The Legions are here!

 The almost-final element of my 28mm L'Art de la Guerre Republican/Triumverate Roman project is the biggest and most meaty - 100 Legionaries (or Hastati and Principes in old money I guess?).

The figures are almost all from the classic Foundry ranges, mainly as they are just such great figures that still stand the test of time even when when put up against all of the newer plastic ranges out there. 

They do however also stand the test of being expensive, and even though I do keep reminding myself that there is no point in saving a few quid buying sub-par figures it was still a challenge to click "buy" on the Foundry shopping cart after stacking up more than a dozen or so packs of Foundry infantry!

Luckily though, Mark Fry was selling a huge unpainted set of Foundry Roman figures at the end of last year, so that's how I convinced myself to bite the bullet and pick up enough infantry figures (as well as a set of mounted Great Commanders) to make up the meat (and two veg) of a Roman army. 

Painting up 100 figures is quite a challenge, and even more so once you add in the LBMS shield transfer application process x 100 ... so I've documented it all here with LOTS of photos of the finished and WiP figures along the way. 

There are lots more photos now on the website, along with some details of the painting process, links to the figures used and also to the LBMS shields on their site too. 

The German Road Trip - in video!

A special bonus feature now for those of you with too much time on your hands and a deep and enduring curiosity to learn more about our recent Team CLWC German Road Trip - a Madaxeman Video Podcast in which we talk through our trip and share our photos with you "on the telly"!

We recorded this on Zoom, which also has a rather disturbing AI summarising function allowing me, through the power of AI and a bit of cutting and pasting, to tell you that the video contains chat and photos on the topics of ; 

Belgium Motorway Stop and Museum Visit

The group stopped at a motorway service station in Belgium on their way to Germany. Gordon shared a photo showing that the service station had displays of Einstein and other scientists, which is unusual for a British motorway stop. They then visited the Mons Museum in Belgium, which was closed on their previous trip. The group seemed to enjoy the gastronomy and drinking aspects of their trips as much as the historical sightseeing.

Exploring Military History and Equipment

The team discussed various aspects of military history, particularly focusing on the 1st World War. They examined a Pickle Haubert helmet, discussing its design and potential functions. They also discussed the fashion of having spikes on helmets, attributing it to the influence of Napoleonic and Alexandrian styles. The team also shared images of British and German uniforms, and a German stormtrooper's machine gun. They noted the evolution of military equipment, such as the transition from duck shooting guns to sniper rifles, and the development of tank driver's face masks. The team agreed that the museum they visited was exemplary and superb.

Belgium Trip and Local Experiences

In the meeting, Tim, Gordon, and David discussed their recent trip to Belgium, focusing on their visit to Mons and Bastogne. They shared their experiences, including visiting a museum in Mons where a Canadian gun fired the last shell of the 1st World War, and a railway carriage restaurant in Bastogne. They also talked about their stay in an Airbnb, which was missing a bed and bedding, and the local Belgians they met. The conversation also included a discussion about unusual products they found in service stations and their experiences with local food and drinks. The conversation ended with a visit to the Bastogne Barracks, a tank museum, where they encountered a bored little girl sitting in a porter cabin.

WWII Tank and Artillery Discussion

Tim, David, and Gordon discuss various World War II tanks, vehicles, and artillery pieces they saw at a museum exhibit. They identify and provide details about specific models like the Hetzer, Panther, Panzer IV, and anti-aircraft guns. Tim points out interesting features like camouflage patterns, welding techniques, and armament calibers. David notes that many of the German tanks on display were upside down or damaged, especially Panthers. The conversation focuses on recognizing the different vehicles and sharing knowledge about their specifications and histories.

Exploring Military Vehicles at the Museum

The transcript discusses a visit to a museum with various tanks and military vehicles on display. Tim, Gordon, and David examine and comment on the different exhibits, including Shermans, a Renault tankette, Matildas, a Valentine tank, armored cars, and large tow trucks. They remark on the size, features, and historical context of many of the vehicles. Tim notes the lack of security or fencing around the exhibits, joking about the possibility of stealing one. The group seems impressed by the collection and engages in lighthearted banter throughout their exploration of the museum.

