When the Society of Ancients announced that the Battle Day for 2024 was to be held on 23 March and to focus on refighting the battle of Ilipa I was optimistic that I would be able to join. Earlier this year, hopes were dashed as my next trip to the UK had to be put back. Still, there must be something I could do to join in the spirit of the event? The idea eventually reached was to complete the painting of an allied legion to go with the Roman legion already finished.
What with one thing and another, getting started took longer than expected and progress was slowed by a lot of gaming. Visiting a shop to buy replacement paints also led to me finding a Vallejo 'polished bronze' colour which I had not seen before. I bought it and after a trial thought it so much better than the colour I had been using that I went back over the Hastati to give them gleaming helmets to match the Principes and Triarii. Despite all this, the 22nd March dawned with all figures painted. They were not yet based and the shields were not yet fixed to the Triarii and some of the Principes. The day finished with all the figures based and flocked but the glue not yet dried out. They would have to wait for the 23rd itself to get finishing details of grass tufts.
In the end, I did not have time to get this done and take photographs before having to head off to the Hong Kong Society of Wargames monthly meeting to run a 30 Years War battle, so photographs have had to wait until today.
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| The Allied Legion, without cavalry |
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| Velites : All Newline figures. Those with bronze helmets and the shield bosses have not yet been given a polished bronze finish |
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| Hastati : All HäT figures. The decals on the shields are from Little Big Man Studios |
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| Principes : 6 HäT and 2 Newline figures to a block |
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| Triarii : Newline Figures |
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| The Allied Cavalry : HäT figures |
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| The full Allied Legion in line, with the Roman Legion beyond |
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| Looking from the Roman end of the line |
The photographs show the legions set out in full Polybian formation, a swarm of Velites to the front followed by Hastati, Principes and Triarii, with cavalry out on the flanks. Now all I need is a set of rules that will allow me to deploy them like this on the battlefield and not be at a disadvantage. I have been intrigued by Justin Swanton's 'Optio' rules, both for their diceless elegance and for the large grid system that I think will allow me to put half a legion in each box if I expand the size of the boxes to match my table size. I now need to explore how the combat system works to see whether it hangs together with the desire to fight a battle with Romans deployed as the Roman armies of the extraordinary age of expansion in the mid to late Republic, not as required by the constraints of a ruleset. I look forward to reading the reports of the games fought at the Ilipa battle day, to see if any of the rule sets in use offer more of what I am looking for. For the moment, I hope all who gathered there had an excellent day together. Maybe next year I will be able to join them.
Fine looking army. I await seeing your gaming trials with Optio. I played Ilipa a number of times in 2023 using both Basic Impetvs and Commands & Colors. All games were good fun and both rules worked well to replicate the situation and resolve the battle.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere, if I can lay my hands on it, I have a copy of Basic Impetus. I will try to dig it out and have a read through and perhaps give it a try as well.
Deleteawesome work and the figures look great
ReplyDeleteMany thanks David. The trouble with having given the Romans nice new shiny helmets is that everything else now looks a bit drab beside them. So, my painting desk is now covered with Macedonians getting a fresh polish.
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