Quick Thoughts on MMP's Storm Over Jerusalem

 

I've now finished two solo plays of Storm Over Jerusalem, MMP's game of Titus' siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.  It's a winner.   It has fairly simple mechanics (a very slim and well written rulebook) that are reminiscent of those old area movement games of the past, most famously Avalon Hill's Storm Over Arnhem.  

It's a fairly short game (eight turns) in which the Romans have a daunting task of getting over the walls of Jerusalem (so many walls!).  There are two vital areas, the Second Temple and Herod's Palace, and if the Romans can take both in the same turn they win automatically, but that's easier said than done.

The new town (top of the map) is easier to take because the defensive bonuses are slightly less than they are in the old town and the terrain around the new town areas is conducive to siege engines and siege towers which can partially negate the wall defensive bonuses.   So the Romans can make initial headway taking these areas but they aren't vital to the Jewish defenders and they can chew up valuable time.

The Romans have a lot of troops but they don't all start on the map oat once and can only be brought on from four specific reinforcement zones.  The Roman stacking limit is five units per zone, so the Roman player has to develop attacks carefully and plan to reinforce them.

The game is card driven, in that each player gets a hand of cards with fresh draws per turn and the cards convey certain bonuses and allow strategems, such as gradually cutting off Jewish supplies, upgrading Jewish units with captured Roman weapons, onager and ballista attacks, siege ramps, and such.   Some cards can negate others, so if the Roman plays the battering ram card and if the Jewish player has the flaming brand card, it cancels the battering rams.    If you like the flavour that cards bring, you'll like this game.

Here's the situation at the end of the second of two play throughs.    The Romans have thrown their full might at Herod's Palace (left) and the Temple (right) and in both case the Jewish defenders hung on grimly.  The game ended a turn early because of card play, and it was a tie simply because the Romans inflicted massive casualties on the Jewish garrison.

Siege games have a lot appeal for me.  For the attacker they can be interesting problems to solve, and for the defenders while there may not be lots of maneuvre choices, the tension of hanging on is always fun.   And the advantage of a paper game like this one is that I don't have to build a model of Jerusalem and to paint both armies, the game's all in the box.   

Physically the counters are oversize, colourful and well printed.  While mounted mapboards seem to be a thing of the past, it's a lovely and educational map and the cards are well done.  Full marks for the game's components.

This is a game I would definitely play again.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

Foundry 28mm Imperial Roman Legionaires

 And this post is pretty much what it says in the header.

Catching up on this blog after all the WW1 naval business which has dominated this blog in the past year  to show some recently completed work now that I'm fully moved into the new house and the painting desk is up and running.   The Ides of March seems like a good time to show off another eight metal 28mm Foundry Romans.

The shields are handpainted, matching a previous design from some figures I did a year (!) ago.  At this rate I might have a century if I live to be a century.  I like the resting pose of these figures, suggesting that they are being held in reserve or just waiting for the Germanii to come charging out of the treeline.

They are based individually but I have an abundant supply of eight figure rectangular movement trays for ease of handling.

Thank you for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Foundry Roman Legionairies

Marching off the painting table and mustering to the eagles this week are eight 28mm Roman legionaries from Foundry.  They are sculpted wearing mail shirts, so they don't have that classic segmenta lorica look of Romans in the films, but I think they look well enough, and from what I understand, there would be a variety of armour types in the same legion.

As I noted in a previous post, there shields are hand painted.  Sometimes seeing another painter's work, in this case a far better painter than I, provides inspiration to say "I could try that" and I'm glad I did rather than try to find shield transfers that would be the same size as the Foundry shield blanks.   The results are a bit uneven, but I have another 24 in the painting queue to practice my skills on!

Another decision that I made while painting was to give them simple linen shirts, unlike the film Romans who always seem to wear the brightest red fabric even though they're grunts.   I like the "warriors for the working day" look.  I did make a concession to the movies by giving them red neckerchiefs.