Exploring Trier's Historical Sites and Architecture

Tim, Gordon, and David discussed their recent trip to Trier, a city in Germany. They visited various historical sites, including the Roman Basilica, the Trier Cathedral, and the Trier History Museum. They also explored the town's architecture, including the Electors Palace and the Black Gate. The group expressed their admiration for the well-preserved Roman structures and the impressive mosaics they saw in the museum. They also shared their experiences of visiting the town during the Christmas market season. The conversation ended with a discussion about a model of the city, which they found impressive.

Germany Trip and Competition Experiences

Tim, Gordon, and David Saunders discussed their recent trip to Germany, where they attended a competition. They shared their experiences, including the challenges they faced with the local train services and the food they enjoyed. They also discussed their performances in the competition, with Tim and Gordon sharing their losses and David Saunders recounting his wins and losses. The group concluded that they had a mixed performance, with some enjoyable games and others that didn't go as well as expected.

Cologne Carnival and Cathedral Visit

Tim, Gordon, and David Saunders discussed their recent trip to Cologne, Germany. They shared their experiences of the city's carnival, which started the next day, and how they encountered people already in party mode. They also talked about their visit to the Cologne Cathedral, which was closed due to the festivities. The group also shared pictures and stories of the various costumes they saw during the carnival, including cows, pirates, and other themed outfits. They ended the conversation with a humorous anecdote about "freezing cows" in German.

Exploring Charlemagne Land and Leuven

Tim, Gordon, and David Saunders discussed their recent trip to Charlemagne Land, which included visits to the King's Cathedral, Arkham (note: this is actually "Aachen") , and Leuven. They marveled at the stunning architecture of the King's Cathedral, with its intricate mosaics and casket containing Charlemagne's relics. They also visited Arkham, known for its chocolate shops, and Leuven, home to the Stella Artois brewery. The group expressed disappointment at the closures of the Stella Artois Museum and a local beer house due to it being a Monday. They also discovered a heavy metal album by Christopher Lee about Charlemagne, which they listened to on their way to Cologne. The trip ended with a visit to the town square in Leuven, where they saw a symbol of the town, a dead insect on a stick.

Germany Trip and Toy Soldier Games

In the meeting, Tim, Gordon, and David discussed their recent trip to Germany, focusing on the cities they visited and the experiences they had. They also talked about potential future trips, including a planned visit to Alicante. The conversation then shifted to their hobby of playing with toy soldiers, with Tim and Gordon sharing their experiences and strategies in various games. They also discussed the challenges of playing against certain armies, particularly the Swiss, and considered different army compositions for future games. The conversation ended with plans to reconvene and continue discussing their hobby.

The summary ends with the warning that ... 

AI-generated content may be inaccurate or misleading. Always check for accuracy.

..something  which I think could apply equally well to all of the Madaxeman Podcasts, be they audio or video format!!  

You can see the video here 

Who Played What? - the 2024 Edition

 

With Storm Darragh having been battering the country, what better time to crack open an early bottle of egg-nog and play with some spreadsheets to churn out another edition of my reasonably regular end of year update on competition attendances across a number of widely played Ancients rulesets in the UK!

As usual I'll start with (repeating) the ground rules and caveats. 

The only thing these numbers measure is attendances at UK “competition” events held during 2024 for which results (or runners and riders) have been published online that I've been able to find and make sense of.

Every ruleset in this list is very good at doing this with most also producing their own annual rankings as an additional reference point to double-check the data. The odd player might be missed (or included) at an individual event, especially where nicknames have been used, but other than that unless any events have somehow been publicised, organised, played and concluded during 2024 without leaving an online footprint of any kind on any of the mainstream forums used by the players of the rulesets concerned (I mean, really...?) it’s a fair bet that every competition that has happened should have been included. 

