Breaktime Blasts from the Past: Dux Bellorum Late Roman Army

Ever since I read Rosemary Sutcliff's novels about ancient Britain (The Eagle of Ninth, The Silver Branch, The Lantern Bearers, The Sword at Sunset, The Shining Company, etc!) I have had a fascination with the Late Roman era in the West and Dark Age Britain.  With the publishing of Dux Bellorum I have found a game that I truly enjoy for gaming a period that I enjoy so much.

I have completed my first army and now it is time to show off!

The might of a Rome, starting to fade but still packs a punch.

My General and Dux Bellorum (Leader of Battles) with his mounted comitatus.

 

The bulk of the Roman infantry is "Shield wall".  They can be superior infantry ("noble" in game terminology),ordinary or a combination or the two. I have four units for my army.

I have three cavalry units:  Cataphract (though actually they are modeled as the Clibinarri with bows), Riders and mounted Skirmishers with javelins. The riders can also be superior cavalry ("nobles").

Last but not least are my bow armed infantry and skirmishers.  I made 2 stands of bows; when separate they will be foot skirmishers with bows and when combined they will be bows.  In addition I have a foot skirmisher unit armed with javelins.

Now to finish those Saxons that keep raiding Britain . . .

Epic Revolution, Part 5: The 71st Regiment of Foot (Fraser's Highlanders) Painting Guide

 

The 71st Regiment of Foot (Fraser's Highlanders) in 28mm from Perry Miniatures.

I can definitely tell you that I am not going to paint my 12.5mm Epic Highlanders with the same detail as the above Perry's. I have painted the 71st two previous times using Old Glory Miniatures and Perry Miniatures. The good news is the quality of the Warlord Games Epic Highlanders that are resin. The figures do come in strips but there are a few individual figures for options so I used one to figure out how I was going to paint the unit. As always, this is a painting guide, not the painting guide.

Prime in white as I don't want the figures to look too dark as they are smaller.

I used Citadel Contrast (CC) Darkoath (BWAH HAH HAH!) Flesh for the skin.

I used Vallejo (V) Flat Red for the dicing on the band. As I painted I cleaned it up a bit.

V Dark Blue for the bonnet and CC Black Templar for the feather.

CC Blood Angels Red for the jacket.

I'll clean up the turnbacks later; fortunately the facing color and turnbacks for the 71st is white.

Trouser/coveralls are V Flat Earth.

The haversack and strap are V Buff. The cartridge box, bayonet scabbard, and canteen are CC Black Templar.

The musket is V Mahogany Brown. That's it. I'm not doing the metal parts of the musket for speed of painting.

V Gold for the cypher on the cartridge box and the end of the bayonet scabbard.

The hair will be various shades of brown, black and yellow ochre. The epaulettes, cuffs and turnbacks are V Flat white. The boots are also CC Templar black and I painted over the canteen with V Steel.

That's it! Quick and easy. Now to do the unit!

Epic Revolution, Part 4: The Highlanders Blister Pack

Image courtesy of Warlord Games, Ltd.

When I really decide on a project, I usually get a bunch of stuff as I design my forces. How can I do a British army without Highlanders? This will be my experience with the new Warlord Resin (when I purchased them I thought they were plastic). So what do you get? You get 10 strips of infantry and an additional 10 separate figures for the light infantry company. One strip are grenadiers with wings, one strip is command with options, and one strip has a space for a bagpiper or a regular ranker - of course it's going to be the bagpiper! If i counted correctly there are 112 figures with wood bases to mount them.

Wow. That's some detail. I was at first concerned how I would paint the dicing on the bonnet but I see that it is molded on the figure. I'm impressed as this is a 12.5mm figure measuring from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head (not counting the bonnet). The resin is firm but a little flexible so there should be no issue with breakage - thank goodness they are not marching with bayonets!

One grenadier strip - note the detail with wings.

Command strip with two spaces which allows you to customize with standard bearers, another soldier or a bagpiper. There is also one infantry strip that has a space to add an extra figure. This is where my piper will go.

Standard bearers and piper. The standard bearers were the only figures that had extra flash. I've noticed that all of the poles for the flags in the Epic Revolution line have cross beams below the finial. I'm guessing that this adds extra stability for the molding process and they are easily removed.

There are 10 light infantry figures.

There are also six wood bases that 60mm x 20 mm included in the blister pack.

A great value that I got on eBay for $15.00 (USD) with free shipping.

Epic Revolution, Part 3: I'm Officially Starting a New Project . . . Unboxing the Continental Army Brigade

 Okay I'm going to do it. I'll post later why. I was able to get the Continental Army Brigade from eBay for $5 (USD) below retail and free shipping (BWAH HAH HAH!). So what do you get? Per the Warlord Games website:

4 mounted Continental commanders

2 Continental small Militia regiment (120 soldiers)

1 Continental standard Militia regiment (80 soldiers)

1 Continental small Regulars regiment (60 soldiers)

1 Continental Artillery piece (1 cannon)

2 Continental tiny Cavalry regiments (8 cavalry)

1 Continental small Riflemen regiment skirmishing (15 soldiers)

Plus:

Plastic bases

Full colour British & Continental flag leaflet

Assembly & Painting guide leaflet

Did I mention a flag sheet?

British Colors: King's Color and Regimental Color for the 23rd (Royal Welch Fusiliers), 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot, 33rd (West Riding) Regiment of Foot, 44th Regiment of Foot, 63rd Regiment of Foot, and the 64th Regiment of Foot. A nice selection of Colors as it represents units that did a lot of fighting and gives you essentially one facing color each which at this scale can just represent generic units.

Hessian: Leibfahne (Colonel's Colors) and Ordinärfahne (Regimental Colors) of Fusilier Regiment von Knyphausen, Musketeer Regiment von Donop, Regiment von Mirbach, Grenadier Regiment von Rall, Musketeer Leib Regiment (Erbprinz) and Musketeer Regiment von Bose.

French: Colonel's Flag and Regimental Flag for the Regiment de Gatinais.

Americans: The Betsy Ross Flag, the Grand Union flag, General Washington's Headquarters Flag and five flags with the Striped Canton and a colored field. I think we got a little lazy with the American flags; then again, it is really hard to pin down which flags were actually carried. Washington's HQ flag is perplexing as there are no "HQ units" in the range but I look at it as a vignette project.

You get one frame of the Infantry sprue which can be used either for the British or the Americans. It gives you a nice mixture of very formal looking soldiers and some that are more less(!) uniformed. In addition you have options for how many standard bearers you want if you paint them as British.

Sigh. I told you I was catching up on water colors.

You get one artillery piece; note the extra heads for the British artillery that wore that type of helmet.

Uniformed infantry.

Less uniformed Infantry.

Here are the Militia sprues that include a mounted officer, 4 riflemen, 1 Continental dragoon, and 1 mounted infantry/militia cavalry. You get 4 frames in the box.

And of course enough base frames for all of the figures; here is what the frame looks like:

Yep. I now have three gaming projects to keep me quite busy.