And now .... at long last ..... Dux Britanniarum!

First, a mea culpa. I've had the Dux Britanniarum rules for ages but never played a game until now. A few of us at the club talked last year about starting a campaign in 2020, but we also thought we should get to grips with the rules before getting things too wrong during the campaign games. So, yesterday, Brian and I played out a basic game as a battle.

First, here are my Romano-British troops. First the Comanipulares, the elite Bucellarii of my British Lord.

Now, my Lord, on the larger base, with his two junior leaders and his Champion. No names yet, as we are still experimenting with the rules.

Next, two groups of six Milites, basic Warriors. I've given these all the same shield design to ensure that they are distinct from the Comanipulares;

Four slingers, representing the force's Harassing missile troops;

And finally, three groups of Numeri, levies drawn from the peasantry.

All these troops are taken from my existing Gripping Beast plastic Late Roman army that I use for Sword and Spear and Saga. I love the idea of figures that have multiple uses.

So, on to the game itself. Brian's army were supposed to be North British, but we used them as a Saxon horde for this game. The table had a fairly shallow running stream across the centre of the table, classed as a Medium Obstacle, with two fords, classed as Minor Obstacles. On the Saxon side, was wooded country and there was a villa complex on the Roman side. The buildings we used were actually of a later period, bought by the club for a pirate campaign about 10 years ago, but a reasonable match for Later Roman structures (apart from the chimneys). They would be perfect for Peninsular War Sharp Practice too.

After initial movement and skirmishes between missile troops, the battle pretty much centred on the Saxons getting across the stream and the Romano-British  (henceforth just "the Romans") holding the high ground between the two fords. The Roman Shieldwall formation remained strong on the hill, fending off all  comers, aided by some helpful Fate Cards.

The Saxon main force was eventually forced back across the stream and the Saxon Lord reduced to Status I. The Saxons had previously lost a Noble in combat with my Numeri.

I also managed to drive off the Saxon archers with a flanking attack from a single group of Numeri on my right.

There were plenty of things that I am sure we got wrong, having never played the game before, and we were unsure if the Champions should have a Leader Card in the deck or were just stuck with the Lord. I am pretty sure now that we had the Fate Cards all wrong too, keeping things like Shieldwall in play, rather than discarding it once used. We also forgot to replenish our decks as they became depleted.

Having said that, the game was a lot of fun, and the mechanisms simple to understand, seeing as we are both seasoned Lardy gamers. I wonder if there is a FAQ somewhere online?

I am sure we shall be playing again before long. It is nice to see my Late Romans in use.

Planning a Dux Britanniarum campaign

A few of us at the club are thinking about getting a Dux Britanniarum campaign going next year, so we are looking at our existing armies to see what would fit. 

As I already have masses of Gripping Beast Late Romans, augmented with slingers, levies etc from the "Dark Ages" boxes, I automatically assumed that I have everything I'd need and wouldn't have to do any work at all.

Unhappily, as things transpired when I started looking in depth, the one area where I was lacking was basic levy troops. It isn't that I have too few, it is more that I have based most of them up eight to a base for Sword and Spear.

So, I had to assemble and paint up six individually-based levy types using some of the many spares I have lying around, and here they are;

I wanted to make them look a bit muddy and battle-worn, so I put most of the effort into making their shields look old and battered. I think that they fit in pretty well with the existing dozen individually-based levies I have, although those guys look a bite more nicely turned out. Perhaps the new ones might represent a group of really unwilling peasants pressed into service at the last minute?

They'll also fit in with the slingers I intend to use as missile troops, although I'll only need four of those;

The rest of my Dux troops will be taken from my Late Roman armoured and unarmoured infantry.

And I was supposed to be painting more Condottieri troops ..............

Well, that was the plan, but then I decided to finally use my Late Romans for a game of Sword and Spear, but realised that I had 40 foot figures half-finished and that I'd need them to bulk out my army.

Anyway, I've spent three days finishing off a load of Gripping Beast plastic figures that were basically either undercoated or half-painted. Not as bad as if I was starting from scratch, but still a fairly big task. The first eight are above. To be honest, I am not that sure about the green/lilac colour scheme I chose, but it was too late to go back and change it, so it will have to do. It came from a picture of a mosaic I saw somewhere so it does have the merit of being based in reality.

In total, what I finished were 24 unarmoured Romans, all with either spears or swords, plus a couple of standard bearers and a bucinator for variety, and 16  Dark Ages warriors, some with head swaps to represent some poorly-equipped limitanei or perhaps just foederati. I know that there is a mistaken belief that the limitanei were low-quality troops, but this is not actually the case. However, I wanted to have at least one unit that could represent a lower standard of troops, so that my army wouldn't just be powerful units of comitatenses. 

