Aventine Thorakitoi as Imitation Legionaries

[madaxeman]

A key part of many of the Later Successor armies are the "imitation" Legionaries, where Alexander's marshalls decided to copy Rome's successful pilum+sword+shield formula, and have a tentative go at moving beyond the Greek-originated spear+shield approach. This is pretty neat, and adds variety to a wall of pikes or spears, so adding a couple of units of Imitation Legionaries to my Successor collection has always been a bit of a must.

Other than knowing that these guys were copying Roman tactics however, there's not a massive amount of evidence for where they sit on the "Look like Romans <-> Look like Greeks" spectrum, giving a reasonable amount of leeway for choosing figures for them.

And, in the end, I actually didn't even "choose" which figures, instead finding a couple of packs of Aventine guys in the collection of a late clubmate which seemed to fit the bill. It turns out on closer examination of the Aventine website that they are techically Thorakitai, but I felt that the spears that they come with were short enough (and chunky enough) to pass for pilum-style heavy throwing spears.



Adding in some head swaps from the same pack of Aventine heads that I'd used earlier on some of the Phalanx greatly increased their variety.

When combined with gluing the shields on at a variety of heights, and posing them at different angles I ended up creating a couple of units where you really have to look twice to notice that there is only one figure pose for the non-officer infantry.



So, that's pretty much all of the Heavy Infantry for my Successors completed - other than another couple of Phalanxes, which I'm putting off for the time being, as the thought of all that hand-drilling is rather intimidating.

And, of course, being rather lovely Aventine metal figures, these are the "heaviest" of the Heavy Infantry in the army by quite some margin!



Hopefully these guys will make their debut at Beachhead in the ADLG competition this coming weekend (unless I end up playing in the 15mm pool to help even up numbers), so if you're at the show come over and have a look!   

More pics and more detail about how I did them on the blog: https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2024/02/28mm-imitation-legionaries-aka-aventine.html

[aphillathehun]

Nicely done.  And fwiw, it is how I would do it also.

[trev]

They very much look the part.  I like how you've created all the variety.  Great stuff. 

I did my Numidian imitations using mostly unarmoured Copplestone Legionaries but the Hellenisic kingdoms had a long tradition of heavy infantry of their own to drawn on.  So, I think I would go with your approach for them too.   Besides, we don't really know what phrases like 'roman style' meant.  They might have just formed up the suitable troops they already had in cohorts.

[nikkobourges]

Hello,
Nice units !! I like the heads swap.
Nikkobourges

[Jjonas]

These look nice! I think there is a lot elbow room here. As time progressed the imitation legions became real cohorts during the Pontic wars. My assumption is that troops would become more Roman looking in those late. I dont think anybody can prove whether pilum were used by these units. Maybe once they were trained by Roman expatriates in cohortal tactics they switched their swords to the right and had pila.
It’s all speculation, and Aventine are great figures.

[Basementboy]

I think it’s also worth remembering that the losing side’s equipment will be stripped from their casualties and used by the victor- Hannibal had no attempt at creating “imitation legions” but by the end of the Punic Wars the Roman and Carthaginian forces looked virtually identical.

[Jjonas]

These Polemarch “Imitation Legionaries” are good, and mix well with Aventine.

https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/SCR04_Imitation_Legionaries_4--product--3287.html