'Childhood' from MilesR: "Roma Victa!"

A childhood fascination with Roman history was one of the main contributors to my journey to this odd corner of the hobby universe.  I grew up in a very rural part of southern Alabama and access to information was limited to a few books in the Mobile County Library but I read those books many, many times.  So many times the librarians wouldn't put them back on the shelves and just held them for me.  One of the seminal works was Gibbons "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".  I spent many a afternoon after getting off the shrimp boat reading and re-reading Roman history.

As I was casting about for a topic for the childhood bonus round, I zeroed in on the idea of building a Roman Army.  Also impacting this decision is the issue that there is a new kickstarter from Westwind for their 15mm War & Empire ancients line.  In a rare display of gamer frugality, I thought I had better paint up the Roman army I got from them in an earlier kickstarter before getting even more.  This act of gaming thrift has now fully sanctioned (in my mind) pledging for more minis - I think we can all agree on that is a fair and just resolution!

These miniatures are from Westwind Productions Forged in Battle line and are Early Imperial Romans - in 15mm scale, which is fairly rare thing for me.

Lets go down the line from Left to right.  Anchoring the left flank is a unit of scorpion ballistas and a Auxiliary cavalry unit.

The core of any Imperial Roman army are it's Legionaries and this force has six units ready to crush anyone foolish enough to challenge the might of the Emperor.

A few close up shots of the Legionaries - these figures where a joy to paint but there were a lot of them.

I made two command stands - a large one for the main general and a smaller one (pictured later) for a sub commander.

The right flank is a good bit stronger than the left as it consists of three unit of Auxiliary infantry, some Legionary archers and another unit of Auxiliary cavalry.

The cavalry with a sho of the sub commander.

Lastly, another shot looking down the ranks.  It took my two weekends to paint this group up and I really enjoyed the break from 28's.

An exciting "in-process" painting shot.  I've never done a rank and file army in 15mm (a lot of WW2 Flames of War stuff but nothing with close ranks).  I really found the painting to be fun and it's relatively easy to keep everything organized.  Will this mean I'll abandon 28mm? - no, but 15's are really starting to grow on me.  Of course I'll need to make a lot of terrain for them!

I've got a few more packs to build for the Romans and there might even be an opponent for them to fight somewhere in the lead pile.....

Here's a shot of the 15mm Ancients lead pile - A few packs of Romans (more Auxilia, some archers and such) plus a whole new army to be a foe.  The foe will have more cavalry - a lot more...

Lets just say Kickstarters are a wonderful horrible thing.









Here's the tally:

Infantry:
6 Units of Legionaires @ 24 figures each = 144
3 Units of Auxiliary Infantry @ 24 figures each = 72
1 Unit of Archers @ 24 figures = 24
1 unit of Scorpions with 12 crew = 12
2 infantry on the large command stand = 2

Total : 254 Infantry @ 2 points = 508 points

Cavalry
2 Units of Aux Cav @12 figures = 24
2 Mounted Commanders = 2

Total 26 Cav @ 4 each = 104 points

Artillery
4 scorpions @ 2 pts each = 8
(since the score's are really small I discounted the point value)

The ruined temple piece came as a free reward with the kickstarter and is meant to be used as an objective marker - it's too small to count as terrain so zero points for that.

Grand Total: 620 points