mardi 4 juillet 2017

To Late Roman Empire... and Beyond !

Just a small post for a planning review concerning my Late Roman Army project.

The project: what, who, when...

I like wargaming, and I would LOOOVE wargaming with huge armies, but it seems that I am the only person in this area who ever had the stupid (nah... eccentric maybe?) idea to use 1/72 plastic soldiers for that purpose. When my children and I used to play together, they preferred to paint 25mm+ fantasy figures - I will show you some, one of these days. This left me little time for historical minis, a lonesome hobby from the past, when I mostly owned 1/72 minis.

Ok ok, I already tried 15mm (too small) and 25mm (too big), I keep on painting 1/72.

Anyway, there is a ruleset that requires a reasonable number of figures (less than 50 per army), and this ruleset is DBA, so I bought it (version 2.2) and began to paint armies for my potential opponent and me. And the current (well, one of them) army being painted is: II/78 Late Imperial Roman.

There are two sublists, the East and the West. In my crazy dreams, I would like to paint both, which would allow me to play roman civil war battles, or to have a bigger army, big enough to play with l'Art de la Guerre.

I began with the West, following the documentation (The Notitia Dignitatum in particular) to represent western units.

Oh, when ? I started several years ago, and it is not yet completed :)


The army list

For the II/78(a) list, you need these:

1x3Cv(Gen), 1x3Cv, 2x2LH, 2x4Bd, 3x4Ax, 2x2Ps, 1x4Kn or Art or 4Bd

DBA is like SQL language, it seems esoterical at first, but when you're explained, it is quite easy :)

Each element is of the same width (60 mm for 1/72 minis), the depth depending on the nature of the troop. You need 12 elements for any army. The list above means this:
- 1 element of Cavalry, 3 riders, the general
- 1 element of Cavalry, 3 riders
- 2 elements of Light Horse, of 2 riders each
- 2 elements of Blades troops, strong heavy infantry, 4 guys per element
- 3 elements of Auxilia troops, medium infantry, 4 guys per element
- 2 elements of Psiloi or light skirmishing infantry, 2 per element
- 1 element of Knight or very heavy cavalry (4 riders) OR 1 element of artillery OR 1 more element of Blades

Easy to read, ok ? But what sort of troopers ?  That's where you need another book, the DBM army list Book 2: 500 BC to 476 AD. DBM (another related ruleset) and DBA (same author) require almost the same sort of troops, so you need this book to understand what sort of troops you really need... or you use the internet. Both are useful :)


The review

So far, I have painted (links to the related posts)
- 4 cataphracts => 1 element of 4Kn
- 8 legionaries of the Pannoniciani Seniores => the 2 elements of 4Bd
- 4 auxilia of the Victores Iuniores => 1 element of 4Ax
- 8 auxilia of a limitanei unit => 2 more elements of 4Ax
- 2 archers supporting the limitanei => 1 element of 2Ps

7 out of 12 elements are done.

Let's take pictures to celebrate ! (and click to enlarge)




On these pictures, you can see that there are two extra figures: a musician (already displayed in this post), that will be a part of a command element for the Victores Iuniores, and... a Hun rider! Let's look at him



I thought that is was a good idea to paint 2 Hun riders to make a LH element, since Huns were sometimes scouting for the Late Roman Army. But I was wrong...  According to my documentation, the Hun riders may represent LH in an eastern Late Roman Army, but not in a western army, where they can only be played as Allies, that is... 12 more elements to paint !! Same thing for the Patrician Roman list.

I will paint him a friend anyway, and who knows, I may cheat and not follow the ruleset :)

Next step: cavalry ! Oh, horses...

27 commentaires:

  1. Very nice. Yep, I would cheat and not use the rule set

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  2. DBA like SQL? Nope! I can understand SQL!
    Great looking project, Phil!

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  3. Great looking force Mr o'tep, fantastic work!. As for the rules, just use what you have and get some games in, you can always change it later if you like.

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  4. A very neat paint job on the Hun rider! A great looking figure. Yes i advocate forgetting the pocket book rules. BB

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    1. Thank you! Ok, I admit that One Hun is a bit short... and you're an anarchist too :D

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  5. Hi Phil. Beautiful looking minis as always. Where'd you get the Hun? I really like DBA, v. 3.0 is cool.

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  6. Hi Nick, thank you for your appreciation. The Hun is from the Lucky Toys set, which is seen as not very accurate by PSR, but at least the horse archers look fine to me. I never read DBA 3.0, many changes ?

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  7. Would you use 15mm rules or 28mm rules for playing 1/72?

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    1. Most rules I know can be played with 15mm or 25mm (or 28+mm) figures. I base them as if they were 25mm (base size for 15mm is too small), so for instance, the base width for DBA is 60mm.
      You can see one of my DBA army here: https://philotepsfigures.blogspot.fr/2016/12/dba-persian-achaemenid-army.html

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    2. Thanks I figured out myself that 15mm is too small :)

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  8. Bon, je suis très en retard, mais très bel ensemble...et j'aime beaucoup l'archer à cheval, quoi qu'il puisse être!

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    1. Merci bien :) comme tu peux le constater, la peinture n'a pas avancé pendant les vacances, et les commentaires font toujours plaisir.

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  9. Je viens de regarder plusieurs images de vos figurines et vous êtes un vrai artiste. Je suis d'accord que 1/72, c'est le vrai echelle pour les jeux de guerre meme que mes yeux demand les figurines 1/48 maintenant.

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    1. Oh, je découvre ce commentaire avec beaucoup de retard, désolé, et merci du compliment! Le 1/72 est une bonne échelle, on a besoin de moins de place qu'avec les figurines 25mm.

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  10. klasse arbeit von dir
    hier sieht mann immer spitzenbemalung

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  11. Wonder and colorfull painted figures! I also like that Hun!

    Greetings
    Peter

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    1. Thanks Peter. The Hun should have a friend soon, but I am working on my Celts first.

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