Whilst some players appear in the stats twice because they played two rulesets over the course of the past year this is discounted for the analysis as numbers are too low to impact the main trends. And it's too much work to de-dupe them by name as well !

The final thing to bear in mind is that for most of the rulesets in this analysis the total number of players falls between 30-80, so a car not starting, or the designated driver's daughter getting married on the weekend that 4 clubmates would otherwise have done their “once a year” competition will generate a 5-10% swing in overall player numbers for almost all of these 7 rulesets - so please don't read too much into any single digit, single year variation. Instead it’s the bigger trends and swings that count, capturing moments in time and adding them together to form a broad-brush picture over the longer term - which is why I have similar stats from the end of 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, and 2017. 

So with those qualifications out of the way, onto the 2024 data.

Total Player Numbers 

(UK based players / UK+Overseas players): 

1. ADLG    172 / 184       (2023: 178/186)     (L'Art de la Guerre)
2. MeG       77 / 82           (2023: 78/87)         (Mortem et Gloriam)
3. DBA       65 / 67          (2023: 64/64)         (De Bellis Antiquarius)
4. DBMM   57 / 71          (2023  : 59/73)       (De Bellis Magister Militum)
5. TTS!      55 / 55         (2023: 52/52)      (To The Strongest!)
6. FoGAM  41 /41           (2023: 35/39)         (Field of Glory Ancient & Medieval)
7. DBM      37 / 38           (2023: 40/41)         (De Bellis Militarium)

ADLG has again comfortably retained the top spot in terms of popularity, seeing almost 20% more UK-based competition players than the next two sets combined. MeG has retained second place, and a resurgent DBA has laid claim to third place, moving ahead of what is now a fairly static DBMM figure, with TTS! now only a gnats todger behind.

At the other end of the scale the two "free" sets, FoG and DBM are still locked together with around 40 players per year each - less players than attend some of the larger individual events in the calendar for other sets.

This gives an on-trend total of 504 UK-based players across these 7 rulesets, almost bang-on the 2023 total of 496.  This rises to 538 including overseas entrants, compared to 532 in 2023.   

Total number of entries made 

1. ADLG      729    (2023: 727)
2. MEG        326    (381)
3. DBMM    226    (263)
4. DBA         241   (220)
5. FOG         240    (204)
6. TTS          171     (100) 
7. DBM        164    (166)

These figures count the total number of entries across all competitions for each set, and are therefore indicative of a number of factors - average attendance, number of events held - and also reflect to a degree the number of active players on each circuit. As such, some of the rulesets figures in this table show quite marked year on year variances, both negative and positive. 

Of the fallers, the MeG circuit lost a handful of smallish 1-day events from its calendar this year, with 19 events running in 2024 compared to 22 last year. Likewise DBMM's decline in participation coincided with the calendar being shortened by 2 events compared to 2023. 

TTS! in comparison added 4 new competitions this year, going from 8 to 12 at the same time as seeing participation increase at their existing events too.  FoG delivered a fairly steep rise in aggregate participation off the back of an unchanged calendar, and DBA actually managed to record a solid increase in numbers while running 1 less event than in 2023!  

New to Each Circuit this year

(UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1. TTS!        19 / 19
2. MeG        16 / 16
3. ADLG     15 / 20
4. DBA        15 / 17
5. DBM        3 / 3
6. DBMM     3 / 3
7. FoGAM    2 / 2 

A very marked split can be seen between "active" and "legacy" rulesets in terms of ability to attract new players to the competition circuit this year, with the newest set on the list, TTS! heading the leaderboard in terms oof new UK-based recruits this year.

The new-player count for TTS! was however matched by the number of non-returnees, generating almost 40% churn among the player base year on year. Both DBA & MeG also saw a similar outcome, with churn levels in the region of 20-25% of what were essentially flat player numbers across 2023-24.  Conversely DBM, DBMM, FoG and ADLG all saw their churn levels running at 10% or less, although across rather differently scaled baselines. 

