Showing posts with label Caesarian Romans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caesarian Romans. Show all posts

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Even more Caesarians

I'm just finishing off the command figures Nick painted for me (foreground), and working through a group of unarmoured legionaries that will add variety to the legion.  I'm also painting my first Warlords- some casualties- nice minis!


The red on the shields and on the unarmoured figures is mostly Halfords red primer, with washes of ink applied over it; I think they will look good, when completed (they are just blocked in, so far).  I'm going to use the Army Painter inks to add depth.


Sunday, 16 June 2013

Caesarian


I had a productive day yesterday, and the 90-odd legionaries above are now inked, varnished and highlighted.  The tarted-up eBay cohorts at the back now match Nick's at the front, much better.  Below, left, are Nick's command stands, and right some mere primed legionaries that I'm going to mix in, to add a little variety.  Red seems like a promising base colour...  I'm still mulling over what to do with the horses at the back.


I've decided I'm going to base four cohorts in the first instance, and, after an interval, paint the extra figures for another two.

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Caesarian Legion mustering


A quick WIP shot of the new legion that I'm mustering.  I've been doing my best to bring the standard  of the eBay milites (left) up to those of Nick's (right).  At least the shields match, now!

Friday, 7 June 2013

New Projects

I've laid aside pikemen (for the time being), to get back to some projects that have been on hold for 6 months.  First I have half a legion-worth of Caesarian Romans.  The minis in the front were beautifully painted by Nick, last year, and the ones at the rear (needing some TLC) are from eBay.  Plan is to bring the eBay ones up to Nick's standard, or as close as I can get them...


Below are a unit of Gothic skirmishers, that I finished this week and am basing up.  Beyond them are a load of Riders of Rohan horses that I've prepped for yet another project.  They are very nice steeds, and were cheap as chips.




Friday, 12 April 2013

Thapsus, part the first

As I mentioned yesterday, Dug, mates and I re-fought the Roman Civil War battle of Thapsus 46BC, on Wednesday, using my draft ancients rules.  I won't dwell too long on the background to the battle, as I'll be writing it up as a magazine article, but here are Dug and my photos; all pics are clickable!


Above is a shot along the table (8' wide by 6' deep), with Caesar's Populares on the left, and the Pompeian Optimates, with their Numidian allies, on the right.  North is towards the bottom of the picture.  On on the near flank the table is bordered by the sea, and on the far flank a salt lagoon (neither shown).


The Optimates (above) looked a bit scruffy, especially the natives; the Caesarians (below, background) look like that scene in Spartacus...



Above, Caesar's slingers getting the range of the Numidian elephants (below).



The slingers have found the range of the elephants; but the deceased pachyderms provide a useful vantage-point for Titus Labienus, on the Pompeian left.


Above, the Caesarian centre rushes forward, as in the historical battle.


...and finally, for today, the surviving elephants plough into a cohort of V Alaudae, supported by a mass of Numidian city militia.

Tomorrow I'll be at the SOA Battle Day in Bletchley, and hope to see you there!  So Thapsus part II will likely hit this blog, on Sunday.

Thursday, 11 April 2013

Road trip!

Yesterday I spent a very jolly day in a shed in Cambridge, with Dug Page-Croft (below, with wife Jen) and his mates. 


Dug very kindly hosted a re-fight of the battle of Thapsus, using my draft set of ancient wargaming rules, and my Caesarian Roman and Numidian armies, on the Zama boards.  


It all seemed to go very well, and the sun even came out!  I'll do a proper write-up tomorrow, when I have a bit more time, but here's a couple of (clickable) photos to be going with...


Wednesday, 27 February 2013

After the battle


We played another game between Caesarians and Pompeians, tonight, using the rules I'm developing (with lots of help from friends).  These shots are of the devastated battlefield at the end of what turned out to be a particularly bloody battle (especially for the Pompeians!).  The game lasted about two and a half hours, and the mechanics worked very nicely, although the elephants were a little pedestrian and need to be "sexed up", somewhat.  Of particular note is the iPad; this was the first time I've ever run a game from one, and I must say it worked very well, indeed.  Also of note are the two empty wine bottles, which lubricated proceedings.  A jolly session!


Wednesday, 13 February 2013

Somewhere near Utica...

