Random Legionaries

No-one is quite sure how their bits box becomes a home for so many random figures, almost none of which you can ever remember buying - and mine is no exception. 

But every now and then my efforts to try out new styles of painting, and new paints collides with the contents of the bits box and I have a got at cobbling together a little unit of vaguely similar figures to see if I can make the old lead into something worthwhile. 

This time it's a very eclectic set of Imperial Roman figures that I noticed had somehow managed to get up close to double figures, allowing me to make up a full base of ADLG Legionaries.

  

My "EIR" Legions are all Old Glory figures, with LBMS transfers so these are very much a quick and dirty extra unit who look rather unlike the rest of them - maybe Praetorians, or maybe Penal Legion, take your pick!

The "test" aspects of them are that the lorica segmentata is done in Enchanted Steel from ArmyPainter onto a white base coat. 

I have no idea where the guy standing at the back is from - he was the shonky-est casting of the lot, so I sort of hid him at the back.

All of the leather is ArmyPainter Speedpaint Hardened Leather

The figures throwing pilums are I believe Donnington EIR legionaries, with one Auxilia in the middle so you can't really see his oval scutum shield.

I suspect the chap standing up holding his shield in the front row may be a Corvus Belli figure - how I came to own him I don't know as I don't have any more like him at all.

The standard bearer may well be a Chariot Miniatures figures, as he looks a bit skinny - but he is nicely detailed.

All the red is Armypainted Blood Red Speedpaint, and the super-simple shield design is kinda rubbish this close up, but from tabletop distances looks acceptable enough. 

When or if they will ever make it on table is anyone's guess - but at least the bits box is a little lighter now!  

 

Artillery!

After having a challenging experience at the Dorset Dodderers against an army with a Heavy Artillery unit in it, I decided to bite the bullet (or "large stone" I guess?) and pick up a proper Roman/Greek stone thrower unit to add to my collection.

This also meant having an opportunity to use some more of Donnington's excellent Roman artillery crew - great little characterful figures that I have already utillized for the "artillery on carts" (which appear in the  ADLG rulebook on page 137) - but the question then became where to source the engine itself?

In the end, after some debate with the CLWC massif I plumped for Xyston's Heavy Stone Thrower - which comes with some Greek-looking crew, giving me the dilemma of potentially wasting some figures (Yoiks!!!).

The solution to this issue was...magnets, or more specifically, some very thin magnets I'd had kicking around for ages, most probably bought to hold the turrets on resin-cast tanks (before hard plastic kits totally replaced them in the wargamers pantheon.. before being replaced by 3D prints in turn..). 

This allowed me to base up two sets of crew, and repurpose the artillery piece itself to be used by either.

 Add in a small ballista that I found kicking around in the bits box (in 15mm scale - not the full size one I saw at Vindolana) and suddenly I have two sets of interchangeable Heavy and Light artillery. 

Here's the rather over-crewed Light Ballista version of the Roman artillery base.

And the same tiny engine with Xyston Greek crew. The chap holding up a stone missile must be rather dissappointed...

Here you can see the magnets embedded in the two bases, and the corresponding magnet glued to the bottom of the large engine.

This Xyston piece is incredibly crisply cast. 

The Greek crew are simply painted with my current go-to "white" technique of Army Painter "speedpaint" Holy White with a top layer of Army Painter Matt White semi-drybrushed on top, leaving the shading that the Holy White generates visible in places.

The metal elements are Enchanted Steel, again from Army Painter, and the engine itself is ArmyPainter Hardened Leather speedpaint on a white undercoat.

Same engine, different crew from Donnington. 

Ready to ping !

It's a Ballista!

 At Warfare last year I lent my now-venerable 28mm Patrician Roman army to someone to use in the ADLG competition. 

The paint job is a little darker than I'd probably do today (aka its slathered in ArmyPainter Soft Tone to within an inch of it's life, and so looks like it's been on campaign in Germania without a Legionary Laundry Cart in sight for a whole winter season) however seeing it on table again made me somewhat nostalgic for the days when it was pretty much my only 28mm army - so I've decided to give it a bit of love and attention.

That currently means a slow stepwise addition of some fairly generic "Gothic/Frankish" infantry from the super-cheap Wargames Atlantic "Generic Hairy Blokes" set (some of whom have already appeared here), and also this rather spiffy "EIR" era bolt shooter from Warlord Games.

I'm aware that some of the Warlord Imperial Romans can look a little on the small side compared to the more recent Victrix sets, and even the GB Late Romans who make up much of my army's legionaries - but this bolt shooter will, if it ever gets used, stand on it's own so the size comparison won't matter at all.

I am also aware that the lorica segmenta armour is wildly anachronistic for a "Patrician" era Very Late Roman army, but again, this looks so cool that I can live with that any day of the week! 

The whole set is hard plastic, with just the two crewmen.

 

For a piece that will rarely be used I decided to do a simple Contrasts paint job, with the ArmyPainter Leather being used on the wooden parts of the bolt shooter itself as well as the belts and petruges of the legionaries. 

The armour and steel arms of the bolt shooter are done in my new go-to of Enchanted Steel, again an ArmyPainter paint (thanks Will Morriss for suggesting it to me!).

