4th Century BC Republican Romans - Antepilani (Proto-Hastati)

 The first of my 4th Century BC Republican Romans (Latin, Etruscan, Gallic and Samnite wars in Italy). Victrix plastics. These will be used for a home-written Dux Britanniarum variant and for the upcoming Midgard rules. 

Still alive... And new painting!!

Hi everyone. I don't even know if any of you are still here, it's been that long since I posted anything.
Am having some serious real life issues at the moment that are taking up colossal amounts of emotional space and physical time, all of which has left me little left for the hobby. However, I had a week on my own at the beginning of the month and decided to get to grips with something I've wanted to do for a while, but hadn't had the wherewithal to do: Something with Republican Romans. I've never found a rule set I like for Republican Rome. WAB 1.5 looks good but complicated and needs massive armies (3000pts really) to do it justice and I haven't the energy for that. So I'm looking at adapting Dragon/Lion Rampant for some Samnite Wars (and possibly Punic Wars) action.

More detail on this idea later, but here is the beginning of the project: 2 Hastati units base coated, dipped and Dullcoted with Leves/Rorarii on the way. Victrix do such superb plastics! And they aren't too tricky to paint.

Anyway, it's not much, but it's a start... I hope to have 2 Leves/Rorarii units and a Principes unit to the same standard by next weekend, all being well, ready for a massed highlighting spree. That'll be half the Roman army (probably - more on this next time I get to you.)

WAB Day 2014 - IMPERATOR!!!

Last Sunday, the club held its annual WAB event. This year it was a step away from our usual Dark Ages games and into the earlier Roman era, with an approximate timeframe of 70BC to 70AD. We had two factions, nominally Eastern and Western, although it didn't work quite as geographically as we'd have liked and armies ranging from Late Republican Roman, EIR, Dacian, Armenian, Ptolemaic, Parthian, etc.

Overall, it was a great day, with the Western faction coming out overall winners despite a late surge by the Easteners in game 3.

I had probably my best ever WAB event, with two victories and one massacre of a defeat.

Interestingly, this event will probably be the last I'll play of WAB until the same time next year, as I am abandoning the rules for War and Conquest. This is for two reasons:

1. I am helping to write army lists for WaC, so need lots of play test time.
2. I've not really enjoyed playing it much lately, especially when out of the supplements and into Armies of Antiquity - those lists are just too 'tournament' for me  and, while most armies I fought last weekend were not 'gamey', I'm afraid that I have just lost interest in it. Using AoA has certainly taught me a thing or two about the WaC lists that I am writing and the need to steer players towards an historical list, rather than a 'game winning' one.

Anyway, here's some pics from last weekend.... First, some shots of my Late Republican Roman army...

Legionaries...

Elite Legionaries with General and ASB

Legionaries and skirmishers

Gallic Cavalry - very old Foundry Gauls plus some more recent Foundry Germans. The Gauls were painted when WAB very first came out several years ago...

More legionaries. These had 12 hours work on them the day before to finish them in time. They had been painted using the 'dip and highlight' method although I applied 2 highlights to match them closer with the remainder of the army.

More legionaries

Various minis masquerading as armoured allied Greek Thureophoroi (peltasts)

Here's a few shots from the games, some that I was involved in, others I was not...

Firstly, the two faction leaders...yes...that'd be me in one of the silly hats...sigh...

Carlius Fisherum, leader of the East

Andrucius Hawesum, leader of the Western faction

Doubles games to start the day...

...And singles games later on...

All in all, a splendid day of gaming! Many thanks to all my allies and opponents throughout the day for varied and entertaining games.

A First Game of War & Conquest!!

Last Monday, Grahame and I finally got ourselves a game of Rob Broom's Ancient rules, war & Conquest.

I have had a copy of these rules since their publication in the dark days of WAB's demise, as author (and ex-warhammer Historical head honcho) Rob had taken temporary possession of most of my Arthurian and El Cid models to take loads of photos for the book. Thus, I received a free copy as a 'thank you'.

Now, at that time, I was still a dyed-in-the-wool WAB-ite and, although those rules were clearly on their way out, I had no interest in playing either of the two 'sons of WAB' (as they were coined at the time) which were War & Conquest and Clash of Empires. To be fair, this rash decision was based on my read-through of Clash of Empires, which I thought was just 'WAB with the bits the author grumbled about altered'. I feared the same of War & Conquest, and, as my club was (and still is) playing WAB regularly, I left it at that. My mistake!!!!!!!

