Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Legions of the Planned...

Last year I settled on a structure of 24 minis to the Cohort (1:20 representational scale). However, it has been becoming clear to me that I also want a structure that will enable me to field battles with up to ten Legions to a side. With ten Cohorts, and 240 minis to each Legion, I’m clearly never going to have ten of them!

So I’ve decided to create a parallel structure, with smaller Legions of 51 minis; a 3 mini command stand and 2 x 24s.

This should be fairly straightforward to do. The main implication is that I’ll need to paint 3 extra Cohorts to match “odd” cohorts, like the blue Caesarians I posted recently. I'll also need an additional half a dozen command stands, with shield designs matching the legions. Then I should be able to field 10 of the smaller "legions"... which would mean that I could field the OOB for Caesar's larger Gallic War battles (or one side of a big Civil War battles). I think it’s do-able…

Monday, 4 May 2009

Coh. II Gallorum Eq.

Hi, this is the latest unit to join my legions; the 2nd Cohort of Gallic auxiliary infantry, originally raised in Lugdunum (Lyon) during the reign of Augustus. The unit served for part of its life in the Roman army in lower Germania, fought in the 69AD civil war, and later ended up in Britannia. The unit still lacks its mounted component (6 cavalrymen), which I'll have to sort out later.

I bought these minis, painted, on eBay, and then substantially repainted and rebased them. They are all Black Tree figures; I think that the BTD Auxilia are really nicely sculpted. If you like these, you might like to see my other (Foundry) Auxiliary Cohort:- http://bigredbat.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-01-22T07%3A57%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7

Friday, 1 May 2009

First Cohort

This is the first installment of the first cohort of my EIR legion; eventually it will have 10 stands (each stand represents a century). The figures are from BTD (although the command are from Foundry and Crusader)- not the world's greatest sculpts, but they made a pleasing change to paint from the scores of Saleh EIRs I've painted previously. I replaced the BTD shields with Foundrys, because these are a better shape IMHO. The BTDs are a mm or two taller, which seems appropriate for the first cohort!

Here's a comparison shot of the BTDs next to some Saleh Foundrys. I have 6 cohorts of the latter completed, which puts me slightly over 2/3 of the way towards completing the legion (42 out of 64 legionary stands).

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Battle of Asculum AAR

Tonight, a nearly full muster of the Muswell Militia, refought the second day of Asculum 279BC, using the C&C Ancients rules and Ian's (Donnington Roman and Xyston Macedonian) 15mm figures.

Below is the deployment. The Romans on the left were led by Ian and George, and the Italian Greeks and Macedonians by myself as Phyrrhus, with Chris and Dr Simon on the wings.


We Macedonians launched two stonking attacks, which should have worked.... honestly. Our first was a rush forwards by the pike phalanx in the left centre, which recoiled under a hail of pila, after failing to make any impact on the Roman line (presumably the Tarentines had failed to take to the pike). The second was a "mounted charge" on both wings with elephants and cavalry (below), which were both smashed by lucky counter attacks by the Roman cavalry.


The final shot, below, shows the situation late in the game. The Romans remorselessly ground us down to a 12:10 "Phyrric defeat".


A simple but thoroughly enjoyable game; I hope we'll play it again, sometime.

Thursday, 23 April 2009

17th Caesarian Cohort


This is my 17th Caesarian Cohort. I bought 20 of the figures on Ebay from "Pool of Paint" who also kindly supplied the transfers I needed to finish the unit, and painted 7 more myself, to match. I'm really pleased with the overall effect; these are my first Caesarians to have shield transfers.

Because they have unfeasibly expensive imported blue paint on their shields, I shall consider them to be one of the Praetorian Cohorts that served in the Civil War that occured after the death of Caesar.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Spot the difference!

The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that in a week's painting, I have managed to half paint a mere 7 miniatures (the ones at the front). I suppose I did also manage to do base the trees below, but it doesn't seem like a lot of progress. :-(

26 palm trees, courtesy of ebay. These are nifty products that cost £1.20 each including postage, but need basing. They stand up to 20cm high. I like the trunks and the fact they are fairly rugged; I need to buy some silfror tufts for the bases.

It has occurred to me that I now have a more than adequate selection of desert terrain, and no desert themed armies. I have started to think of ways around this...

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Watching Paint Dry...


I'm progressing all-too-slowly with the blue-shielded cohort- it now includes 19 of the 20 minis I bought on eBay, and 5 more I have just painted to match. It'll have an aquila command stand by the time I finish. For all their dubious authenticity, the blue shields do look nice...

The veterans cohort lurks half-painted to the rear, awaiting their command minis, which I hope to start painting tomorrow.