Artillery and Romano-British troops?

[Richard in Sachsen]

I wanted to ask around and hear what people thought about Romano-British troops having access to Roman equipment and in particular the cheiroballistra.

I ended up with two extra models and was pondering what to do with them as my Late Roman artillery unit, which I'm assembling together as Balistarii Dafnenses already consists of four scorpio models, four carroballista models consisting of cheiroballistra models on 4Ground carts, three onagers and two heavy ballistae plus a 20-man unit of unarmored spearmen.

I'll never use the entire unit in one game, probably four models at the most.

So I was contemplating adding the two cheiroballistra units (Foundry) to my Romano-British, however it is very unlikely that the Romano-British had even these light artillery pieces.

But a book arrived yesterday, From Scythia to Camelot (Littleton & Malcor), in which they discuss various historical personages who may have been the basis for the legendary Arthur. One of those was Riothamus, a warlord who, in 468, invaded Gaul with 12,000 men. He fought Saxons, Visigoths, and Alans from Southern Gaul (supposedly having Sarmatians himself.)

I thought in that scenario, then perhaps assigning a couple of light artillery pieces to my Romano-British army may make sense, perhaps even historically plausible.

But there are many more learned people on the subject here, and so I wanted to throw this question out there and see what people thought.

I can always add them to my rag-tag Limitanei troops and I think I'll remove the helmet crests from the crews anyway just to have some variety of crew figures.

Thanks in advance for any input, advice and opinions.

[Patrice]

Not sure about the historical sources...

However I accepted some Romano-British artillery (scorpio, onager) in games (where I was acting as Game Master) because in the context I thought that they were known and that a local lord could have them if he really wanted to pay for them.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=48720.msg567384#msg567384

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks, Patrice

That looks like it was a fun game! The scorpio there is actually the same Foundry model as I was asking about in this thread.

[jcspqr]

Certainly paint them up if you want, but I doubt very much whether there was any use of them in a field battle.

[Bishop Cockthrottle]

The manufacture of artillery was carried out in the Imperial workshops so access would have been cut off when the factories on mainland Europe were lost or handed over to the Visigoths etc around the 450's. Maintenance knowledge for existing kit would doubtless have declined in quality in a generation although the skill to make copy parts probably remained.

I very much doubt Romano Successors after 480AD had access to these but it would be fun to have a potentially malfunctioning piece carried with the warband - it should be expensive and underpowered but would act as a prestige piece until fired ;-)

[Richard in Sachsen]

Well, then, that's what I suspected. I suppose they should probably be assigned to the Limitanei as city defense pieces.

[rumacara]

In historical terms and in siege they probably existed not being discontinued untill a generation or two (as mentioned before).
In terms of wargames, just do it.
Above all have fun trying new items not so ahistorical.

[Jericho]

Maybe it could also be used more as a defensive weapon on the ramparts of a town beset by foul raiding barbarians.

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks Guys,

I think I'll add it to my Limitanei, as Jericho's suggestion of city defenses. I already removed the crests from the helmets and continued the seam along the top...easier than I thought. Doesn't look too bad at the moment, either but I'm sure priming and dry brushing will reveal how well or poorly they turned out. But it does diminish the "Romaness" of the figures, bling them to fit in more with a not-so-well funded Limitanei unit or attached to a warlord's retinue as a "prestige" piece, as the Bishop suggested.

I appreciate the suggestions and insight. It helped, thanks a lot!