Early Imperial Roman Army

Well, with a minimal fanfare of trumpets, the clatter of pots and pans and the sound of hobnails on cobbles I can finally announce I have completed painting my Early Imperial Roman Army. 

At this point it is worth while doing a little recap of the main elements that make it up:

We have three legions of  legionnaires making up the main force. These legions are made up of six bases apiece but obviously could be configured in to more flexible four base battle groups.

Supporting the legions are two battle groups of Roman Auxiliary who are classified as medium foot. They can fulfil a number of roles in addition to dealing with broken ground but also they can offer rear support.

In addition to the Roman Auxiliary I have included some archers units despite never having used before. Nevertheless, I have given myself  some extra options including using them on high ground or interspersed in a line to fire and withdraw.

Rocking up behind the Auxiliaries are the noble Roman Cavalry  who in my experience die quite easily no doubt due to my own poor handling. However I have promised myself not to squander the lives of the sons of Roman by charging it to all and sundry.

Next up are the light elements which comprise of a load of blokes who throw a load of rocks at the oncoming enemy and then get out of the way just in time for the next battle group of Equites Satgitti to sweep in and unleshing a volley of arrows before charging off on a heroic flanking mission of some description. 

On to the one of my favourite units the Numidian Light Horse who can case no end of mayhem to the enemy ranks by racing up and throwing pointy sticks at them. 

The final battle group is the light bolt shooters who can sit on an hill getting drunk waiting for anyone to stray into their field off fire and then they can unleash a couple of larger pointy sticks at  them before getting back their picnic.

One must not for get the illustrious command stands whose job it is to lead this army around the fields of felt and over the plywood hills to Elysium.

The Last Units

Well it’s been a long time coming but last weekend I finally finished the last two battle groups in my Early Imperial Roman Army. This part of the army is the shoot and scoot elements, with four bases of horse archers to provide a flexible flanking force. These equites sagittari are Donnington figures and look great now they are painted up, although I did have some reservations about the level of detail when I first got them.

In addition to the equites sagittari I completed a battle group of Numibian Light Horse to chase down Light Foot and deal with any nellies which might show up. The Numibian figures are by Corvus Belli. These figures are some of the most beautifully animated in the scale no two are in the same pose, a beautiful representation of irregular troops.

Tonight I want to finish painting the three command stands which will complete the army. So a little less talk and a little more painting is the order of the day me thinks...

When is Enough Enough?*

When it comes to wargaming figures I suspect the answer would be never. One can constantly tinker, expand, redefine an army providing it with flexibility or customisation to deal with a specific scenario, time frame or opponent. This is not even raising the question of the delights offered by other periods, scales or forms of wargaming such naval or air games.

Last week the final part of my Imperial Roman army arrived,  Numidian Light Horse, Balearic Slingers and Cavalry Commanders to complete my Roman Army.

Once this lot is painted I'll have a decent selection of bases to play the early imperial period. Nevertheless I am constantly tempted by further permutations of battle groups to expand the periods to play.  Despite these plans I have made the vow, loosely speaking of course, not to acquire any more lead until the current figures are painted based and ready for action.

*Obviously enough is enough is when one's significant other tells you to stop buying those toy soldiers!

Roma Vincit

Well Monday's game is done and the miracle occurred, I beat Alan’s Early Successor army by 1.8 points. Giving me my first Field of Glory victory 10.9 points to 9.1.

Any post battle analysis has to start by giving credit to Andy the owner of the Mid Republican Roman army I was using, firstly for the army, and secondly for the useful advise he dispensed after our tournament encounter and again directly before the game.

In previous games I managed to get my Roman cavalry killed with alarming regularity. So this time I dispensed with them opting for a battle group of Numidian Light Horse and an extra group of medium foot Italian allies.

The light horse paid dividends due to their manoeuvrability. Despite being placed on the right flank they managed to race across the field in front to the main battle line and intercept a battle group of elephants which were bearing down on the end of the line of legionnaires. This made all the difference to the end result because it occupied the elephants so they thought better of charging the legionnaires.

The deployment at the start of the game.

Despite losing the set up initiative roll at the beginning, the terrain fell in my favour providing me with a steep hill on the right flank and a large section of rough ground towards my left flank. In the centre I had a nice gentle hill to place a defensive line of legionnaires on and nullify Alan’s pike force since I didn’t think they would fancy attacking up hill.

Once my position was set I only had to worry about my flanks which were covered by a couple of battle-groups of superior legionnaires and a mix of light foot and auxiliaries.

The first rounds of fighting resulted in me losing a battle group of light foot on the left who ran away at the first sign of trouble. I made no impression against Alan’s light horse on the right. As a novice player I found myself out numbered in the in the shooting and combat phases so opted to pull out my remaining light troops and attempt to rally them.

On the right flank I moved forward a superior legionnaire battle group which had a couple of charges at the light horse. They managed to isolate themselves, at the time this worried me. Nevertheless, in retrospect I think this was a good thing to do since it kept his light horse in check, away from my main line and forced Alan to move troops across to counter them. Being superior they took a fair bit of punishment before they broke and ran.

The end positions to the from Alan's side of the table. you notice my legionnaires exiting on the fare left of the table and Alans battle groups breaking and exiting on the right.

However, it was on the left flank that the battle was decided. After having my velites chased from the rough ground by a combination of light and medium foot my other superior legionnaires stood up to charges first, from medium foot and then from superior cavalry both of which broke on their line. Alan’s light foot over ran its support and ended up being chased around my rear by triari. By the end of the game they found themselves in a precarious position of being surrounded on three sides by triari with velites closing on their position.

Alan's light foot finding themselves in a slightly unsavoury position by end of the game.

So far in the B4AD tournament I am one win and one loss. I was informed that I need to win the next game and score at least 25 points to displace Andy form second place in the group as Alan progresses to the next round being top of the group on points accrued despite my result. Naturally I will be supporting Alan to go all the way and win the tournament so I can claim a victory over the champion at the group stages!!

Photo credits : Alan.