Ruleset-specific commentary

ADLG (L'Art de la Guerre)

ADLG remained the most widely played Ancients competition ruleset across the UK in 2024, even after losing 2 competitions (and 6 players) from the circuit compared to the previous year. Taking the Covid-affected years out of the equation, ADLG has now been competitively played by 170-180 UK-based players every year since 2019. 

The 12 international players who came to the UK to play ADLG last year were again within the now-normal range, which has seen anywhere between 8-23 overseas visitors coming to the UK in any given year since ADLG first started being played here. This year 20 first-timers appeared on the UK ADLG circuit, with 5 of these also being overseas-based.

58 players (33% of the total pool) played in only 1 event this year, with a further 25 only appearing twice to put an aggregate total of 45% of the UK ADLG circuit in the "casual competitor" category this year - including all of the overseas visitors. Looking just at  UK players nudges these percentages down a little to 28% and 42% respectively.

15 players accounted for 25% of all of the 729 competition entries made in 2024 (a total essentially unchanged from the 727 recorded across 2023), with 39 players making up half of the aggregate annual field.

The 36 events held included some competitions some taking place in parallel (in different scales) at the same venue, and with date clashes as well the most events anyone could theoretically have entered in 2024 was 30 - still more than 50% greater than any other circuit. Only 2 players managed to make it to even half of this total, giving ADLG players potentially the most diverse mix of potential opponents at any given event compared to any other ruleset.

10 of the 36 ADLG competitions were held in the 25mm/28mm scale, the rest being 15mm events. Were these 10 larger scale tournaments to be treated as a circuit in their own right, 28mm ADLG would be a bigger circuit than both FoG and DBM, with 55 ADLG players (52 UK based) wheeling out their big toys at least once per year.

Three competitions this year drew in 40 or more competitors playing ADLG, each of these running parallel events in both scales, with Warfare hitting an impressive 50 across 15mm & 28mm this past November - also exceeding the full-year UK-wide pools of players for at least 2 other sets. 

DBMM

The size of the DBMM player universe across all UK events is essentially unchanged between 23-24, leaving the UK-based total a little short of 60, locking-in a recent fall in numbers that coincided broadly with the Covid break, before which annual turnout was usually in the 70's-80's.

With 14 overseas players in 2024 DBMM also sneaked ahead of ADLG to record the most international competitors of any ruleset last year - although it is possible that some of the players listed as "international" on the DBMM.org rankings site are in fact now UK based.

Of the 17 DBMM events to take place, 7 failed to reach double figures of attendees (although combining the two parallel periods at Roll Call changes this to 6 events out of 16), which contributed to an overall 14% tailing off in the total number of entries across the year, from 263 last year down to 226 in 2024.

6 players made up 25% of all entries, with 16 making up half of the aggregate field. 26 players (37%) only entered one tournament, and 53% only entering one or two events this year, although this was skewed by the large number of overseas players. Taking all overseas players out of the equation changes these figures to 30% and 47% respectively, marking very little actual change from prior years.

3 new players joined the MM-playing ranks this year, joined by a number of returnees - one who had previously last entered a competition way back in 2011!

DBA

DBA has really picked up the pace in the last couple of years, and with 67 players across 14 events is enjoying having the biggest pool of players since I started looking at competition results back in 2016.

DBA always seems to be able to draw in new players, and 2024 has been no exception with 17 new faces appearing on the circuit for the first time (including 2 visitors from Australia - presumably packing their DBA armies in hand luggage!) to a calendar of events where the average attendance was also a healthy 17.

26 players (39% of the pool) entered only 1 event during the year, with well over half of the UK's DBA players (41 players, 61%) only entering 1 or 2 competitions this year - the highest proportion for any ruleset in this survey. 