Somewhere near Utica, a Pompeian army under Cato (left), with local Numidian allies under Juba (some shown in foreground), faces a smaller but more confident Caesarian force (right).


Below, elephants trot past the city gates.  It's a short but a glorious life, in the elephant corp!  I got to use all my elephant casualty markers by 9 PM.



Above, the very numerous and colourful Numidian city militia and hordes of light horse, wisely hung back to let the Romans sort it our between themselves.  Below, Cato confers with a subordinate.  The newly-raised Pompeian legions turned out to be surprisingly effective force...



Above a Pompeian cohort of inferior troops, charged by superior Caesarian foes, and having failed to counter charge,  pulls off something of a coup by dint of expert dice rolling!  Several wins by the aggressive (and phenomenally lucky) Cato drove a deep wedge into the Caesarian lines.



Eventually they broke through (above) and subsequently turned, ready to roll up the Caesarian line (below).  Although there were still a lot of Caesarians on the table, we felt that they would now need to retire from the field.


The game, played with a couple of local opponents, Nigel and Jay, proved to be a very enjoyable and relaxed play-test of my rules.  I've taken away a bunch of new ideas and will tweak the rules, for another run through, hopefully next week.


Monday, 5 September 2011

More Spiffing Romans

I swappped some stuff with Einar-Olafson Painting's Andres around the same time as he painted yesterday's Command figures, and the figures he gave me included around 20 Copplestone Caesarians, around half of which were completely finished, and the balance at least 60% there.  He has mentioned that he painted these some years ago, but the standard of painting is excellent (far better than I am capable of), particularly the shields.

I've done my best to finish the unit in a similar style.  I painted a standard bearer, completed the unfinished minis (saving a few of Andres' unarmoured legionaries for a later unit), and based.  Luckily there were just enough hand painted shields for the unit.  Click to see the details.


One small departure on basing; 20mm depth just isn't enough to do justice for these Copplestone  figures, so they are now the only unit in all my armies on 25mm depth bases.  They won't be the last, I'll do this for the whole  of the next legion (my third Caesarian).


I really  like the subtle variations in the shield designs (above).   Most of my Caesarians have plain shields, and I think of the figures with ornate shields, such as these, as being in the Praetorian bodyguards of leaders such as Octavian and Mark Antony.

These are by some measure my best-painted legionaries!

Sunday, 4 September 2011

Spiffing Legion Command Stand

These figures were painted for me by the highly talented Andres of EinarOlafson Painting, and constitute the command stand for my third Caesarian legion.   I based.  I think they are probably the best painted stand in my collection, do have a click...


They represent a Legate, Aquilifer and a couple of Tribunes.  My photo isn't the best... but you can see he did a fantastic job; just look at the faces!


Do drop Andres a line via the above link, if you need something very special painted!

Saturday, 30 April 2011

Tribunes!

These figures were superbly painted for me by Andres of Einar Olafson Painting (the photo is clickable, and well worth it!).


Andres is clearly a fantastic painter!  I'm going to have a very careful look at these, to see if I can inprove my own technique, although I know I can't do detail like he does.  Then I'll base them as an army command stand.

There are some lovely pics in Andres's Gallery, I particularly rate this legionary (why don't I own any Roman mules?  A shocking oversight), and this chap, who reminds me very much of the 1962 film Taras Bulba, that I saw over 40 years ago at my Grandma's flat in Cosham, near Portsmouth.  And which I remember like it was yesterday.

I met Andres briefly at Salute and do hope our paths will cross again...  If you want to commission anything he lives in Wales and can be reached at einarolafson@gmail.com

ps one of Andres other blogs, Softwars, has some astonighing 20mm scale Romans on it.

Sunday, 21 November 2010

Somewhere near Utica...

Yesterday Simon MacDowall very kindly showed my friend Ian and I his Civitates Bellatorum rules. We used them to play a game using most of my Republican Romans and Numidian Allies.



Above is a long shot of the battlefield. We diced for command of the armies, and I got the scruffier but rather more numerous superior Pompeian/Numidian forces, on the left.  The better drilled, armoured and more enthusiastic Caesarian forces are drawn up on the right, with their German cavalry on the wings.


The game started with a bang as (above) I threw my right wing cavalry forward in an attempt to win the battle on the wings before the superior Caesarian legionaries won it in the centre.  Not completely grasping the rules, I went a bit too far forward!