For Sword and Spear, I will be deploying a standard unit on a 12 x 6 cm base, with two such bases stacked to represent a Large Unit.

I have also decided to deploy some of my existing unarmoured units with a rank of spearmen in front and archers behind, to represent melee troops with a educed shooting capability.

Anyway, here are the rest of the 40 figures that I have just finished. I think that I like these more than the first lot. Note that these are all glued as groups of 8 to a 12 x 6 base., whereas my original Roman troops (for Saga) are on individual bases but placed on movement trays. This allows me to treat those ones as multiple purpose figures.

First the limitanei, both separately and as a single unit;

And here are the rest. I wanted these to have a more uniform appearance, although there are differences in the shades of red used for the trim on the tunics. I see these as maybe being troops from the auxilia palatina, first recruited by Constantine I and the oldest of which were recruited from Gallic and Germanic tribes. The names of many of these units were listed in the 5th century Notitia Dignitatum, which is an excellent source for Later Roman shield designs.

I've been away for a week, but now I'm back

I was away on a short break to Italy, Bologna and Ravenna to be precise, but now I'm back and I've got to restart my painting mojo. Before I went away, I completed some plastic 28mm scenic pieces that the club bought as part of a Kickstarter, Mantic's TerrainCrate one, unfortunately. Anyway, the pieces are all on a dungeon and fantasy theme, so great for a lot of different games, Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago etc. There are a couple of us painting things up, and this is how I approached my share (note that the figure is mine, and shown for scale purposes only). First, we have some piles of treasure, the kind of thing that no self-respecting dungeon, cavern system or ancient ruined city can afford to be without;

Next, some distinctly martial pieces, including a sword in a stone for aspiring Once And Future Kings to have a go at;

Various scatter pieces, including a treasure map for a lost treasure island, and a crown on a cushion on the bedside table. Surely we've all got one of those at home?

Finally, more scatter, useful for hiding behind when the sound of "Fee Fi Fo Fum" starts echoing around the place.

These were all pretty straightforward to paint. A case of spray undercoat, touch up with paint where necessary, paint in the metallic bits, dry-brush and ink to bring out the textures. Quite nice pieces, and very useful. 

By the by, when I was in Ravenna, somewhere I totally recommend visiting, I had a look around the Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra, the House of Stone Carpets. The stone carpets are, of course mosaic floors. These date from between the 1st and 6th centuries CE, and for the purposes of this comment, I want to show you these two. The upper one is the Dance of The Seasons and the lower one a representation of the Good Shepherd, a pagan image which was adopted by early Christians to represent Christ. The thing I want to point out is the tunic decoration. In both mosaics, you can see decorations (e.g. disc-shaped patches and shoulder markings) on the tunics which are often claimed to be "military" in wargaming and re-enactment circles, but which were actually commonly used by everyone across the empire of Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval period. It is more likely that soldiers adopted what was a common style rather than the reverse, but perhaps we shall never know definitively. It does seem unlikely, though, that a representation of Christ as Good Shepherd would be shown wearing an item of military appearance.

Gripping Beast slingers for my Late Romans

I didn't get these finished in time for my photos of my Romans, but I don't think that matters too much. They are Gripping Beast 28mm plastics again, from the Dark Age Warriors box set. I got them finished off yesterday while waiting for a parcel to be delivered, which didn't actually turn up. Annoyed was a mild word for my mood, but at least the day wasn't completely wasted.

The GB Dark Age Warriors box is a pretty useful set. You can make them up as spearmen, swordsmen or axemen, or arm them with javelins straight out of the box, but you also have the option of turning some of them into slingers. You do this by cutting off right hands that are holding other weapons and glueing on hands with slings, of which there are a huge number (32) on the sprues. This isn't exactly difficult and there is plenty of variety possible when it comes to poses. Because they aren't supposed to get into hand-to-hand combat, they don't really need shields, but I suppose you could stick some on if you wanted to. I think that they look better without, personally.

These slingers would do for pretty much any army from Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval, but for me, they are going to be levies for Saga and skirmishing light infantry for my Late Roman Sword and Spear project.