What changed my mind? Well, playing other stuff, actually. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do still enjoy WAB, especially Age of Arthur and El Cid games, but in recent months my enthusiasm for it was waned a little and I really just wanted to try something different. A fair few folks in inter-web land have been playing War & Conquest (hitherto referred to as WaC)  and the overall enthusiasm of some (notably Matt from the Wargames Table blog) finally convinced me to give it a try, along with the fact that a few folk at the club had been mentioning it as a 'might give it a bash one night' kinda thing.

So, Grahame and I set to with a Roman civil war game. I brought 2000pts of Marian (1st Century BC - Caesarian) Romans and Grahame 2000pts of EIR. This was because we were originally going to use Arthurian/Late Roman lists but didn't like the look of them - more on that later!

The lists we arrived at were pretty similar to what you'd have got with 2000pts of Romans under WAB 1.5, which was handy as that's familiar territory for both of us.

So, we decided to go with the 'Autumn' deployment (see pic below) and got on with it.

The first thing about these rules that I must stress is that, yes, there are similarities to WAB. Many of the dice rolls needed to hit things, kill things and take armour saves are exactly the same - lots of 'I need 4+' etc... Also, there are similarities in unit size, composition, etc, but this game is SOOOOO much more than just a re-write of WAB.

Firstly, the IGOUGO mechanism is different, as you roll a D6 at the start of each turn to determine who has 'strategic advantage' and who can therefore go first or second. This means that you can get two turns in a row on occasion - very useful! Although you can influence these rolls by a cunning device called Strategy Intervention Points (SIP). Basically, characters (called 'personalities' in WaC) have access to one or two (or more on occasion) of these and they allow you to roll extra D6 when rolling for strategic advantage or for morale checks. When rolling the latter, if you succeed, you even get your SIP returned to you, which is cool!

Combat and shooting are similar but subtly different. In W&C, combat is simultaneous - chargers get a +1 to their combat bonus in resolution. In WAB, you roll to hit, roll to wound, then take armour saves. In WaC, you roll to hit, then the opponent takes his armour saves. any unsaved dice are then used for the 'kill rolls'. Weapons tend to affect kill rolls, e.g. throwing spears allow you to re-roll the kill rolls in the first round of combat - all of them, not just the misses - handy if you roll dismal 'kill dice! Also, the longer the combat lasts, the more models fight, so my Romans go in with the front rank in round 1 of a combat, with their plum gaining them +1 armour penetration (-1 off the save throw) and the re-rolled kills. In the second and subsequent round, the second rank join in with the glades. Thrusting spear-armed troops fight with 1 rank if they charge, 2 if charged then 3 in subsequent round. Pikes end up with 4 in subsequent rounds! Neat!!
In combat resolution, victorious troops gain a 'push and shove' bonus. This is like WAB 2.0's 'momentum' but it is cumulative over rounds of combat, so if you keep winning, the push and shove goes up each time...neat!!

Morale is also subtly different... formed units over half-strength roll 3 D6 and pick the 2 lowest (with the basic mechanism of rolling low as per WAB) They revert to 2 D6 if below half strength.

There are other neat differences too around the use of 'disorder' (prevents rank bonuses, etc). The use of 'command tests' to allow you to do certain things (e.g. march - sorry...'double pace' even if close to the enemy, etc). Also, personalities add D6 to combat, rather than being all-powerful death machines in their own right! This means that if you add your general to a unit of peasant infantry, he fights like they do. I like this, as it means that you tend to put your general where he should be  - with some kick-ass elites.

Anyway, a bit of a summary there of the key aspects of the rules. In terms of our game, as with every first try at a set of rules, we made loads of mistakes. However, the game still flowed well. Grahame gained a victory, albeit not a slaughter. During the pre-battle phase in a typical 'pitched battle', you randomly select and hide from your opponent what your battle objectives are. Grahame and I both achieved ours in this game, but he had killed more stuff than me, hence the victory. Once again, this was partly achieved by more masterly use of skirmishers and by me rolling some dreadful armour save dice on my legionaries when they were being shot at.

I started taking pictures, but the rules reading took over and so I only took a few, below...

'Autumn' Deployment

Grahame's sneaky skirmishers see off my Cretans

Grahame's 'kill' dice in a crucial combat...

My 'kill' dice in the same combat...sigh...some things don't change...

So, overall, we thoroughly enjoyed it! I can see myself playing this very regularly if I can find opponents!!