Caesar's well motivated German mercenaries promptly charged, chasing my bridle-less Numidians away, and smashing straight into Juba's Spanish bodyguard, who had become slightly fatigued by their aapid  advance.  They first routed the elite guards, and, to add insult to injury, caught them in the pursuit and annihilated them!  By the end of the first turn most of my right wing cavalry were dead or on the way back to Numidia.


I quickly created a Plan B; win in the centre before I lose on the flanks!  Above, the elephants are cranked into action.


Above, the Germans prepare to rally back as the elephants hit the Caesarian's skirmish screen.  Juba (left foreground) prepares to dash to the relative safety of his surviving infantry.  At this juncture we retired to the "Maid of Muswell" for a stirrup cup!


Upon my return form the "Maid", well fortified, I launched a general attack (with out, however, any great conviction as to it's ultimate success).  On the left, my Numidians rode forward and showered their opponents with javelins.  On the right my surviving elephant broke through the skirmish screen and began a long duel with the left-most of the three Caesarian legions.


Above are shown the centres, just before the moment of impact.  You can see that my legions were drawn up in 3 lines, with the opponents (with as much frontage to cover but fewer troops) are only formed up two deep.


Nellie (above in background) remained locked in combat with the enemy legion for 3 or 4 turns, forcing it to do a line exchange and buying me valuable time by delaying its advance!


 Nellie was posthumously awarded the Dicken medal!


Combat becomes general along the line...  in the foreground a unit of Germans become a Numidian sandwich.


Above, Pompeian reserves press forward into the fray (a lovely photo form Simon MacDowall).   The superior depth of the Pompeian formations largely negated the superior quality and training of the Caesarians.


And finally we ran out of time (above).  All the reserves had been committed, and most of the troops were on the verge of becoming shaken.  The general consensus was the at the Pompeians had the advantage because their surviving cavalry had the advantage on the wings, and because they were about to break the right-hand Caesarian legion, but there really wasn't very much in it.

We all agreed that the rules gave an exciting and realistic-feeling game; I'm definitely up for playing it again!  I definitely recommend trying the rules which are available as a free download from Simon's site.

Friday, 19 November 2010

And now, both together; a 1:1 Quingenary Cohort

Long ago it occurred to me that 2 x 240 man 1:20 "legions", added together, would give me the same number of figures (480) as in a maximum strength quingenary Roman cohort.


I don't think we know, for sure, how many ranks this would have formed up in; presumably 4, 6 or 8.  These are draw up 8 deep.  The photo does give some impression as to how much space a cohort must have taken up on the battlefield, and how imposing it must have looked to a tribesman from the backwoods!

Now if I just had another 4,320 miniatures...  oddly, I could just about fit an entire 1:1 legion on my table, as the legion would be around 4 metres wide (assuming that there were decent intervals between the cohorts).  There's a thought... 

Thursday, 18 November 2010

My other legion is pro-painted

This is my original, First legion. 



Unlike the first legion, I had nothing at all to do with painting these.  It was painted for me by a chap called Phil Hart, and have seen a good deal of action over the past few years! 


On Saturday, I'll be using all my Caesarians, and Nick Speller's too, in a game with Simon MacDowell of Legio fame.  Should be fun...

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

Second Legion Completed!

For some time I've been in the process of raising my Second, or levy legion, and I'm delighted to say that it is finally ready for action!  

My concept is that the legion has been raised in haste during an emergency, and equipped with a mixture of shields and equipment recently drawn from civic armouries.  Around half of the figures are unarmoured.  They are in looser order than my other legion, and I think of them as being less well drilled.  The picture is clickable.


The legion includes 243 figures; mostly Foundry (or Companion) Caesarians with a few nice Aventines and a couple of Crusaders.  The majority of the figures were painted by my friend Nick Speller (thanks Nick!), and the remainder are from various eBay purchases, or painted by me.  I varnished and based everything (and I can tell you that there's a lot of Silfor on those bases!).


Above is the legion from the front.  I went with a mixture of red and off-white colours to bind everything together.  A few of the shields have slogans painted on them; I intend to paint some more on later.


Above is a picture of the First Cohort.  Most of the figures in this unit came from a single eBay purchase, and I decided to retain the pretty shield designs.

I'm really pleased with these, and look forward to gaming with them on Saturday.   I'll have some more interesting posts over the the next few days...