The chap with the bandaged head is especially cool - the "dried bloodstain" on the front of his head bandage is down to accidental drift of the Dark Oath Flesh GW paint I used as a base layer on all of the flesh on the figures - it came out better than I could have done deliberately, so I'll happily take that and run with it too! 

The artillery are now ready and waiting to ping some barbarian leaders at unfeasible distances! 

 

Rear Supporting Romans

Even though I've been playing ADLG for ages now, I still have, well, "legions" of figures based up for earlier rulesets that are probably never going to see light of day under the ADLG army lists.

Some of my favourite "Roman" figures are the Late/Early Imperial Roman Archers from Donnington's originals ranges - their Imperial Roman archers paint up really nicely, and were much more prevalent in both DBM and FoG armies where units of 8-12 figures flitted across the tabletop, or indeed individual "psiloi" bases acted as rear support in integrated units with legionaries or auxilia. 

In ADLG the numbers of Roman skirmishers is much smaller (ish..) in that you get 0-4 units in most Imperial Roman armies, each of which is a single "psiloi" base of two figures... and so there ends up being are a lot of  'spare' ex-FoG and DBM light infantry archers kicking around the streets of Rome looking for gainful employment .. which brings us to Rear Support.

In ADLG the concept of Rear Support also exists, but is generally represented either by having different units of infantry with archers in their second rank (ie having a duplicate legion, some with integral archers on each base, some without... and I may be mad, but I'm not that mad..), or more often than not, by having some marker-bases to show which units have "Rear support" in any given list. 

So, after far too long I've finally bitten the bullet and rebased some of these archers to become Rear Support markers. 

They are based in pairs on 20x20 to give a decent enough sized marker to e noticable, but to also obviously not be a "base" of Light Infantry.

Some of them are also new figures that I bought recently - yes, despite having planty of spares I decided that I simply had to have some more of the "eastern" ones, seen here at the front. 

That's partly as they look really cool, and partly so they can be rear support for my Byzantines as well. 

And here they are in action, supporting some Donnington Auxilia and some Old Glory Legionaries 

You can find the archers in Donningtons catalogue here.

Trajan's Column

On a recent trip to Rome I kinda stumbled across Trajan’s Column - rather hard to do I know given it's sort of a big stone column in the middle of Rome, but there is a lot of construction work around there at the moment due to the new Metro line, and to be honest I'd rather forgotten it was there as there is just so much other stuff to see in Rome! 

Anyways, I took the opportunity to take some photos and videos of it to share, as for wargamers and modelers, Trajan’s Column is an near-legendary goldmine of first-hand information. 

The carvings provide rare, direct insight into Roman legionary gear—such as segmentata armor, scutum shields, pila, and helmets with varying crest styles. 

They also depict auxiliary troops in distinct dress and cavalry in motion, giving hints to tactical formations and battlefield logistics. 

Importantly, the Dacians themselves are richly portrayed, often wielding the distinctive falx—a curved, two-handed weapon—and wearing flowing garments and Phrygian-style caps, setting them apart visually and culturally from their Roman foes.

Erected in 113 AD in Rome, the Column is a monumental celebration of Emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. 

The 30-meter-high stone column has over 150 scenes depicting Roman legions in action: constructing camps, crossing rivers, engaging in battle, and interacting with both allies and enemies. These finely detailed reliefs offer one of the most comprehensive, near-contemporary depictions of the Roman military in the early 2nd century AD.

While some artistic license may be present, especially in the repetition of certain motifs, the overall fidelity and variety of military details make the column an essential reference for reconstructing units and skirmishes on the tabletop. 

Whether you're painting an army or designing scenarios based on the Dacian campaigns, a closer look at Trajan’s Column may well be useful - so hopefully these pictures (which you can click on the blog to see full size) and videos will be of interest and use.

I could have taken more, but at some point I had to get back to my actual holiday... so enjoy! 

Drive to the Rhine - An ADLG Beer n'Castles German mini break

With ADLG taking vigorous root in Germany's Ancients competition scene, Two Daves and a Madaxeman took a road (and rail) trip across France, Belgium and Germany and on the way ended up in a variety of castles, museums, cathedrals and of course schitzel-serving bierkellers - all of which you can now share in too! 

Sandwiched inbetween two epic travelogues are 5 Madaxeman Match reports as the Palmyran army of the ever-feisty Zenobia takes on Arabs, Byzantines (twice), the Might of Imperial China, and the Xia Xia Nomad Empire in a series of battles

The reports also feature a band new educational component, in the shape of a suite of painstakingly accurate and fully researched German exclamations and a number of entirely plausible German compound words as well. 

To top it all off there is also an accompanying podcast to listen to as well. 

Click through and enjoy the road trip !

Donnington Clubmen

 One of the cool new units in v4 of ADLG are the Palestinian Clubmen who appear in a number of the later Roman armies.

With o-one really making figures for them, I had proxied a few Legio Heroica arabs to act as medium Clubmen, to which I have now added some close formation Heavy Infantry using Donnington's Arab MUF10 Sudanese lutatman from their New Era Crusades range

Here are the jolly fellows, together with some more Old School Donnington Auxilia.