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.

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.