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Author Topic: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans  (Read 2584 times)

Offline SJWi

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1639
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2023, 06:12:22 PM »
FifteensAway; I'd steer clear of the later Germans. To my eye they are more firmly from the "Migration Period" late 3rd-5th centuries AD. Essex Miniatures have ranges of British/Gauls and Dacians, but the sculpts are now quite old.  Plastic Soldier Company have a Gallic force in their Mortem et Gloriam range. Finally, Blue Moon produce Celts, Dacians and Germans .Not normally their biggest fan but these look nice on the website.     

Offline trev

  • Mad Scientist
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Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2023, 06:43:42 PM »
Those khurasan miniatures are pretty nice.  I like the Antonine Roman look.  It's 2nd century though, so a bit later than most of the suggestions you had.   Britain was about as conquered as it ever would be by 100AD and Dacia soon after.  The great Barbarian conflict for this period is this one . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcomannic_Wars

This is the era of Marcus Aurelius and the films Gladiator and Fall of the Roman Empire.  It's the full on epic Hollywood height of Rome just before the long fall begins.   

I agree with SjWi that those 3-5thC Germans are a bit late.  The spangenhelms while starting to appear with the Sarmatians are more characteristic of the later Roman wars and the banded trousers are quite distinctive.  The Germanic Tribes of this era are probably still quite wild.

These ones are better but you probably mix in a lot of simply attired barbarian figures with bare heads or simple caps.  Stay away from spikey hair and fancy clothes.

https://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/chatti.html

Rules are a very subjective choice and 15mm isn't really my strong suit but I'm sure you'll get lots of advice.   ;)

Offline Zopenco

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 22
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2023, 06:58:05 PM »
FifteensAway, I think most "European" enemies have been mentioned. One that hasn't is the so-called Batavian Revolt.    If however you went back in time to the Marian/Caesarian Romans you could have Spanish, Gallic, Germanic, Slave Revolt in Europe plus Mithraditic, Parthian, Egyptian and Numidian in Africa and the Middle East.       

The Cantabrian Wars in Northern Spain happened just at the very beginning of the Empire. Augustus and Agrippa were personally involved.

Tiberius won his military reputation in Illyricum and Pannonia when he was a young man.

There were numerous campaings in Numidia and both Mauretanias.

Offline Major_Gilbear

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3153
  • God-Emperor of Dune
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2023, 12:52:18 AM »
So, I welcome rules suggestions - as long as they rate as simple to play.
I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but maybe try looking at Kings of War Historical? (Link)

It's a ruleset based on the Kings of War fantasy game, and it's well-written, fun, light, quite tactical despite the simple rules, and works well at 15mm if you halve all ranges or use centimetres instead of inches (BTW, I would personally base as per DBA because it's a common standard at this scale, but it's up to you). What it's not however, is an accurate or historically-correct set of rules. They do try and give each army some flavour along "stereotypical" lines, but since we don't really know all that much detail about how most ancient warfare was waged anyway, I'm happy enough giving that a wave through if the game is fun and varied.

I also think you might do better getting the Marian/Caesarian Romans, and then as SJWi and Zopenco suggest you can try Spanish, Gallic, Germanic, and Numidians. And if you cheat a bit, and add some earlier Republican Romans to your force, you can do the later stages of the Punic Wars too. These are all not only characterful enemies of Rome, but quite different to each other too. If you are in the US, you might try looking at Old Glory figures perhaps? Another company (with facebook page only for now) to look at is perhaps Thistle & Rose. I believe both of these have some good non-Romans in 15mm. I personally like Forged In Battle, and have been eyeing up some Xyston Miniatures, but I don't know how easy they are to get in the US.

Offline SJWi

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1639
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2023, 05:43:22 AM »
Major Gilbear, I'd agree that Forged in Battle are nice figures and their ranges also include Roman Engineers and some baggage train packs.  Xyston have just been bought from Grendel  by Plastic Soldier Company so I guess they may be unavailable for some time. They certainly seem to have already disappeared from the Grendel website.

