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.

A Warhammer Fantasy Empire-themed army in 15mm

A long time ago, I created a renaissance army for HoTT, which I based upon the Warhammer Fantsy Empire province of Averland. I still have it, but I rarely play HoTT nowadays. However, I am always thinking about renaissance wargaming and a year or so ago I bought a load of Alternative Armies figures in the form of two complete (French and Italian) Italian Wars armies plus some extra odds and ends. My plan was to create a Warhammer Fantasy Empire army that I could use for Sword and Spear and, especially Sword and Spear Fantasy.

Obviously the figures aren't an exact match and the Warhammer Empire didn't have any pike blocks, but I don't see that as being too important. It is the theme that counts.Anyway, I've now made a start and here are some of my first efforts.

The top picture shows two units of mounted men-at-arms who I have painted up to represent The Order of Knights Panther. I've stuck to a blue and yellow palette and also painted their helmet plumes in a desert yellow colour to give an impression of tan panther pelts.

The lower picture is of two army generals, using the mounted versions of Georg von Frundsberg (left) and Cesare Borgia (right) with standard bearers. The former does a reasonable impersonation of the Emperor Karl Franz of Warhammer fame.

Banners are a problem. There are plenty of images on the internet, but they are very large and generally only show one side of the flag. So, I've had to download large images, shrink them considerably (which loses all the detail), create a mirror image and then join the two halves together before printing them off. They aren't great, but they will have to do.

All my units will be on 8 cm wide bases, with any Heroes, Monsters and War Wagons on 4 cm bases and leaders and magicians on round bases. I will be able to reuse my Leonardo Da Vinci turtle tank as a WarWagon and maybe also some of the other HoTT bases as Heroes too.

Unlike real renaissance armies, my units will all be painted in uniform colour schemes, to create that Empire appearance, but I can still use them in historical games too.

Painting - a few odds 'n' ends

The weather has been particularly horrible this week, so I have been painting a few figures, basically clearing space for getting some Napoleonic Portuguese infantry started.

Anyway, I've finished off four more figures from that GW Blackstone Fortress box set I mentioned previously.

According to the blurb on the box, the two blue guys are "Ur Ghuls" and the robot thingies are "Spindle Drones". According to me, the blue guys are Mutants and the robot thingies are potentially Sensor Droids, or maybe some other sort of droid, depending on the kind of game I am playing. Lazily, I have stuck pretty much to the box art regarding their painting schemes, because I rather like how they look. I am thinking that the blue guys will also make suitable Null Men figures for Frostgrave.

I've also been painting Monks. Surely, we all need a few monks? I am thinking that monks could crop up in all manner of games in many periods, right?

Specifically, I bought these because of a conversation I had at the club about taking part of the Magic rules from Sword and Spear Fantasy, specifically how magic can be used to boost the fighting ability of units and also to rally hits off of units. Our reasoning was that these aspects of Magic could be seen as being akin to religious figures boosting the fervour or morale of the troops, something that was a common feature of mediaeval warfare, as well as in earlier and later periods. Holy Men even have a role in Sharp Practice. As I have both FIW French and Napoleonic Anglo-Portuguese forces for SP in 28mm, a monk or two might come in handy.

Of course, monks can also feature in other settings, too. Saga immediately springs to mind, as well as Dux Britanniarum. Monks in a fantasy setting might also be possible. Who knows?

These four are rather nice figures, Foundry, I think, and I wasn't too concerned about which particular Order they might belong to,  so I painted three up as fairly generic monks. The fourth one I wanted to make a bit more colourful, as I am planning to add him to my Late Roman army, so I felt that a bit of an "imperial" habit might be appropriate.

Finally, I painted this chap;

He's a bit wizardy-looking and a bit like a Ranger for LOTR, but also a bit hermit-like. I really like him, and I can easily see him as a Christian Hermit supporting my Late Romans too.

A big Sword and Spear AAR

This was something that Clive and I had been discussing for ages, and now it actually took place.  The scene was somewhere in the Roman East, probably in the province of Palaestina Secunda, around the time of the emperor Heraclius. 

Arabic forces, newly united under the banners of Islam are pushing north, and are opposed by a mostly infantry force of Romans, near a ruined temple complex from classical times.

The ground is dominated by the temple ruins, which are overlooked by a hill on one side and some rough ground on the other. The Romans have information that an Arab flank attack can be expected on their right.

The massed ranks of Arab foot make a daunting impression on the thinner Roman lines. The Roman troops are mainly medium foot and local skirmishers, with some armoured infantry and cavalry.

Before long, both sides are advancing towards the temple complex, with the Arab foot troops getting there faster. Medium foot and skirmishers don't suffer movement penalties in these ruins, but gain the benefit of being in cover for melee purposes.

Arab cavalry emerge on the Roman right and a unit of armoured cavalry charge into combat.

To the left of the temple ruins, Arab cavalry charge the Roman medium archers on the hills.

An early success for the Romans as a unit of Arab foot breaks and routs. The Romans must capitalise on this to have any hope of throwing the Arab forces back.

On the Roman right, the armoured cavalry fail to destroy the Arab horse, but are in turn wiped out.

The disorganised Roman foot need to get into a defensive line to have any hope of surviving.

Disaster on the Roman left as a unit of skirmishing slingers is simply ridden over by the cream of the Arab cavalry, who are now able to exploit the gap made. More Roman armoured cavalry sweep round to engage the Arab horse archers who are firing on some Roman medium foot.

Things could go either way in the centre where the Arabs and Romans exchange archery fire.

The Romans manage to get a unit in position to take the Arab foot in the flank.

