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! 

The Roman Road Heads Down South

2025's PAW competition in deepest Devon (aka The South West's 2nd biggest Festival of ADLG & Pastys) provided me the opportunity to put the recently painted 28mm Triumverate / post Marian Reform Roman army on table in a Roman-themed event. 

This would see as many of the figures I've been painting and trailling on my blog in the past few months being shoehorned into a single army list, with maximum inclusivity trumping potential effectiveness by some margin!

The end result is these four 28mm video battle reports from PAW in Plymouth which you can watch in a YouTube playlist, or embedded on a single page on madaxeman.com.

The embedded video page also has a post-event summary from Nasty Hannibal.

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. 

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 !

28mm Victrix Numidian Infantry

 With a mostly-Foundry Republican/Camillan Roman army at the head of the painting queue right now I've already done the Velites and next up I have made a start on, erm, not the actual "Romans" but instead a small Numidian allied force made up from Victrix figures.   

This is the Allied contingent's Commander on a 40mm round base. I used two of the crew from the Victrix elephant set (more of that later..), drilling and pinning a leg each to the base (as these crew don't have puddle bases) and adding arms from the infantry sprues. 

All of these figures were done with a white undercoat, Warlord Holy White "Contrast" paints on the clothing then layered with actual Vallejo white on top of that.

These are the actual infantrymen - the skin tone is done with a couple of layers of Contrast Darkoath Flesh, with some having an extra layer of ArmyPainter Dark Tone wash on top.  

The round shields all have LBMS transfers of animal skins, whereas the scutum-type shields are hand painted (as you can no doubt see), partly to save money and partly because I felt the LBMS scutum ones were actually a bit too intense in design and colour.

  

One thing to check with the Victrix / LBMS shields and transfers is that the round shields seemingly come in 3 different (OK, slightly different) sizes, and so it probably makes sense to keep the smaller shields for the cavalrymen and any Light Foot javelin skirmishers. 

The three types of round shield are very, very similar in size so if you don't realise they are different sizes it's easy to only discover this when they are glued and basecoat painted ready to take the transfers!

I kept a fairly dull dusty pallete for these, mixing up some tan and beige colour for the shields in particular on my wet pallette and doing blending and shadows on the edges of the shields with a think coat of Contrast  Aggaros Dunes or other brownish colours.

As usual, a bit of drybrushing really picks out the hair 

I did start to wonder if the Holy White "new formula" Speedpaint was still bleeding a little into the white paint I layered on top (as this wasa big issue with the initial batch) but if it is, it's actually just about perfect for creating more subtle layering than a flat grey would have been. 

The aforementioned Light Foot skirmishers, with possibly overly large shields. 

Again using the wet pallette to do some mixing of various browns and tans I think managed to do a fairly credible job of blending in the edges of the LBMS transfers up to to, and in some cases just around the actual edges of the shields.   

This is a bit of a faff, but is really worth the effort IMO as you are paying good money for a great product from LBMS, but if you leave it so you can see the edges of the design and the plastic film on the shield it's sort of all wasted IMO

And, from "ground level", here are the guys ready to hurl javelins or attack with swords! 

More to come soon!