With all bar one of the DBA events in the calendar being one-day affairs, the logistics of "how far will I travel to play in a one-day event (and then drive home)?" is probably behind some of this particular stat's relatively high score for the UK DBA community - the two antipodean tourists excepted of course - as other circuits which run mostly with 2-day events might expect more of their attehndees to stay overnight.   

7 players made up 25% of all entries, with 16 making up half of the aggregate field across the year, with closest anyone came to entering all 14 events being the 4 players who all made it to 10 events each.

TTS! (To The Strongest!)

TTS! greatly expanded the number of events held this year, with a number of "non-competition" events also taking place (which are excluded from these stats to ensure consistency of data sources across all 7 sets).

The 12 events held this year averaged just over 14 participants each, with the calendar-opener in Cardiff topping the list with 22. No-one (quite) managed to attend all 12, but three players got into double figures of attendance, contributing to the 6 most active players contributing 25% of the overall entries and 13 contributing more than half that annual total.

19 players (34%) only entered one event, with 30 (54%) only entering one or two, meaning that the 5 most enthusiastic players between them appeared as many times as the "lest enthusiastic" 30. 

The engagement levels of the 19 new TTS! competitors varied substantially, with more than half of them turning out to at least 2 events, and three of them entering enough comps to make it into the "top 10" of most active TTS! players in the calendar year - quite an unusual pattern compared to the other sets in this survey, where almost all "new" players only make it to one or (at best) two events in their first year.

The 12 event circuit is currently rather "M4/M3 Corridor-ish" focused, with events from London via Bristol and through to Cardiff making up the majority of the calendar. Britcon in Nottingham (now Leicester from 2024) beiing the most northerly destination by quite some margin. 

MeG  (Mortem et Gloriam)

MeG moved away from using a PSC-produced hardback rulebook to a print on demand/PDF distribution model early in 2023, which coincided with UK player numbers rising from 71 to a record 78, and that total was almost matched again in 2024 with 77 UK-based players being seen in the MeG circuit of 19 competitions. A fall in the number of overseas players heading to these shores however meant that overall player numbers fell fractionally from 87 last year to 82 in 2024. 

16 players entered a UK MeG event for the first time in 2024, again almost exactly matching the 15 who debuted in 2023. Last year however 5 of the 15 new players were from overseas, whereas all of the new faces in 16 hailed from these shores, 9 making their first appearances at a single event (one would presume hosted at their local club?).

32 players entered only one event (including 15 of the 16 new faces and ), with a further 16 entering two these 48 ‘least committed’ attendees make up (at 59%) a clear majority of the total pool of UK MeG players this year.  Excluding the 5 overseas players, 43 of 77 UK-based players (56%) still end up in this "casual" category this year.

At the other end of the scale the keenest 4 MeG players on the circuit managed between them make more appearances than the least-active 48 combined, with 7 players making up 1/4 of the aggregate entries this year, and 15 players chipping in with over 50% of  entries across the entire calendar.

The polarization into “uber-keen” and “casual” players on the MeG circuit seems to have increased over the last few years, with “single event” player numbers being just 20 in 2022, 25 last year, and now 32 in 2024. Considering just the UK-based players (as overseas players are more likely to attend just one event) this trend becomes even more pronounced, with “one event” player numbers increasing by more than 2/3, up from 17 in 2022 to the 29 recorded in the last 12 months.

Almost all of MeG's events are held in 15mm, with two competitions in 2024 featuring the 28mm MAGNA format (one as part of a team event where 1 player per 3-person team played 28mm MAGNA). In total 12 different players used a MAGNA 28mm army in competitive play this year, with all bar one of these dozen also playing in at least one other 15mm event elsewhere as well.

FOGAM  (Field of Glory Ancient & Medieval)

2024 has witnessed a bit of a renewal for the UK FoGAM circuit, with the 41, all-UK participants marking the highest annual turnout in some years (following on from the rules moving to a free, PDF distribution model in 2022) as this year 2 new players and 4 returnees (who had not played in 2023) more than made up for the absence of any foreign competitors visiting UK shores this year.

