Late Imperial Romans - DBA army complete

After the Sagittarii, there were only a few men left to paint in order to complete the army: 2 archers (the second Psiloi element), 1 Hunnic rider, and two clibanarii for the command group.

Here they are - first, the command element (3Cv): like the other 3Cv element, they belong to the Equites Constantiani feroces.

The general - a Miniart figure. Not as nice as his Hät comrades, but he'll do the job.

The standard bearer - I appreciated to paint a draco banner .

And here you can see the two Cv elements together.

Next unit, the Huns as LH(figures by Lucky Toys).

And last, the archers (Italeri) to support the Victores Iuniores.

So for DBA, my army is complete, at last !!

Wait, you don't believe it ? You're right, because I am slightly cheating. First, I have to base them all, something I don't like to do, but it is impossible to play without bases. and I also need a base to represent the camp - still looking for a good idea for it, any suggestion ?

That is not all. I also wish to test another promising ruleset named l'Art de la Guerre (AdG) - I have recently discovered that the author probably lived only a few kilometers from here (Lyon), but I really don't know him :)

Although the rules recommend to play with more minis than I usually paint (between 20 and 30 elements for a budget of 200 points), I've read that a good way to start is to use 100 pts armies, which more or less corresponds to the 12 elements required in DBA. And the bases are compatible, that's great.

So, for a 100 pts AdG Late Roman army, I just need to paint:
- a general element, ie a general and staff on a particular element (the riders shown above would in this cas be a second heavy cavalry element)
- a bolt thrower with servants (at least two)

It sounds reachable :) But I plan this painting for later, I first need a break from Late Romans !

See you soon.

Late Imperial Roman Army VI - The Equites primo sagittarii

Next step for my DBA Late Imperial Romans, I have painted two horse archers for a LH element.
Here they are:

 Once again, this army is intended to belong to the western part of the empire. I first wanted to find a horse archers unit assigned to the Gallic command (as for the Equites Constantiani feroces), but after looking at the Noticia Dignitatum, it seems there is none !
So I looked for a unit in the western part, and found some assigned to the Comes Africae, such as the Equites primo sagittarii (or first (unit) of horse archers), and their shield is this one:

The first shield copy comes from this document, the Bodleian manuscript, it is the second from the left in the second row:

Some more pictures of the minis. The shield identified above is to be seen on the first photo - I found it difficult to paint regular circles on so small a shield :) You may also notice that I have tried to paint better horses than usual, please tell me what you think of them.

Here you can see them scouting in front of the cavalry line:

Hope you like them :)

Late Imperial Roman Army V - The Equites Constantiani feroces

Hi, and happy new year everyone!

I have not been very active on the blog, but I managed to paint a little more at the end of 2017 and the first days of 2018, and I have been brave enough to paint horses (something I am usually afraid of :) ).

Last september, I showed the first rider of a unit of equites in this post. I added three more riders, so that I have an complete element, and the first rider of the command element - I will add a banner and a general.

Here you are the minis (Hät Late Roman Medium cavalry):

If you remember, I wanted to represent a western Late Roman army, so I chose a unit from the gallic command of the master of Horse in the roman army. This unit are the Equites Constantiani feroces, the ninth of the vexillationes comitatenses (i.e. a cavalry unit of the field army) in the Magister Equitum's cavalry roster (see Luke Ueda-Sarson's website for explanations about units listed in the Notitia Dignitatum).

Their shield pattern is as follow:

And this is how I painted it on oval shields:

These men are part of a regular unit, so they are well equipped, but not too uniformed and I tried to paint them with variants in color and equipment.

Hope you like them :)

Next unit very soon: the horse archers, or Equites sagittarii (this blog will soon become a Latin course !).

Ajouter à l'Anti-bannière

I've almost forgotten...

... how to use brushes after my long summer break! No, my holidays didn't last for two months, I have been working most of the time, but I managed to take some days off, I will maybe write about it one of these days.

In the previous post, I wrote that the next unit on my todo list for my Late Imperial Roman army was a cavalry unit. Unfortunately, I had no time to paint a lot, but I could at least paint the first man as a test shot, and his horse of course :)

Here's the result:

Well... funny how fast you can lose your painting skills... and the pictures are not very good either, but I must admit that I wanted to write a post as soon as possible :) With autumn coming (not winter, not yet :)), I am likely to paint a little more.