These are the first proper legionaries that I've added to my Roman force, all the other figures thus far are auxiliaries.    It will be interesting to see how some rules, like Hail Caesar or Three Ages of Rome, rate the difference.   In a build your own army points system, like Midgard, I think you'd rate them as Heavy Infantry, but not sure they would have any better armour rating than auxiliaries.   Bears thinking on.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Freehand Roman Shields, or, Scutum Selfies

 Ave, amici!

Currently I'm working on a test batch of Foundry 28mm metal early imperial Romans, which come with separate shields, or scuta (neuter plural if I recall my college Latin).  I was vaguely considering ordering some shield transfers, but then I came across some work on the Bluesky social media site by the supremely talented @moiterei.bsky.social who still maintains an excellent war-games blog here.  

His Roman legionaries are stunning and their shields were all painted freehand, as you can see (nota bene - the image below is his work, not mine).  

His work gave me the courage to try my own freehand work, and I totally cribbed his design.   The result isn't nearly as good but to me it's good enough.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Blessings to your brushes,  MP+

A Hail Caesar Test Drive: Much Bonking and Hacking

This weekend in the old Rectory games room I had a few hours to put all my painted ancients figures on the table and try the Hail Caesar rules from Warlord for the first time.   I used the early German and imperial Roman army lists and had enough figures to field the following:

Roman: 1 18 regular sized and 1 8 small sized unit of Heavy Infantry Auxiliary Infantry w Spears, 1 small unit of slingers, 1 small unit of Auxiliary archers, and 1 regular sized unit of Medium Auxiliary cavalry.

German: 2 32 figure warbands, both Eager Fighters, 1 small unit of 8 javelin skirmishers, 1 small unit of 8 archers, and 1 small unit of skirmish javelin cavalry.

Most of the figures on the table are Victrix plastics, though there are a few Foundry metal figures and some fantasy castings from Thistle and Rose filling out the German ranks.

Here are the forces arrayed at the start of the battle.  I didn't put any terrain down as I simply wanted to learn the core mechanics.   I quickly realized that with infantry movement at 6", cavalry movement at 9", and maximum bow range at 18", you don't want to put the two forces too far apart.  My limited collection meant that I played with one division aside, though HC allows for three divisions per side.

Romans won the initiative, which as I understand HC means that they keep it all through the game.   The command/activiation rules mean that units might get 1, 2, or 3 moves, or none at all, depending on how far they are away from their division commander, so the side that moves second might have a better turn depending on how the activations go. 

In their first turn, all the Roman units got to move, but in subsequent moves things got a bit herky jerky for both sides, so if you don't like activation rolls, this probably isn't the game for you.  The war band on the German right held back, and the Roman cavalry were reluctant to move.   I quickly learned how missile fire worked, and between them the Roman slingers and archers made short work of the German bows.  The German skirmishers and Roman horse exchanged volleys of javelins.  It seems to me that most units in HC have some kind of missile capability, but the real game is decided in hand to hand combat.

Below, a small unit of German skirmish horse is trying to annoy the Roman left, but as they are skirmishers and the Romans are formed, there didn't seem much that they could do, and the Roman archers kept them well at bay.

Proconsul Luigi briefly visited the battlefield and watched as everyone in the centre collided.  He seemed to be planning his next triumph, with my dogs in chains behind his chariot.  I don't have a lot of experience with ancients gaming but it seems that the big scrum in the centre is how most fights are decided.

Giving the Roman archers some love.  They did well in their first fight.  My sabot bases from Warbases take eight figures, and as far as I can tell from HC, eight figures is a small unit, and sixteen would be a regular sized unit, so that's convenient.

So on to the big final scrum.   There are a lot of photos just because it amused me to see all my figures on the table, locked in combat.   One thing about Ancients, the big battles just look darn cool.

