Late Roman unarmoured cavalry

Having completed the heavy cavalry, I went back and finished off the Late Roman light cavalry that I'd started a while ago. These are based on the Gripping Beast "Dark Age Cavalry" plastic box set, with a few head swaps to make them look a bit more Roman. Also, the majority have been given oval shields and all of them have Roman-style designs (from LBMS) on them.

The main thing that I wanted to do here was create some degree of standardisation in how the unit looks, but also keep some variation in their dress. I've discussed the lack of an absolute uniform appearance in Late Roman troops in a previous post, so I used a similar approach to the one I used on the infantry figures, i.e.using a range of fairly muted colours that suggest natural undyed wool or linen. However, I wanted to tie the troops together so I painted "Roman style" embellishments on the tunics in a mixture of red or light blue tunic edging and other designs such as the roundels and shoulder panels seen on Late Roman tunics.

I decided to use a standard red shield design with a yellow Chi Rho for eight of the riders, plus four riders with different shield designs. I did this so that I have a degree of flexibility in how I combine my various cavalry figures for tabletop deployment.

My main idea about these guys is that they can easily represent post-Roman British cavalry or also Germanic auxiliaries in the Roman army, such as those used in both the Eastern and Western halves of the empire from the late third century onwards.

Anyway, here are some more views of the latest recruits to my growing Late Roman army.

These last four figures, who I think of as the unit's "characters", really suggest post-Roman Britons to me. 

Late Roman armoured cavalry

I bought a box of the new Gripping Beast Late Roman armoured cavalry as soon as they were available. I was already working on a box of the Dark Ages cavalry to use as Roman light cavalry, but what I really wanted was some armoured riders to boost my Saga Late Roman warband, use as Romano-British "Arthurians" and also to enable me to field a warband as Last Romans as described in the Age of Vikings book for Saga 2. These guys would work as part of a warband from the 6th or 7th century, i.e. the period between Justinian the Great and Heraclius, but don't look right as troops from one of the Tagmata or Thematic units that made up later Roman armies from the 8th-10th centuries.

Anyway, although I'd started the light cavalry, these armoured riders jumped the queue and have been finished first. Here is the complete unit of 12 cavalrymen. Note that there is one rider with a different shield design (n.b. all the shield designs are LBMS transfers). More on him later.

There are six figures armed with spears;

And five with swords;

Now, here is the chap with the different shield design;

Notice that I've put him on a larger round base. This enables me to field him as the leader of my warband, as well as including him as just another member of a unit. Here he is from his open side;

I have to admit that when I was painting these I had a real crisis of confidence over how they would turn out, partly because I really do not like painting horses at all, but also because I was finding it hard to visualise how they would look once they were inked. This was because I wasn't sure that I'd picked the right colour scheme for them. However, I think that they have turned out fine.

Regarding the actual models, I am quite impressed with them. There are plenty of head variants, allowing you to create figures that are not all identical, plus the usual different weapons options. There is also a vexilla included, which I didn't use, but which would work fine, with a bit of cutting and glueing of one of the spear arms in the box. I did find, though, that once I'd assembled and undercoated the horses that the body halves hadn't gone together perfectly and needed a bit of Milliput to fill the rather visible gaps in the alignment. I expect that this was down to my assembly rather than any actual defects in the mouldings themselves. Anyway, I've already bought another box to paint up so that I have extra armoured cavalry for my Late Roman Sword and Spear army.

Barbarians with bows and arrows

Despite being away in France for a trip last week around the battlefields of the Western Front and various towns in the region, I did manage to complete some more Copplestone 15mm barbarians for my Hyborian Age horde once I got back.

First, there are three stands of archers, on 4 cm x 2 cm bases who will be added to the three stands I painted last year to give me three units of medium foot archers. These will be paired up to give a unit with an 8 cm frontage, but only one base deep. I think that this will look fine on the table.

The other bow-equipped troops are four stands of Copplestone Pict archers, on 4 cm square bases, who will form two units of skirmishers. In my imaginary Hyborian Age, these "Picts" represent cave-dwelling tribes who are allies of the semi-nomadic barbarian tribes. Of course, in Robert E. Howard's  pseudo-historical vision of the Hyborian Age, the Picts were described as being "small in height, squat and muscular, adept at silent movement, and most of all brutish and uncivilized" who had retained only rudimentary technology and language skills. I see these archers, together with the ones I painted last year as Neanderthals who have survived to co-exist with the Cro-Magnons who comprise most of the population of the world of Hyboria. Anyway, here they are;

All I have left to paint now are a unit of Medium Foot and three units of Horse. One of these will be based up as Cavalry (in S&SF terms) on 4 x 3 cm bases and the other two as Light Horse, on 4 cm square bases.

After I've finished all the units, I need to decide exactly how I want to use them on the table. I've recently decided that my trolls will be used as armoured Heavy Foot and being larger than humans they will have the impact and powerful attack characteristics.

I am also thinking that my human Heavy Foot (of which I have 12 4 x 1.5 cm stands) might be put together as two Large units, i.e. being three bases deep and two bases wide, as well as having them as three normal sized units, as described in my previous post.

I am wondering if I might need more units for variation, too. I like the idea of steppe mounted archers as fast skirmishers, but most of the available figures seem to look too "modern" to my eye, and I'd like a stand of mammoths or other big monsters to be used as Large Beasts. Alternative Armies have a rather nice monsters called Rhinosaurs which would look pretty good on the table, with perhaps a few barbarians in the howdah. They also do a version without the howdah.