David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Friday 5 June 2020

Consolidation of my Republican Romans

Now that I've painted up a goodly quantity of my Aventine Miniatures Republican Romans I've had a chance to take stock of how I want them to look on the tabletop. Leaving aside the issue of their cavalry elements for the moment, I've settled on 28 Principes, 28 Hastati, 20 Triari and 4 Legio Command figures.
Basing them up is a matter of personal choice, as I'll do both sides and we use an expanded version of Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval rules here in GHQ for our games, so I've no need to worry about rule conventions at all. The command elements of each of the three component parts of the legion will be on 50x50mm bases, while the Legion command will be on a 50mm round base.
The Triari will be on two 80x50mm bases, each of 8 figures. The Principes and Hastati will have two eight figure bases of 80x50mm and two four figure bases of 40x50mm each. This should mean that I can represent the two century depth of each of those components with an 160mm frontage, expanding to 320mm on contact with an enemy. Having arrived at that decision I needed to order up 12 more figures for the Principes and Hastati to add to the 4 already in place to make up the two 40x50mm four figure bases for each of them.
In addition to the three components of the Legion I've two 80x50mm bases of Velites to provide the skirmishing element of the organisation. This gives me a total of 90 figures to represent Legio VI, the Wolf’s Cubs, the core of my Republican Roman army. With an eye to later expansion I ordered up a unit of Mercenary cavalry and another of archers. Together with the unit of levy skirmishers I've already painted and the unit of Balearic slingers from my second order they will be able to be fielded both by the Romans and by the Carthaginians, making early games more flexible I hope in the Autumn.
With that in mind I've also placed a small order with A&A for some Numidian Light Cavalry, equally useful again for both armies. I also added in their Hanibal and generals pack to give a distinctive look to my Carthaginian army Command base. My next order to Aventine Miniatures later in June should be for the core elements of my Carthaginian army, though I'm still mulling over exactly what I'll get to begin with. I would hope to have completed the core of both armies by early Autumn and then look to expand both over the winter using figures from both Aventine Miniatures and A&A, though I expect that other ranges will also make an appearance in the respective forces knowing what I've seen out there!

14 comments:

  1. Good stuff sometimes good to start with a plan although it wont survive the first contact. Part of the reason i like ancient periods is that flexibility of units being able to fight for many different sides.

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    1. The plan is holding up well for now at least. The Carthaginians should benefit from the variety factor I hope!

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  2. A flying start and a cunning plan there Mr. B all looking rather tasty and something to look forward to after all this craziness is hopefully over.

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    1. Thanks Phil! How's the decorating doing?

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  3. A big step forward to conclude on basing and rules. Very much looking forward to following this from idea through to battle.

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    1. Battles are a way off yet Norm, so I hope you have the sticking power you'll need!

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    1. Many thanks George, much appreciated.

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    1. Thanks Robbie! Always good to be encouraged.

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  6. This is all coming along nicely David...
    A Plan?
    What on earth is that?

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly, going well on the whole...so far!

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