The two war bands had an initial advantage.   For their first melee they throw seven D6, hitting on 4-6, but as Eager fighters they get to re-roll misses.   The Roman auxiliary infantry elected to Close Ranks, meaning that they get a plus on on their save rolls, saving on a 4-6, but hitting on a -1.  That seemed a fair trade, and thus the Romans survived the first round with only two hits.  

However, in subsequent rounds, the tide began to shift.   In their subsequent attacks, the war bands only attack with 6 d6, whereas the Romans fight every round with 7d6.  Hits on the Germans began to accumulate faster than they could cause them.  In the third round, the Roman cavalry finally passed an activation roll and joined the battle.  Likewise, the small unit of Roman infantry joined, though how they achieved that was funny.  I rolled a 12 on 2d6 for them to join the fight, which in HC is a blunder, but the blunder table result was an uncontrolled advance into the enemy, which allowed them close the distance and contribute to the final round.

At close of play, the German war band on the left broke thanks to the intervention of the cavalry and was removed from play, while the one on the right was very close to breaking.   The larger of the auxiliary infantry had been forced to retreat in disorder, but the result was still a Roman victory.

It's always interesting to try a set of rules for the first time.  The mechanics were fairly simple to grasp and there was a clear result within six turns, but there were some dynamics that I would like to explore further, particularly how skirmish, open order, and close order units interact.   There was a moment where the Roman slingers fired annoyingly, and then in the next turn the auxiliary infantry advanced through them to seek a resolution, so I felt I was doing that part right, but there feels like more to explore.   

The two sides felt different - the German power lies in their unwieldy war bands, which felt both powerful and fragile, whereas the Romans felt more resilient. Perhaps it would have been a tougher fight if the Romans had been outnumbered.

One thing I felt I might have missed was the influence of commanders on the game.  As far as I could tell, they simply exist as a measuring point to units being given orders - if they are beyond 12" from the commander, it's harder to get them to react.  They didn't seem to have any other rule that I could see. There were rules for commanders becoming casualties, but in my first play through I couldn't see how that worked, but you always miss details the first few times.

As for the activation rules, you either like them or you hate them.   I recall the same sort of activation principle when I once tried Warlord's Black Powder, and they are not unlike Lardie rules in that respect.  

Having all these figures on the table looks grand, but in 28mm, if you use the unit sizes that HC requires, you need a LOT of figures.  Two war bands at 32 figures each exhausted my available figures, so I had to add in some fantasy barbarian figures from Thistle and Rose.  If you look closely you can see them in the back ranks of the war bands.   My friend James suggests just using smaller units, or another set or rules, such as Midgard.  Not bad ideas; Midgard certainly has some interesting roles for commanders and their influence on battles.  Another way to maximize a smaller collection such as mine would be to try playing skirmish games using a set of rules such as TFL's Infamy, Infamy, or Clash of Spears.   Those are both options to explore.  Otherwise one is looking at painting a LOT of figures, which may be what a company that makes minis and rules wants!

So, congratulations to me for trying a new set of rules and getting all my ancients figures on the table.  I'll give Hail Caesar another try down the road.  Next up, the same armies using the Midgard rules from TFL/Reisswitz.

Thanks for reading and blessings to your die rolls!  

MP+

Stinky, Hairy, and Violent Foundry Germanic Warriors

 Here are six recently completed 28mm Foundry Germanic warriors from their Ancients range.  I have a large batch of Foundry Germans in the lead pile, but wanted to see how they took paint and their irregular quality makes a pleasant break from painting a large uniformed regiment.  The shields are hand painted and you probably guessed that they aren't transfers.  :)

Young men doing what they do best, shout, posture, and look for a fight.   The fellow in the centre seems quite comfy wearing his pajama bottoms.

The fellow on the left earned his grey beard the hard way, he was probably a young shirtless buck braying in the front of the war band but he's gotten smarter over the years.  He looks like a tribal leader.

"This envoy bored me and now he's broken.  Send another!"

