Romans on the Rhine

Having put together a force of Germanic tribes to use with the Infamy, Infamy rules, I felt an irresistible urge to then create an opposing force of Romans. Hole... Rabbit....you know the story.

The initial motivation for putting together that force of Germans was to trial the Infamy rules. At the time, Dave my regular opponent, had a good selection of figures in his collection for the period, but Infamy, Infamy is all about the Roman conflicts with the tribal kingdoms on the frontiers of the empire. Dave's collection includes several of Rome's enemies, but none of them are barbarians. My mission was to provide a suitable hostile force. Rather conveniently, it coincided with a sale by Victrix and that was all the extra incentive I needed. They produce a lovely set of figures for the Germans and I really enjoyed the project (more about it in this post).

As it turned out, we found Infamy, Infamy a particularly engaging rule set. It does a splendid job of recreating the asymmetrical warfare on the edges of the Roman world and I wanted to make the most of the figures I'd painted. The best way to ensure that was going to happen, was to create my own collection of Romans. 

Well, that was my rationale (or flimsy excuse, depending on your perspective). My starting point was the list in the rule book that's suggested for a force from an Imperial Legion. It's made up of three groups of eight legionaries; one group of eight auxiliary foot and one group of eight auxiliary archers. I'm really pleased with the way the figures have come out. The painting was very straightforward and the shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios set them off perfectly.

I gave a fair bit of thought to how I should base the figures. The Infamy rules use figure removal to mark casualties and my initial thought was to make use of my existing sabot bases. They would allow for figure removal and give me the regimented look suited to the Roman style of warfare.

However, I had second thoughts. The sabot bases are 60mmx60mm, with each figure on a 25mm round base. With hindsight I can see that both make for too big a footprint. Then there's the aesthetic issue of how to deal with sabot slots once a casualty is removed. I've never been prepared to have empty slots and so made up bases to fill them. These might hold a mini dice frame to mark shock, or feature a casualty figure, or in some cases simply left blank with matching terrain. 

The Germanic tribes were a different case altogether. I used a different convention, with either one, two or three figures to a base. It worked very well for my Mahdist Ansars and creates the less regimented look I want for tribal groups and irregular troops. It allows for individual figure removal while retaining some of the convenience of moving multi-based figures. 

However, the Romans more disciplined formations called for a more formal basing style. Instead of sabots, I decided I would go with multi-basing, putting four figures on a 50mmx50mm base. 

I did consider trying to squeeze this down to 40x40mm, but it seemed too crowded, especially for the second rank figures, most of whom are throwing pila. Although, to be honest, now that I've completed them, I do wonder if I should have gone for the smaller base and a more compact looking unit?

Having said that, the Germanic tribes are based in such a way that one of their groups of ten figures occupies a frontage of approximately 100mm, so the two 50mm bases for the Romans works well from a game perspective. 

I opted to use the Victrix set of legionaries in fighting poses, rather than those that are advancing. Given the game is very much about close combat, it seemed only fitting the Romans should match the dynamism of the German poses.

When paired off like this the two sets work well together. Ideally this is how they will be spending much of their time during a game and in terms of photographs for the blog it makes for a more compelling image.

The Auxiliary foot from Victrix come in only one set of poses and so I couldn't create the same dynamism for these groups. As the set includes enough figures for twenty foot soldiers and four command figures I have more than I need for this initial force, but, as it happens, not enough for two of the other suggested forces which are principally composed of auxiliaries. Back to Victrix then....add to cart. Sometimes this hobby is so predictable.

These are based exactly the same as the legionaries.

Last, but not least, we have the auxiliary archers. Once again, these are figures from Victrix.

Unlike the archers from the Germanic tribes these are more formally arraigned, whereas the German archers are in smaller groups and individually based.

Overall, I'm very happy. If I have one gripe, it's that the pila and spears are quite flimsy. During the process of basing I snapped a couple and had to replace the missing sections with wire. I suspect that won't be the last repairs I will need to make. That aside, the Victrix figures are lovely sculpts and, as you might expect, match up perfectly with the Germanic tribes.