Gripping Beast Later Roman Cataphracts

I say "Later" Roman but these could fit in pretty much anywhere from the time of Hadrian until the 5th or maybe 6th century.

I've mounted them in groups of three to give me two units of 6 riders, which I can use for Sword and Spear or, more likely, the new Midgard rules from TFL. 

I've already got my Midgard rules and I'm looking at creating a Late Roman army using my already quite large Gripping Beast collection of Late Romans, which you can find elsewhere on the blog by searching for them. I've got more cavalry to get assembled and painted, which would give me more heavy cavalry and some horse archers. I'm also painting up some Saxon Thegns who I think will serve perfectly well as Germanic foederati with a few Roman-style shields mixed in with the round ones and some suitably generic shield transfers. After all, they are all just blokes in mail with shields and spears.

Reveille 2024 at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society

 Yes, it's nearly time for Reveille again, it is next Sunday, 24th November;

The show is, as you can see, at the usual location and there will be the usual variety of traders and games to observe and even join in playing.

Looking forward to seeing as many people as possible.

Another (final) group of Roman auxiliary infantry.

These are the last infantry figures for my Cohors I Syldaviorum Equitata auxiliary cohort project, apart from a couple of leaders who I am working on.

I have a group of eight auxiliary infantry plus a dismounted decurion from a cavalry turma, clearly detached for some kind of mission. These are pretty much the end of the auxilia, although I recently bought a pack of the Victrix Roman auxiliary archers, which at some point I'll work on and use eight of them to replace the Aventine archers I painted up originally. I haven't got anything against the Aventine guys, but I rather fancy having all the troops as Victrix ones. The archer set allows me to make up 12 Western-style and 12 Eastern-style archers and I've always liked the appearance of the so-called Eastern archers (a cohort of these, the Cohors Prima Hamiorum Sagittariorum recruited in Syria) actually served in Britannia on Hadrian's Wall and were based at the fort we know as Housesteads.

Anyway, I've now used up the last eight green LBMS shield transfers, so I used one that my auxiliary  cavalry carry for the leader's shield. I don't think it really matters. The Romans often detached officers for all manner of purposes.

I am thinking about using my auxiliary cohort for Midgard when it is published and how I can get the troops on the right sized bases. I think that the answer lies with Warbases movement trays which just have a lip all the way round, allowing me to drop these smaller sabots inside.