One thing I've noticed playing a test battle of Hail Caesar yesterday (more on that in the next post) is that if you want to field multiple war bands, you need a lot of figures.   If you use the prescribed figure count in the rules, a war band is 32 figures, and I had two on the table, which meant augmenting my Germanic figures with some fantasy barbarians.  By that point, the quality of the painting needs to bend a bit if one wants to put a lot of figures on the table.    Perhaps I should look at a skirmish game like Infamy, Infamy if I want a smaller figure count?

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Finished: Some Victrix Roman Auxiliary Archers

A dozen Roman auxiliary archers have stepped off from the Basing Depot and will be mustered into the Emperor's service.   They'll be marching off to the forests of Germania shortly.

I continue to like the Victrix figures, they look good, are well proportioned, and take paint well.   The assembly was a bit of a chore, and while they do come in a pleasing variety of poses, there were one or two where I felt, "that doesn't look quite right".   However, they'll do.   I painted them fairly quickly, I'm not sure it qualifies as "slapchop", whatever the kids mean by that, but they are I guess what one would call "wargame standard".   I painted them with the same light blue tunics that I gave to my existing auxiliary infantry, to suggest the same legion or affiliation.

They're based individually but the washers I can use can fit into my Warbases sabots, and can be stored in a box lined with magnetic paper.

The Victrix early imperial archers set comes with 12 figures from the western empire and 12 in the distinctive dress of the eastern empire.  I'll save the eastern figures for a Middle Earth project, and while it would be nice to have another 12 of these painted, I am not sure how reliant the Roman armies were on archers - I suspect they were a fairly small and specialized arm, but not sure.  Probably for now a dozen for a small tabletop army are sufficient.

Speaking of Middle Earth, it also occurs to me that these figures could be used as Gondorian militia archers, as opposed to the Games Workshop Gondorian archers in their full armour, but that's another thought.

I noticed that quite a few of the heads are sculpted wearing moustaches.   It reminded me that in Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Legion of the Ninth, the hero commands some auxiliary archers and they are described as being from Gaul, and one thinks of ancient Gauls as being hairy fellows.   Or maybe a coincidence?    Pray speak up in the comments.

Next up, some definitely hairy ancient Germans.

Thanks for looking, blessings to your brushes.

MP+

Work In Progress: Foundry Ancient Germans

 

From the Foundry Ancients range, 28mm Germanic warriors finished and in the basing queue.   Shocking fellows, terrible manners.

Three Victrix Imperial Roman Generals

I continue to be pleased with the quality of Victrix figures and by how well they take paint.  Here are three 28mm Early Imperial big cheeses to lead my numerically tiny Roman forces.  I like the fellow on the left because he's old and cranky and it probably hurts to climb on his horse in the morning.    I feel a certain kinship with him.

Mostly I used Foundry tri-tone paints, especially on the horses, which I think turned out quite well.

The iconic red cloaks that you see in all the films.  For these I used Foundry British Redcoat, which looked fine to me.

Thanks for looking.  Ave, vale, salve!

MP+

Battle of the Brothers: The Baetis Campaign by C3i

Getting a lot of gameplay since it arrived earlier this summer is a boardgame designed by Dan Fournie and the centrepiece of the Nr 37 edition of C3i magazine from RBM Studios.    There is some debate about whether magazine games are really that great, but I've never been disappointed by the quality of the games published by C3i.

Dan Fournie has a number of ancients games to his credit, and this design focuses on a decisive battle of the Punic Wars in Spain, when Rome's Scipio brothers faced off against the Hasdrubal brothers of Carthage.   What I know about the Punic Wars is fairly limited, so I enjoyed the lengthy article that came with the magazine.  Essentially Upper Baetis was a double battle, as both sides, four armies under four brothers, were unable to concentrate their forces.  Historically the battle was a Roman defeat, but in this game anything can happen.

