Another Late Roman outing

So, Thursday evening saw another outing for my Late Romans.  This time they were venturing way beyond their comfort zone as a Western army somewhere in the deserts of the Middle East, taking on the Sassanids.

My army was pretty much unchanged from last time except units were equipped with leaders and standards.  This meant dropping a bolt thrower, a unit of Lanciarii and combining 2 shock cavalry units of 15 figures into a single unit of 12, to bring points down to 2500.

Si's Sassanids included four units of clibinarii with saves of 2+, making them hard to kill.  There were also two units of spears/archer combined infantry, a unit of horse archers and another of Iranian mounted javelin men.  The powerful clibinarii ate up points, but were the M1/Challengers of the day.

Opening dispositions with no terrain from the random selection.

Mounted javelins and archers.

Those naughty clibinarii.

My heroic shock cavalry and light cavalry behind.

Legionnaires and Cataphracts.

The Roman right with more legions, bolt throwers and a rather rash unit of lanciarii.

No more lanciarii and one of the legions taking losses from the bow armed light cavalry.

Cataphracts chased off the skirmishers and crashed into the Persian centre infantry.

Charge and counter charge resulted in lots of drawn melee, which continued through turns 2 to 5.  Sadly, some disastrous dice rolls in turn 6 on the Roman left saw the cavalry and a legion fleeing, leaving no choice for the rest of the army but to withdraw.  It was satisfying to despatch the javelin horse on the right flank.  Much like the Roman's historically, one learned the power of those heavily armoured Persian horse.  I may have to give my Cataphracts bucklers, so they too save on 2+.  I also need some allied Hun horse archers.

A fun game, more progress on the WAB learning curve.  Now to finish the Christmas assembly line of Gripping Beast Cataphracts, Victrix armored legionnaires, archers and slingers and some Foundry sub-Romans to double up as cheap pedyts.

Thanks for looking.

28mm WAB action Late Romans vs a barbarian conspiracy.

Thursday night club  action.  My 28mm Late Romans taking on Si G's central European Barbarian hordes using WAB historical ancients rules.

Four legionary units and Cataphracts in the centre, 4 Scorpions, a unit each of Lanciarii and shock cavalry on the left, units of shock cavalry, horse archers and Lanciarii on the right.

I didnt pay for leaders for the cavalry or standards for any of the units, which meant I was one down on each combat, wont make that mistake again.  Now to source some Hun allies for their Parthian shot ability.

Fun to play and the table looked great.  The Barbarians definitely had the upper hand after 5 turns.

Thanks for looking.
 

Late Romans for WAB now in movement trays

 I've a couple of games of WAB booked for next month, so I dusted off last winter's project, my Late Romans and have spent the last couple of weeks finishing off some part complete units.  I had the front rank of these Wargames Atlantic Late Romans in Spangenhelms finished this time last year, but ran out of steam with the rest of the unit.  So, I finished the second rank and added a third rank of Gripping Beast archers.  This will be my elite infantry unit.  The officer is "Arthur", purchased from Col Bills.  The shield design is generic, derived from on of the illustrations in Fall of the West.

The Herculiani Seniores, the only historical unit I know as I used decals from The Baggage Train for their shields.  All figures are Gripping Beast.

A mix of Gripping Beast and Wargames Atlantic figures provide another unit of pedites in a darker green uniform.  Shield design is again a hand drawn generic version based on Fall of the West.

Gripping Beast figures in vermillion with plain pale blue shields, based on an illustration from the Notitia Dignitatum. 

And finally, for now, a pair of newly painted Scorpions, ready to keep elephants at bay, or at least enrage them, or to provoke warbands into attacking.  These are from Wargames Foundry and kindly sent to me by Richard Phillips (many thanks Mr P).

Movement trays are from Warbases.  I tried to purchase these at a show, but was disappointed to find out they don't carry them to shows, so had to order by mail.  Still, postage was reasonable and turn around very quick.

I have another set of Scorpions and a handful of Gripping Beast unarmoured pedites, which I'm painting as marines, to be used as skirmishers.  I also have a box of Cataphracts, although I suspect they may not be ready in time for December, so my Goth heavy cavalry will probably have to serve in their place.  Finally, an impulse buy from the last show was a bag of sub-Roman pedites from Col Bills, 12 spearmen, musician, standard bearer and commander.  I might do these in a less uniform set of more homespun colours, with a view to using them as sub-Roman or as Limitanii or Romanized foederatii (apparently Romanitas was much prized even among "barbarian" tribes picking over the spoils of the collapsing western empire).

As ever, thanks for looking.

More 28mm Late Roman shock cavalry

 More Late Roman shock cavalry from my club purchase, this time mainly unarmored cavalry.  I've done these on Royal Blue uniforms with a green and white shield pattern.

Some close ups of the figures.

The labarum carrier, again bearing the chirho symbol.

Lots on the painting table although a new puppy is taking up a lot of time.

Thanks for looking.