28mm Schola scutariorum prima

[Richard in Sachsen]

So, there I was, with a field army commander and no guards to protect him. The commander in question is none other than Flavius Stilicho.



So far, so good. But he needed a staff, obviously, so I picked out two figures for an adjutant and an Imaginiferi. The adjutant is actually an Arthurian figure with a greenstuff crest. He had a concave oval shield so he didn't really fit in with my Arthurians, but I found a respectable home for him.



So, picking up the handy-dandy Notitia Dignitatum I was looking for a guard unit and finally decided on Schola scutariorum prima as the shield design looked to be a challenge, but I really liked the colors in the 'M' manuscript.



Once the command was finished, then I painted eight infantrymen, standing. I made a tiered stand for them. The front is square and the size of a Hail Caesar small unit. But then I combined not one, but two command stands on the same unit stand (Army command & unit command.) All figures are on magnetic strips or circles in case I wish to remove them individually. This stand works well with Simon MacDowells Comitatus as the guard unit functions as Stilicho's comitatus and can still fight if he goes off on his own to another unit.





And from behind:



And of course, you need a dead guy to keep track of the hits



Ok, so now I'm cruising along with the painting, just got all of these guys finished when I found the bit of information that I did not know, but by all means should have known, and changed everything.

*** All Schola are cavalry units!!!***

I just about died... I just painted all these shields and now find out that I'm completely wrong - and not about a nit-picky detail that can be overlooked, oh no, but by a basic function of the unit that I got entirely wrong!

What to do, what to do?

It took me about a day to figure it out. These guys are obviously the half of the unit that is dismounted! So, time to bother Andy again and order more cavalry from Gripping Beast and ask nicely if they could substitute half-barded horses for the normal ones (as a matter of table-top convention, rather than historicity, I put all of my guard/Bucellarii on half-barded horses, makes them easy at a glance to discern on the table.)



Now it works, especially with Comitatus, where you can have dismounted cavalry as well as sub-units. But wait, then I had a problem, as Comitatus requires a dismounted marker so that stinky Goths can attack the horses. So, back on the phone with Andy, whining that I needed another one of those stacked-shield do-hickies.



So, that's it, my field army general has a guard unit, here they are in total

[A Lot of Gaul]

Good save! Also very nice painting an basing. I especially enjoyed your smoke effect for your 'dismounted' marker.

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks!

The smoke effect is easy-peasy. All you need is a labrador retriever, brand new dining room seat cushions, leave them within reach, and voila, the next morning you have white stuff all over the dining room!

Just save some of the fiber, mix with Tamiya liquid smoke, and there is your smoke effect!

[Jericho]

Good looking Schola right there 

But what is that stacked shield thingy exactly called? Because I can't find it directly on the GB site and I can definitely use something like that.

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks, Jericho

It's not on the site as an item to buy separately but it comes with the LRWM03 Late Roman Onager. I ordered three of those but only got one shield-thingy, so GB sent me two more. You may need to either order the onager or write to them and see what they can do for you.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Well, your journey resulted in a nice array of very fine troops, I'd say. Kudos for painting all those shields.
Enjoyed your write-up in particular.

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thank you Doc, luckily that was only about 20 shields.

My comitatenses and palatinae are six ordines of twenty-figures each, not quite 120 shields as one Ordo is made of archers (but some of those have cast on shields.) When I get to those, I'm really considering using decals especially for Secunda Britannica, Ioviani seniores, and Herculiani seniores.

I painted all the shields of my Balistarii Dafnenses and I'm are almost done as I'm waiting on a unit from Ebor (which is why I was asking how long the lanciarius should be) and some staff-slingers from Crusader.  Once those are painted, I'll post them as well.

[mrtn]

Looking great Richard! Pity about the shields, but good save. If it was me I might have just claimed that the Notitia Dignitatum was wrong...

[Richard in Sachsen]

Heh, well, I thought about that...

What's more, I started looking at Aėtius and his Hunnic bodyguard. They're next in the que. I was looking for any descriptive information, especially shield designs when I ran across a tidbit of info:

Stilicho, it appears, also had Huns for his bodyguard... this I find after I just finished this entire friggin unit.

Well, at this point, my reaction to that is: in MY late Roman world, he has Schola scutariorum prima as his bodyguard, and that's all I have to say about that!!!!