Average attendances were also up by a whopping 17%, with a total aggregate entry across the year of 240 (compared to 204 in 2023) boosting turnout from 17 to 20 at each event, with the FiB Teams event again weighing in with the biggest attendance of the year of 31 different players. .  

The UK calendar was stable again with 12 events taking place, and while no-one this year managed a full sweep of attendance, 7 players did turn up at 11/12 of the possible tournaments. Unsurprisingly then, any 6 of these would make up more than 1/4 of all entries to the UK FoG circuit, with 12 players making up 50% of the aggregate field across the year and 21 players (more than half the total pool) attending at least half of the available events.

7 players only attended 1 event (17%), with 10 (24%) attending 1 or 2, the lowest percentage of "casual" participation of any ruleset in this year's survey.

This low "casual player" percentage in part may be due to the increasing geographic concentration of FoG events, with only two of the dozen FoG competitions across the UK now taking place north of Watford.  This Southern bias also no doubt helps the cadre of FoG players who's other main hobby is being "Professional Northerners" to get in some very consistent and top quality whingeing about the "shocking price of a pint" in almost every month of the FoG year.

DBM

Numbers for DBM again barely moved year on year, with 38 players making an appearance in 2024 compared to 41 the year before - as always, unsurprising for a circuit strongly centered around a smallish handful of clubs.  The total number of entries was also unchanged also, at 164, compared to 166 across 2023.

7 DBM players only attended one event this year (18% of the UK pool), with 13 (34%) only making it to 1 or 2 of the regular schedule of 10 competitions. With 164 entries across the year, the busiest 5 players again made up 25% of the total entry, with 11 contributing half of the aggregate field.

One player managed a clean sweep, appearing at every single event in the year, with 17 (almost half the field) managing to grasp at least half of the opportunities to play competitive DBM during 2024.

DBM is played in both 15mm and 28mm, with 3 of the 10 events being  held using bigger figures, which saw 18 of the 38 UK circuit players taking part.

 The Conclusion (FWIW!)

In summary as 2024 draws to a close these 7 popular Ancients rulesets have continued to see around 500 UK-based players taking part in at least one UK Ancients competition in the last 12 months. That total remains down by around 75 on pre-Covid numbers.

(Aggregated player count by year, omitting 2020 & 2021 due to Covid impact)

There have also been no really seismic shifts in relative popularity between any of the rulesets in recent years, and very few changes in any other metric either, meaning that we now seem to be in a very stable period with all of these sets being well into their 2nd, 3rd, 4th (or even further!) iterations and editions. 

(Individual ruleset player count by year, omitting 2020 & 2021 due to Covid impact)

With nothing new really coming along to make a mark on the Ancients competition scene in the best part of a decade either, perhaps next year I can just do a straight cut-and-paste! 

(If there's anything I've missed that you are better sighted on than me, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the data and I'll do my best to add it back into the stats and update this post)

Taking Germans to Germany - whatever next?!

 A few weeks back a brave band of CLWC gamers hopped in a car and headed across Europe to take part in the ADLG German Team Tourament in Braubach, on the banks of the mighty Rhine.

On our journey we encountered many strange sights....

..including a trip to the museum in Mons in Belgium...

...some heavyweight tank action at Bastogne barracks...

..a bfrief history of medieval torture in Trier ...

...which was also the capital of the Western Roman Empire for a while...

..before finally engaging in 5 games of ADLG using a Medieval German army ...

..with what admittedly was mixed success... 

..under the expert leadership of the Kaiser Gnome ...

..before heading home via a rain-soaked, beer-soaked 800 year old 4 month long drinking festival!

For a full set of military tourism, gastronomic and liquid intake excess, musical weirdness, the Gome Kaiser trading insults with Hannibal, and the occasional spot of reportage of 15mm scale Medieval wargaming head on over to the Battle & Tourism reports now ! 