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...

Late Imperial Roman Army IV - Limitanei and Pseudocomitatenses

Limitanei and Pseudocomitatenses

Limitanei (from the word limes, meaning the frontier of the Empire) were soldiers garrisoned along the borders of the Empire. They were considered of a lower rank than the Comitatenses, who composed the field army, and the Palatini (see this post for a definition of that term) or elite.

Limitanei included legionary and auxiliary units.

The role of these frontier units was to patrol the borders and prevent raiders to enter into the empire. In case of a large scale attack, the field army would be engaged.

Some units of Limitanei have probably been incorporated in the field army under the name of Pseudocomitatenses, but remained the less considered... and less paid!

Identifying my unit

When I painted the soldiers pictured below, I first considered them as Auxilia Palatina. Their shield pattern was simply the one displayed on the Hät Medium infantry set, and frequently seen in various illustrations. But I couldn't give the unit a name, because that pattern is not shown in the Notitia Dignitatum. We know that the Notitia Dignitatum doesn't display shield patterns for all the units mentioned. For instance, none of the Limitanei units have their shields illustrated, and we also know that some Pseudocomitatenses are also missing.

The pattern that I was looking for can be seen on a famous Roman mosaic from the 4th century AD in Piazza Armerina in Sicily (see below). That mosaic represents a hunt scene. The hunters are trying to catch African animals, probably for the venationes (animal hunt) in an amphitheatre.

So it may be that my unit is an African Limitanei or Pseudocomitatenses unit. Since the figures are not heavily equipped, I will base them as Auxilia for DBA.

Here are the figures:

I painted two Auxilia elements, supported by one Psiloi element. All figures by Hät.

I would be very curious to know if anyone has a better idea for the identification of this shield pattern. If so, please don't hesitate to give your point of view, that's one of the reasons why we share all this on the web :) All comments welcome.

Late Imperial Roman Army III - The Victores Iuniores

The Auxilia Palatina

The Auxilia Palatina were part of the elite units of the Empire, the Palatini (see my second post related to the Late Roman Army). They were of a higher rank than the Comitatenses who were more ordinary soldiers.

The Victores Iuniores

The Victores Iuniores were an Auxilia Palatina unit. According to the Notitia Dignitatum, they were under the command of the count of Spain, or Comes Hispenias.
Their shield patterns showed a winged Victory, which evocates the name of the unit, Victores.

Note that the picture above mentions the name of the Bructerii, instead of the Victores Iuniores. It seems clear that the monks in charge of the copy of the original roman document made mistakes and that several names have been shifted from their original location (I have to thank Chariobaude who focused my attention on this point - have a look at his blog dedicated to the Late Roman army).

 And here are my interpretation of the soldiers, and of the shield - it was a challenge proposed by Chariobaude in a topic at Benno's Figures Forum.

As usual, hope you like them :)

Late Imperial Roman Army II - The Pannoniciani Seniores

The Palatini

The Palatini were elite units of the Late Roman Empire. They were created by Constantine who needed new elite troops after he disbanded the Praetorian Guard in AD 312 - they supported his rival Maxentius.

There were horse units (called vexillationes), and infantry units called either Legiones Palatini or Auxilia Palatina.

The Legiones Palatini were particularly well equipped troops, and frequently engaged in action. The Notitia Dignitatum (a document  that described the administrative and military organisation of the eastern and western parts of the Empire) recorded 25 Legiones Palatini, 13 in the East, and 12 in the West.


The Pannoniciani Seniores

The Pannoniciani Seniores were a Palatine Legion unit based in the West. They belonged to the Italian army, under the command of the Italian Magister Peditum (master of infantry).

They were the fifth of the twelve western Legiones Palatini. Their shield pattern are shown below (after Luke Ueda-Sarson's pages dedicated to the Notitia Dignitatum):

I mainly used the Late Roman Heavy Infantry set made by Hät to represent this unit, plus a figure from the Late Roman Infantry set by Miniart (the giant one).
The figures are well equipped with large shields and mail shirts, which corresponds with the elite status of the unit.

The command group - note the Draco standard

 And some closeups on the officer: golden helmet, yellow crest and cape to show his rank.

Very colorful unit, a pleasure to paint.