FifteensAway, as regards rules what size force are you looking at? Your opening question mentioned a "smallish force" but not skirmish. I guess many sets of rules are "big battles" which might preclude a "smallish force". Two Fat Lardies' "Infamy" rules are specifically for the period you are looking at, only need a smallish number of troops but IMHO work best with individually based figures. 15mm figures can be individually based using sabots but I know many people multi-base them.       

Offline Major_Gilbear

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3153
  • God-Emperor of Dune
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2023, 12:09:15 PM »
Xyston have just been bought from Grendel  by Plastic Soldier Company so I guess they may be unavailable for some time. They certainly seem to have already disappeared from the Grendel website.
Ah, good to know, thank you! :)  That's a bit of a shame in my eyes, as it means they'll most likely be made in Siocast now (under whatever ridiculous name-of-the-month PSC are using for the material these days). I've... Not been overly impressed with Siocast at all, and less so for anything small and/or fiddly.  :?

FifteensAway, as regards rules what size force are you looking at? Your opening question mentioned a "smallish force" but not skirmish. I guess many sets of rules are "big battles" which might preclude a "smallish force". Two Fat Lardies' "Infamy" rules are specifically for the period you are looking at, only need a smallish number of troops but IMHO work best with individually based figures.
I think sensible multi-basing, with a 40mm frontage, allows the most flexibility with most rulesets compatible with that size of figure. Games like DBA use fairly few such bases of troops, but other games use considerably more. As a "building block", that style of base works well to scale up with as your collection grows - I would certainly suggest starting with smaller forces initially (again, DBA being a fair indicator of starting size and possible composition), as it's easy to get carried away otherwise!  :)  As a nod to how widespread the game system is, many 15mm Ancients manufacturers offer specific DBA-compatible army packs, which also cuts down on things like buying a pack of 24 figures just to use 4 mounted on two bases for example.

15mm figures can be individually based using sabots but I know many people multi-base them.
It does work, but it's pretty fiddly. Unless somebody has major space/cost constraints, I'd just advise to multi-base them, and simply treat the whole base as one figure for games like Infamy.

Offline SJWi

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1639
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2023, 05:36:19 PM »
MajorG, the PSC Facebook post says they will be producing in both metal and Siocast. However, the price will be going up due to having to register for VAT with the UK tax authorities. This of course probably won't affect purchases from outside UK.

Offline Freddy

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 962
    • My blog
Re: Western Europe enemies of Early Imperial Romans
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2023, 09:25:14 PM »
I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but maybe try looking at Kings of War Historical? (Link)

It's a ruleset based on the Kings of War fantasy game, and it's well-written, fun, light, quite tactical despite the simple rules, and works well at 15mm if you halve all ranges or use centimetres instead of inches (BTW, I would personally base as per DBA because it's a common standard at this scale, but it's up to you). What it's not however, is an accurate or historically-correct set of rules. They do try and give each army some flavour along "stereotypical" lines, but since we don't really know all that much detail about how most ancient warfare was waged anyway, I'm happy enough giving that a wave through if the game is fun and varied.

I also think you might do better getting the Marian/Caesarian Romans, and then as SJWi and Zopenco suggest you can try Spanish, Gallic, Germanic, and Numidians. And if you cheat a bit, and add some earlier Republican Romans to your force, you can do the later stages of the Punic Wars too. These are all not only characterful enemies of Rome, but quite different to each other too. If you are in the US, you might try looking at Old Glory figures perhaps? Another company (with facebook page only for now) to look at is perhaps Thistle & Rose. I believe both of these have some good non-Romans in 15mm. I personally like Forged In Battle, and have been eyeing up some Xyston Miniatures, but I don't know how easy they are to get in the US.
I am a great fan of KoW Historical, I just added the command and the support (with 25% of the attacks) rules from Hail Caesar. Also might need a little tweaking for the cavalry types, to reflect the fact that Gaul cavalry was better than the Roman, the German cavalry fought really hard, but had the worst horses of the three. (We have one unit for this type of cavalry, a few points increase/decrease here and there can solve the problem.)

 

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