The only drawback to it as I see it is that some of the army lists are not very well-formed yet. This is inevitable as it's a one-man operation running the whole thing, and Rob can't be an exp[ert on everything, or have time to do it all. So, a number of gamers are helping out and I have offered my services to Rob to help with revising the generic lists from the Late Roman and Arthurian era. Wargames Table Matt has already started some Arthurian lists which I have been busy tinkering with. This is making me a nice little project - I have always wanted to become involved with army list creation and this seems like a great opportunity so I am very grateful to Rob for allowing me to have a bash.

Watch this space for more developments...

Dipped Republican Romans

Hi Everyone.

Here are the first shots of my work in progress 28mm Republican Roman army for WAB and Crusader rules. These pics are the first 10 painted figures in the army and are part of a 16-strong unit of Principes from one of the 2 allied Italian legions.

Basically, this army is being built to represent the army that served in the wars against Antiochus (battle of Magnesia, etc) but will also be fine for the 2nd Punic War and any of the 2nd Century Macedonian wars. The army is not points limited, but is using units that feel about righta nd will work with both WAB and Crusader. The army will be a typical 2-legion Consular army, so it will have 2 Roman legions, 2 Italian legions and assorted cavalry. It will also eventually have Pergameme and Tarentine cavalry, thureophoroi and peltats, plus a small unit of Cretan archers and an elephant!

The models used wil be Aventine miniatures for all the Velites, cavalry and Roman legions and about half the allied Italian legions. The rest of the Italian legions will be A&A Samnites, Crusader Republican Romans plus a handful of Foundry Caesarian Romans that I have converted. I'd have liked all the legions to be Aventine, but can't justify not using the suitable models I already have!! The Pergamemes will be Polemarch, as they have on pre-order a bunch of specific models in their Successor range!

The painting method is as follows:

All models wearing lots of armour (mail, full greaves, or composite Italian armour and full greaves) are spray undercoated black, with all tunics, flesh and boots re-undercoated white. All lightly armoured/unarmoured troops (hastati, pectroale-armoured Principes, bronze-armoured Triarii, Velites, etc) are spray-undercoated white with all weapons and bronze armour re-undercoated black.

Basecoats are then applied. On these pics: Flesh: Foundry Flesh mid tone. Tunics: Foundry Brick red shade or mid tone, Foundry Night Sky light, Foundry Ochre shade, Foundry phlegm green light. White tunics are left with the undercoat. Mail is drybrushed over the black with GW Chainmail. Bronze armour is all GW burnished gold. Pilum wood is Foundry Spearshaft shade. Pilum shanks are GW Chainmail. Sword blades are GW Mithril siver. Boots and belts are Foundry Bay Brown light. Armour trim (leather) is Foundry tan light.

Once these are completed, the models are washed in Army Painter Strong tone applied by brush. Once 100% dry, the tunics, flesh and bronze are given a single highlight using their original basecoat colour. Bases are painted in GW Graveyard earth. Fine sand is PVA'd on and, oncer dry, is washed with a VERY thin mix of the basecoat and water. Finally it is highlighted with GW bleached bone. The model is then given a light coat of varnish to seal in the highlights before being given a good blast Testor's Dullcote.

Shield designs are LBM. The backs of shields are Foundry Bay Brown Light. The back of the shield is washed in dip as well. The metal on the front of each shield is GW Chainmail, washed in dip. The spine of each shield has a light wash of dip. The transfer is given a brush-on coat of GW 'Aardcoat before being matted down with Dullcote.

I'm very pleased with the results. The Aventine minis look especially good using this technique, which takes about 30% of the time it takes me to do the full-on layered approach I've used on my Dark Age models. With an army the size this one will be, that's very important!!

Unit sizes will be 16 figs per heavy infantry unit and each legion wil have 1 unit of velites (12 strong), 1 unit of hastati, 1 Prinipes and 0.5 unit of triarii (the army will have 2 triarii units, each oone composed of half Roman and half Italian allied models). Cavalry will be in units of 10 or 12. Pergameme troops, not sure yet. Possibly 24 Thureophoropi and 12 Cretan archers, probably 10 each of Companion and Tarentine cavalry...

I hope to complete this unit over the next week and a half, then tackle the same legion's hastati. Each legion will have its own shield design so it's clear on the table which legion is which...

Keep checking back for updates to this and my ongoing Colonial project... I have comparatively little time to paint these days - probably about 3 hours a week if I'm lucky...

Cheers

Andy