Roman Cavalry (not quite a choir!)

 Chris Martin may have sung about Roman Cavalry Choirs singing, but in most sets of wargaming rules the Roman Cavalry are, well, a bit "out of tune" with what it takes to be actually all that good, at least in the Republican period.  They aren't equipped with cool lances, they aren't especially decent quality, and they aren't numerous enough to have "quantity as a quality all of it's own" either

However in ADLG, again as in most rules, there are always a couple of mandatory units of Roman Cavalry in most of the Marian/Republican era lists, so I was obliged to get some for my Roman army. 

These are the finished article:

They are all from the "much cheaper than Foundry" Crusader range from North Star.

The horses are a tad on the skinny side if I'm being picky, but that does at least mean they all fit together well on this 60mm wide base.

The riders are cast with saddles which didn't really fit all that snugly on the backs of the horses, so it was not entirely straighforward to mount them up. 

After a bit of consideration I ended up deciding to snip off some parts of of the horses manes, where the mane joins the back of the horse.

 Doing this creates enough of a long, flat patch along the back of the horse to mount the riders properly - if they had been left to sit "beind" the original mane they would have ended up being pitched forward  quite notably as the saddle would have say partly on the horses buttocks, which are are higher than the middle of their backs. 

These are the inevitable LBMS transfers, sized very well for these specific figures. 

I did do a bit of blending in around the edges, although the one on the right of this photo does still seem to have been left with a visible line showing the edge of the transfer, which is a bit ofa PITA in this photo but will not be seen on-table 

I bought one pack of 3 armoured horsemen / officers and one of unarmoured cavalry, giving me the potential to field them as visibly different, perhaps as Elite & Ordinary, or as a Heavy Cavalry unit and a Medium Cavalry unit - the unarmoured chaps also get the less glamorous brown cloaks so I can tell from the back too! 

They don't come with spears, so these are slightly bendy (break proof!) plastic broom bristles.

 

Once I get the legions (and Gladiators) done these guys will be mooching about ineffectually at the back of the army in no time at all ! 

Crusader Minis Triarii

 Finally I'm starting to get to the proper "line of battle" troops of the Roman army I'm collecting and painting - and why not start at the back, with the Triarii?

These are Crusader Miniatures figures from North Star - I picked them as they are very similar in style and stature to the Foundry guys who make up most of the Legions. 

North Star also have arranged for LBMS to make transfers for these guys, which is of course fantastic 

As you may spot, on taking the photos of them I noticed that I'd gotten some basing material on the back of one of the chaps in red - I'll be fixing that before they hit the table ! 

I bought a Unit Deal from North Star, getting me 16 infantry and 4 officers/standards etc for £27. 

Rather cheaper than Foundry prices - although I did also get some officers from Foundry, and I'm not sure if these two in the middle are Foundry or Crusader figures. 

It's a very simple paint scheme, with black undercoat, drybrush gunmetal on the armour, and what is essentially a couple of layers of white slap-chop on the tunics. 

I edged the raised detail on the armour with white as well to give them a bit more definition and interest. 

The faces are white "second undercoat" on the black spray base, then Contrast Darkoath Flesh, and finally highlights with Vallejo Dark Flesh to create the faces and hands/arms etc. 

The second unit ended up with red tunics and these really nice yellow boar design shields. 

Cutting the transfers out wasn't as painful as I feared - maybe I am channelling memories of trying to do this with 15mm transfers, whereas the 28mm ones are much bigger and so easier to slice the shield boss holes out of them. 

Here they are from the side view.

There are 4 different heads on these figures, but only one real pose, so attaching the shields at different heights and angles really is vital to get some motion into the units. 

Dropping one front rank shield onto the ground is especially important I think as thats a very visibly different pose. 

And there they are, ready never to be called upon to fight if things go right with the rest of the Legions !