Koyote's SAGA Britons, Irish,Late Romans, and Saxons

[.:Gunslinger:.]

These look indeed stunning!

[Koyote]

I’ve made some progress. 

Except for their shields (my LBM transfers got lost in the mail), my Levy are done. 

I’ve started work on my bow warriors. My test model turned out good, so I am going to stick with the color scheme.

Once my shields are done I’ll take proper photos.

[Ogrob]

Stunning as always!

[Koyote]

It's been a while since I've posted an update, but I assure you that I've been making slow but stead progress.

I'm almost entirely finished painting a unit of 12 Roman Levy (no special equipment) and 12 Roman Warriors (bows).  I'm still waiting for the units' vexilla transfers to arrive. They should be here this week. And once the vexilla are done, I'll post proper photos of the two units.

In the meantime, here's a WIP of the Warrior archer vexillium. Originally, I modeled him without the bow, but the Rule of Cool won out.




I've also finished assembling my mounted Foederati. Once my latest Victrix order arrives, I may replace some of the heads with helmeted heads. 

Overall, I'm very happy with this kit. IMO, these new horses are best Victrix has made so far. They actually have proper, round, barrel bodies.  My only complaint is that like so many other Victrix kits, the warrior's arms are often a tad bit short, but it's nothing that pinning and GS can't fix.

Once I texture the bases and sort out the heads, I'll start work on painting them. 

I got the green-light from the Adepticon TO to treat mercenary equipment options like the equipment options of non-mercs. As such, my plan is to paint 8 mounted Foederati and 8 foot Foederati.  This will let me pick the option that best suits the terrain, objective, and opponent.

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[Koyote]

Well, I finally got around to photographing my Late Romans. 

This warband represents part of Belisarius' invasion force during the Gothic War, so I'll begin with the man himself, accompanied by an alternative foot Warlord representing the Belisarius' trusty commander, Pharas the Herulian.




Next up are 4 mounted Hearthguard. As soon as my Victrix Cataphract arrive, these models will become an alternative HG choice. You may recognize these fellas from my 2017 Briton warband.  I've freshed up the paint and replaced the original shields.




Next are 10 Warriors.  The vexillium is new, but the models are from my 2017 Briton warband with refreshed paint and bases.




These fellas are Levy. They represent a unit of new Herulian recruits. As a nod to their "barbarian" roots, I gave each model and GS mustache and equipped them with shields that don't display the Chi Rho symbol.




A sizeable unit of Warrior archers is must for Age of Invasions Roman warband. Except for the unit leader, the models are from the Victrix's Early Imperial Roman Archer kit. This makes them appear a bit anachronistic, but I want these models to represent some of the 3,000 Isaurians that joined Belisarius in the Gothic War.  Since the Isaurians are people from south-central Asia Minor, the idea is that the use of the eastern helms, armor, and garb would give these models and eastern feel.  And since they are Warriors and not mere levy, I wanted them to look a bit more elite than what you typically find in Late Roman archer kits.

I also have in my collection a unit of typical Late Roman archers, which I painted a few years ago. Truth be told, I'm torn between which unit to bring to Adepticon.






Another 'must have' for an Age of Invasions Roman warband is a manuballista. This model is a Hatra ballista, made by Gripping Beast.




Lastly, I am going to include a unit of mercenary Foederati. These fellas represent Lombard mercenaries or mercenaries from another Germanic tribe.

[syrinx0]

Fantastic looking updates to your forces.  I really like the new archer unit.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Excelsior! Magnificent work. I would go with the Eastern archers. They look amazing and they make for an interesting conversation piece regarding the Isaurian participation.

[Atheling]

Lovely brushwork Koyote 

[.:Gunslinger:.]

Fantastic painting on these and a greak mix between classic Footsore miniatures and the newer Victrix sets!
I love the colours of these overall, but thoese Foederati are just special

I would also go with the eastern looking archers, the backstory is good enough and they are a real eyecatcher.

[Koyote]

While I wait for my Victrix Roman Cataphract to arrive, I'm going to focus on my thematic objective markers for my Romans.

The casualties are made by Wargames Foundry. The sitting soldiers on the left are a West Wind Productions model. The kneeling fella holding up the shield is one half of Salute 2006 vignette.




WARNING.  Brace yourself for some next level historical wargaming nerdiness.

The Roman battle board includes a unique Impetus mechanic that requires the player to spend Impetus to use certain advanced battle board abilities. Impetus is tracked using the yellow circles that run down the left side of the board.



As someone who enjoys creating custom markers for my Saga warbands, I turned my mind to coming up with a fun way to track Impetus. What I landed was simple: a small coin from that era. 

After shopping around online, I purchased two coins that I believe fit the bill.

The first candidate is a bronze 5 nummi coin purported to have been minted in Ravenna when Italy was ruled by Ostrogoth king Theodahad. Since my warband represents the Eastern Roman invasion force that eventually took Italy back from the Ostrogoths (i.e., the Gothic War or Gothic Campaign), the coin was arguably in circulation in Italy during this period.  As a historical note, two years into the invasion, Theodahad was murdered on the road to Ravenna. He was killed on the orders of the Ostrogoth general Witiges for his failures in defending the Ostrogothic kingdom from Belisarius. Upon Theodahad's death, Witiges assumed the throne.




The second candidate, comes in a fancier case and a printed (but unsigned) certificate of authenticity. The slick packaging, while cool, makes me question the coin’s authenticity.

The seller purports the coin to be a copper 5 nummi coin from the reign of Justinian I.  Justinian I was the ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire during Belisarius' conquest of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa and Belisarius' campaign against the Ostrogoths in Siciliy and Italy.  Rather than use this coin as a marker, I may simply put it on display next to warband's display board to add some additional flavor to the experience of viewing the models.



The take away is that I will be playing a game the "recreates" battles fought almost 1,500 years ago, using a coin from that specific time period and geographic area. In fact, each coin depicts the head of one of the rulers whose armies fought the Gothic war, Theodahad and Justinian I. Crazy!


As I was researching the Gothic War, I stumbled on another fun idea.  In 536 AD Belisarius was preparing to abandon the siege of Naples when an Isaurian soldier under his command discovered an entrance into the city through its disused aqueduct. Belisarius' engineers widened the hole in the wall created aqueduct and used it gain entrance into the city. 

Whereas I'm not interested in creating an elaborate diorama of the siege of Naples, Sarissa Precision does make a fun little 'aqueduct under construction' kit, that I plan to position near the rear of my display board along with a small placard briefly describing the siege of Naples and the use of the aqueduct by the Romans sack the city.

[Ogrob]

As always, fantastic attention to detail. And those foederati, phenomenal!

[Freddy]

What a great looking Late Roman army!

[Basementboy]

The army looks fantastic so far, and the coins are a lovely touch
Looking forward to seeing more!

[has.been]

Most excellent work, all of it!  Well done.

[.:Gunslinger:.]

The real coins as markers are such a cool idea!