I decided to paint them with a fairly muted colour palette, after all these aren't elite troops, they are peasant levies, foederati or limitanei (i.e. defensive garrison troops, literally "the men on the limes" that is, the borders). There has been much discussion over the years about the difference between the limitanei and the comitatenses or field units, who are often referred to as being "mobile", which is a bit misleading because all armies were limited to movement at the speed of the slowest components, which were the foot troops and the baggage train. It is often also suggested that the limitanei were somehow inferior troops, less well trained or poorly equipped and somehow lacking in fighting spirit, but this is also misleading, certainly during the early Dominate period. At first, the only real difference between the two types was their role. The limitanei were there to defend the limes (borders) against incursions and were locally recruited (and therefore likely to fight doggedly to protect their homes and communities) whereas the comitatenses were units held centrally and used to create field armies designed to fight larger battles and act as a reserve. It is certainly the case that among the comitatenses there were more "elite" units, the scholae and auxilia palatina for example, but limitanei units could also be attached to field armies and these were then referred to as pseudocomitatenses. The Notitia Dignitatum lists out the names of many comitatensis units, as well as a huge number and range of imperial administrative offices from those associated with the imperial court to provincial ones.

However, the limitanei were apparently paid less than comitatenses and scholae units and their status certainly declined over time until they were pretty much just local militia by the 6th century, by which time the western provinces of the empire were gone, replaced by Romano-Germanic successor "kingdoms" across western mainland Europe and by a patchwork of competing small British and Germanic ones across the former Roman Britannia. When we look at post-Roman Britain we should consider that most, if not all units would have been classed as limitanei or, in the case of Germanic troops recruited to fight against Pictish and other incursions as foederati.

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.

More Late Romans - the warband is finished

Thanks to the dreadful weather yesterday and on Friday, I was able to spend enough time to finish off the last groups of figures that I had previously  prepped for my Saga Late Roman warband. First was the last group of fighters, 12 Tirones (Levies) armed with javelins. These figures are all from the Gripping Beast "Dark Age Warriors" box.  

As an aside, I really dislike this whole "Dark Age" nonsense. It is historically inaccurate and incredibly misleading. What we are talking about is the end of Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval period. 

The concept of a lesser age following the so-called Fall of the western Roman empire originated in 14th and 15th century Italy, in the period known as the Renaissance, when, in many cases newly-available classical texts were being studied by humanist scholars. The concept allegedly began with Petrarch, who wanted to portray the Mediaeval Christian period as one of superstition and ignorance, compared to the pure rational light of the classical past. 

The actual Latin term saeculum obscurum was apparently coined by Cardinal Cesare Baronio at the beginning of the 17th century to refer to a period in 10th and 11th century Church history when the Papacy was dominated by Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum and his family and successors. 

Anyway, history lesson over, here are the figures. I wanted to unify the figures, who represent levies, maybe from the local peasantry or from some Germanic tribe settled inside the imperial borders, by giving them shields with an inherently Roman appearance, hence the Chi Rho and other Christian designs on them. At the same time, I didn't want the troops to look like they were "regulars", so they are dressed in a variety of colours which are mainly rustic shades.
               

I also had four Roman character figures to paint. My idea here was twofold. First to give me some figures who could act as optional extras in Saga games, e.g. the signifer or vexillarius with the banner (vexilla) showing the Virgin and Child who would make an excellent War Banner bearer, but also who might be useful for when I expand this Roman project for Sword & Spear.

 

I will admit to being really pleased how these have turned out and I really can't wait to see them in action soon.

Late Romans WIP

I don't usually post any WIP pictures, but these Romans are such a lengthy and complex project that I thought it would be worth showing how far I've got with them.
               

I'm not going to say too much about what is there, because I will leave that for the finished figures, but they have been quite interesting to paint. I've not done any 28mm plastics for ages, and I'd forgotten that they always look a bit crude until the shading, dry-brushing and inking stages are over. Now that I've inked them (using Windsor & Newton Peat Brown drawing ink) I think that they are coming together nicely.

Apart from on my two original test figures, I've undercoated the shields separately, white on the outer side and brown on the inner.

I've also made up 12 Dark Age Warriors as javelin-armed Levies, and made up the four command figures from my second box of Roman Infantry to offer up a bit of variation to my Roman units, two as armoured swordsmen, one unarmoured swordsman and a vexilla bearer. I have undercoated these in brown because I am thinking of painting these levies up in fairly rustic dress, using a pretty restrained palette. For the four Romans, it doesn't really matter what colour they are undercoated, because they will end up looking very different once finished.

The reason I've done the shields separately in white is so I can apply these rather lovely shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios before I glue them onto the troops. The range of different designs is pretty wonderful, and I intend to use a few different patterns over the course of the project, not least on the recently announced Late Roman plastic cavalry from Gripping Beast. I also understand, because I emailed GB and asked about it, that later this year there will be some unarmoured plastic Roman cavalry too, with the option of making some horse archers. That please me greatly.

Now that I've broken the back of the work, I can start thinking about the Dark Age cavalry and how I want to use the rest of the foot figures still on their sprues.