The elite Arab cavalry sweep round behind the Roman lines.

Two Roman units break and rout in the centre. Things are looking bleak. Surely that unit of javelin skirmishers cannot survive for much longer?

The Arab cavalry charge the archers on the hills, who manage to survive the onslaught.

On the right, the Romans have stabilised and formed a defensive line, which is being attacked by skirmishing mounted archers.

The skirmishing javelin troops are inevitably wiped out, causing a unit of Roman medium foot to flee. It looks all over for the Romans.

The Roman and Arab foot on the Roman centre-right clash, with one unit being wiped out in a single round of combat.

The remaining heavy foot take a lot of damage. It is obvious that the Romans have lost  the battle.

In the end, the result had a lot of historical resonance. The Arab armies that swept up into the Roman Levant were more than a match for their Roman opponents, leading to the loss of what had formerly been the Diocese of the East (until abolished by the administrative reforms of Justinian the Great), followed by the loss of Egypt. 

With the loss of these regions, the empire went into a decline. The process of Hellenisation, which had been formalised under Heraclius gathered pace, leading to the end of the Roman Empire of Late Antiquity. The smaller empire that survived was weakened, but still wealthy and survived to expand again in later centuries. This is the empire that we know today as the Byzantine, although its inhabitants always considered themselves to be Romans and the emperor was referred to as Basileus and Autokrator, rather than Augustus Imperator.

The empire survived and prospered, being the most powerful state in Early Mediaeval Europe, but declined in the 11th century and suffered the ignominy of being sacked by Latin Crusaders in 1204, a blow from which it never recovered, although the capital Constantinople, the seat of the Basileus until the end was not finally lost to the Ottomans until 1453.

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.

A few more Late Romans

I've been clearing the decks ready to start work on the main body of Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens, and these are the last of my Gripping Beast 28mm plastic Late Romans for a while, although I do have 40 more foot troops to work on at some point, plus a box more armoured cavalry and another of Dark Ages unarmoured cavalry. I intend to turn the latter into javelin-armed skirmish horse. I've also got a lot of Saxons, but more about them below.

As people who have read the blog before, I am working on expanding my original Saga Late Roman warband into an army for Sword and Spear, the Great Escape Games ruleset.

Anyway, I wanted to have more armoured Roman foot troops, so I decided to use the Gripping Beast plastic Saxon Thegns figures as Late Romans. This was pretty much just a matter of head swaps and using Roman shields because, when it comes down to it there really isn't a lot to choose between one 28mm early mediaeval body in a tunic and a chainmail shirt and another one. To be honest, even a headswap isn't always necessary.

Here are eight armoured infantry, mounted on a single 12cm x 6 cm base for Sword and Spear. Annoyingly, I didn't notice the blue paint on one of the faces until after I'd taken the photo, but I've fixed the figure now. These are a mixture of armoured Roman bodies and Saxon ones. I really don't see any problem with these at all. Absolute uniformity was never a thing for the Romans, as I've discussed before.

Next are two command stands for my S&S army. These are all Saxon thegn figures, but Romanised with helmets and shields, except for one, who has a Saxon head, which looks fine to me, seeing as it is just another variant on the conical Spangenhelm shape so common in later Roman armies. I liked the idea of using the cloaks which come on the Saxon command sprue for my Roman leaders. 

Both of these command groups are standing in front of walls I've made for Frostgrave. My Elementalist wizard has the "Wall" spell, which allows her to create a 6" x 3" wall within 12" of her. These are a lot better than using random bits of card, or even just a line of dice on the table.

All the shield transfers and the image on the vexillum are from LBMS.

More Late Roman Archers

I've had a lot of Late Roman Gripping Beast plastics ready to paint for ages now, but I really needed a break from Romans, plus it was too hot to paint and I was also on holiday for a while. Anyway, I've completed all my remaining Late Roman archers, eight more designed as additions to my Saga warband, above and, below 16 archers based up ready to be used in Sword and Spear. Of course, I will be using all my Saga Romans for S&S too, I just need to buy a load of movement trays for them.

I am planning for my S&S army to be on 12 cm wide bases, mainly 6 cm deep, but deeper for cavalry, obviously. My idea is that foot units will be on 12 x 6 cm bases, which can be stacked one behind another to make up large units, with skirmishers also on 12 x 6 cm bases, but with only six figures per base. I am hoping that I can get Warbases to make these up as a special, together with a number of 12 x 6 cm bases with 4 rectangular 4 x 2 cm slots for cavalry. I need to ask about this, though.

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.

The Romans Are Coming

After playing a couple of games of Saga yesterday, I took the opportunity to use some of the club scenery to act as a backdrop for some photos of all my Gripping Beast plastic Romans, well all the finished ones anyway because I have a lot more in the pipeline to stick together, as well as a load that are made up but need to be undercoated. These are unarmoured Roman spearmen and archers, plus some Dark Age infantry with spears and slingers.

I also have another box of Roman armoured cavalry to do and a box of Dark Ages cavalry who I will make up as light cavalry with javelins (to be skirmishers). I also have more Dark Age infantry, who I will probably make up as spearmen and a box of Saxon Thegns. Both of these who will be deployed as Germanic foederati heavy and medium infantry, and I will also be using a few of the Saxons as Roman armoured infantry with head and shield swaps. By the time I've finished, I think that I'll have a pretty large army to field in games of Sword and Spear. I am also thinking about using a set of the newly announced Gripping Beast metal Roman Cataphracts as elite cavalry.

Even without all the extra figures, what I have at the moment looks pretty impressive en masse and they will only look better when there are even more of them.