This photo below shows the game as it is set up.  On the left, the Romans under Publius Scipio in light brown face the army of Hasdrubal Gisgo in light green, while on the right, the Romans of Gnaeus Scipio in red and their Iberian allies face the Carthaginians of Hasdrubal Barca in blue.  The Romans have two camps to defend, and the Carthaginians have two towns to defend.  Victory points are awarded for towns/camps captured and sacked, and for units and commanders eliminated.  The battle is fought over two and a half days, each day divided into two turns.  Before the game begins, the Carthaginian player can determine how much silver to spend on bribes to try and persuade Rome's Celtiberian allies - spending a little with a reduced c chance of defections gives Carthage a VP, spend a lot with an increased chance of defections gives Rome a VP.   Whatever the strategy, some of the Celtiberian units will disappear on each night turn, so the Roman player has to use these units before he loses them.

The game system is surprisingly fluid and elegant, very reminiscent to the one that Mark Herman uses for the GMT game, Rebel Yell.    In both systems, players take turns moving units and can move them as often as they want until one player passes, at which point the other player gets a variable number of moves before the movement phase ends and they go to combat.  Units cease moving when the enter the Zone of Control of an enemy unit and are locked in combat.  The combat phase has a similar process, so a smart and lucky player can put pressure on a flank or an isolated unit, advance, and continue the pressure and even roll up the enemy.  It took me a bit to figure out the nuances of this system, but once I did I really admired it.

In this photo below, the round markers indicate the Commander's Intent.   Each commander has a 4 hex radius within which his units can maneuver and attack.  Each marker is placed at the beginning of each movement phase.  Once the movement phase is complete, the Intent markers are replaced with a marker indicating where the commander commits himself in battle, giving units a bonus in combat but with the chance that the commander might be killed in an adverse result, as the Scipio brothers were in the actual battle.

I've played Baetis several times solo, with both sides winning, sometimes Rome prevails on one side of the map and Carthage on the other.   When my friend James came over and gamely agreed to try it (hex and counter games are not really his thing), he took to the system quite quickly and won a decisive Roman victory.

In this last photo, a Roman victory is unfolding.  James has sacked one of my towns and Barca is dead, replaced by a middling subordinate.    

 One measure of a good game is that victory can go either way.  In Baetis, both sides are evenly matched.  The Romans have an initial advantage in numbers until night falls and their Celtiberian allies slink away, while the Carthaginians have a few superior units like the elusive Numidian cavalry.   While both sides have key positions to defend, maneuver and aggressive play is the only way to win, as James grasped quickly.  I think I have to call him "Hispania" from now on.

I am sure that Baetis would make an interesting miniatures battle if one had the figures, though it might need to be played on two separate tables.   C3i 37 includes counters for   a Beatis scenario in GMT's SPQR game.  However you fight it, it's a tense and interesting battle to play out.

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

Mustered Into Service: 28mm Foundry Balearic Slingers

Among a batch of recently completed figures are these eight Balearic slingers, part of a recent first-time purchase from Foundry's Ancients range.   I am very fond of Foundry for many of their other ranges, but these Ancients did not disappoint - solid figures, lots of detail, and very little flash to clean up.

My early Imperial Roman force is currently quiet small, a handful of Auxiliaries and some Auxiliary cavalry, so these figures give my little army a missile and skirmishing capability, very useful against the Germanic hordes and their many javelin throwers.

The skin tones are painted using Foundry's trim-tone system, and the clothing is done using FolkArt craft paints and some Army Painter shaders.

I confess that I have no idea if light troops such as these would have been part of the Roman armies in Germania in the first and second centuries AD, but they were easy to paint and look very business like, so I hope they will get some use on the tabletop as I take another look at Three Ages of Rome (Helion) and maybe try Hail Caesar when I get some more figures panted.

Next up in the Ancients painting queue are some Victrix mounted Roman officers and some more Foundry Germanic barbarians, big fellows with severed heads and shocking manners.

Strength and honour to your paint brushes!

