to the variety of opponents and the later empire due to the variety of troop types.
So would it be fair to say that Republican and Late Imperial = chainmail and oval shields while Early Imperial = segmented armour and rectangular shields (i.e. what most people think of as a Roman soldier)?
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So would it be fair to say that Republican and Late Imperial = chainmail and oval shields while Early Imperial = segmented armour and rectangular shields (i.e. what most people think of as a Roman soldier)?
Broadly yes, that is my understanding.
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So I've been sizing up using either Warlord or Victrix to start a late Imperial Roman project.
Victrix look to be the nicer minis but are more expensive and not compatible with Warlord. Victrix don't appear in the scale comparison pinned to the top of the page. Can anybody recommend another manufacturer with which they would scale well? I think I've seen Black Tree mentioned elsewhere.
Warlord have a really good range, are cost effective but appear quite small compared to most other ranges. They look like they would match quite well with the older Foundry sculpts - can anybody confirm?
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Whether they wore mail or lorica segmentata, the Romans would have had a thing or two to say to the poster who accused them of having a kingdom.
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If you look at the scale comparison thread which is stickied at the top of the Ancients board, there are lots of nice pictures of Republican, Early Imperial, and Late Imperial Romans.
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If you look at the scale comparison thread which is stickied at the top of the Ancients board, there are lots of nice pictures of Republican, Early Imperial, and Late Imperial Romans.
SteveBurt, yes I have done but the one glaring omission is Victrix for EIR. In addition the picture is a bit unclear for Warlord (it looks like the line of minis isn't straight) but it does look as though they would match with early Foundry and not much else.