MP+

A Battle In Germania: Playing Three Ages of Rome

 Three Ages of Rome (3AoR) is written by UK wargamer Philip Garton for the Helion Books war-games series (published 2022).  Garton has a number of ancient and early modern rules to his credit.   Even though it is written with massed armies in 6mm and 15mm in mind, I found 3AoR an easy and quick way to play an Ancients battle using my 28mm figures, using the recommended adjust of +50% to movement and ranges for 28mms.

Troop types are quite simple and familiar to old school gamers, with infantry  being either Massed, Skirmish, Adaptable (can change formation from Massed to Skirmish, eg Roman auxilia).  Cavalry can be Massed or Skirmish. There are also unit types for Pike Blocks for Hellenic themed armies, artillery, archers, and rabble.   Different troop types can be armoured or unarmored, shielded or unshielded, etc, which matters in missile and melee combat.   Troop quality can be either Raw, Trained, or Veteran, and commanders can likewise range from Political to Normal, to Veteran.   There are rules for setup (which can depend on how many units in an army confer a scouting advantage) as well as discerning omens before a battle!  Once the troops are fielded, every turn players each choose one of three possible orders:  Attack, Hold, or Withdraw.

My existing collection allowed me to field three units of Roman auxilia (2 trained, 1 veteran) and two units of cavalry (1 trained, 1 veteran).   The Germanii had a veteran unit of armoured infantry with their chief, four units of unarmored massed infantry with shields (2 raw, 2 trained) and three units of javelin armed skirmishers (all trained).   I used bases I'd bought years ago for GW's War of the Ring and they worked fine, as 3AoR is basing agnostic, though it has recommended base sizes for those that want them.

Turn order can be determined randomly by cards or dice.  I gave the Germanii a slight advantage because their commander was Veteran.   In the first turn the Romans were roughly handed and pushed back on the wrong foot.   The red shock markers indicate morale states.  In 3AoR units have four morale states:  Sound, Disordered, Disrupted and Routed.   Units can rally and improve their morale at the end of the turn under certain conditions, but the more threatened they are and the worse their morale, it gets harder.   Units with decreasing morale are more likely to be destroyed in melee.  Thus the rules have a nice feel for that Ancients tipping point when armies begin to disintegrate.

The above photo shows how the battle can become chaotic as units swirl and the battle line breaks up.   The longer units fight, the more fragile they become as disruptions and worse become sticky.  In the above photo, the German bodyguard and the centurion's unit, both Veteran, clash while the Germans move a unit in to prevent another Roman unit from intervening in the decisive battle.

Combat in 3AoR is very simply resolved, always using 1d6.   Units shooting or melting get 1 or 2 dice, and regardless of the type of roll required (shooting, melee, saves, morale) a 4 or better on a d6 always succeeds, though there are some basic modifiers (eg, for unarmored, disrupted, etc).   The basic mechanism is thus easily learned and quite simple.  There are some other clever touches, such as testing to see if units move into close proximity to enemy massed units (depends on the troop rating of the attacker/defender).

The game ended when the Roman veterans threw better than the Germanii veterans, who, having no path for a rout, were destroyed and the Germanii chief captured.  A very close game.

 3AoR divides Roman history into Ages of Expansion, Empire, and Decline, and includes army lists for each of these periods.   It includes a few sample scenarios based on famous battles, and allows players to build armies using a simple points system.  

I liked these rules a lot, they are accessible, give a clear result, and while I am not an experienced Ancients gamer, they felt right to me.    I would recommend them to others, and look forward to trying them again when I get a few more units ready for the table.

Thanks for reading, cheers and blessings to your dice!

MP+

Saturday Workbench: Victrix Roman Archers

After saying in my last post that I was treating my newfound hobby fascination with Ancients with caution, I've spent the day chopping and glueing a set of Victrix early imperial Roman auxiliary archers.   I found it fairly simple to assemble them, each figure has only five parts - body, arms, head and quiver - and yet there's a satisfying number of poses. 

The Victrix set comes with a dozen western and a dozen eastern Roman figures, so I started with the western ones first.

I then started looking at the dozen eastern figures still on the sprues and got to thinking that they looked exotic enough to serve as Easterlings or Haradrim in a Middle Earth setting.   I never did like the Easterlings that Games Workshop released for their LOTR range, but these figures would do nicely, so I got to work.

I was pleased that I could find a use for all of the figures in the set, though these eastern fellows will get put in a box for now while I think about what other historical figures might pass for Tolkien's Easterlings and Haradrim.  Parthians, maybe?   What are your thoughts?

Cheers and blessings to your glue and clippers,

MP+

A Small Ancients Diversion: Victrix 28mm Roman Auxiliary

 I've always tried to be careful about overextending my hobby energies into too many periods, but I often fail.   A few years ago, when Clash of Spears was all the rage at my local gaming store,  I painted a Germanic war band and developed a fondness for Victrix figures.    A little fiddly to put together, but they come with a pleasing range of options and they paint up nicely.    So I thought that my Germanii could use some opponents for solitaire play and decided on, of course, Romans.    My friend James likes to say that the auxiliaries made up the backbone of the Roman armies, rather than  the sexier legionaries, and so that was my next step into the world of ancients wargaming.

Here's the first set complete, and tucked into 8 figure bases from now defunct 4Ground that I bought for GW's War of the Ring rules.

A very mean and scary centurion in the middle.

Shield transfers from Little Big Men.  Once you get the hang of applying them, they're quite easy to do for a whole unit.

On manoeuvres in the forests of Germania.  What could possibly go wrong?

Very easy figures to paint, I quite like how the mail shirts look from this angle.

 

There's a lot of competition to get into the painting queue these days.  On one desk I have a regiment of Union ACW infantry, and on another desk I have a Prussian SYW musketeer regiment just getting started, but I think once they get done I'll return to Romans.  I have some Baleric slingers and some auxiliary arches to paint next.    

In the meantime, there are rules to master.  Clash of Spears is too tactical for what I have in mind.   I am currently playing with Three Ages of Rome, written by Philip Garton and published by Helion.  Hope to have an initial report here soon.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes!  MP+

Things I Did in 2022: Early Imperial Roman Cavalry

Parish work has been rewarding this last week but has left me with precious little time to paint or to post here.   With a slight respite this afternoon, here’s a return to some of the projects I completed last year.

Following on the heels of a surprise turn to Ancients Gaming, I decided to paint some Roman cavalry as adversaries for my Germanic warriors.   I have only a vague idea of how the Romans used cavalry in Germania, probably more as scouts and line of communications troops than on the battlefield, but I’m sure they had their share of skirmishes and patrols.  I showed this figures to my friend, Consul Homo Lepus, who knows more about Romans than I do, and he was impressed that the Victrix figures come with quivers (right word??) for their javelins, as well as blankets, canteens and other useful kit.

These are 28mm plastic Victrix figures, with shield transfers by Little Big Men Studios.  The horses are painted using Foundry tri-colour paints from their “Horse” paints set.   I’m still figuring these paints out but in general I’m pleased with them and would use them again.

Command figures:

I have quite a few more ancients to paint, including Roman auxiliary infantry and archers, and more lead Germans thanks to the Wargames Foundry Diamond Jubilee sale last year where my finger slipped and I bought rather a few.As I may have posted here earlier, I acquired the Germans last year when the local gaming group was playing a lot of skirmish games using Clash of Spears rules, and I may stick with them or perhaps look at Too Fat Lardies’ Infamy rules.   I also have a set of rules from Helion, Three Ages of Rome by Philip Garton, which I confess I’ve barely looked at since it arrived.  

So ancients are not a back burner project, exactly, more of an interesting diversion which I’ll pursue this year.

Blessings to your brushes,

MP+