Roman Cavalry and Velites, Impetus style

Progress on my Impetus-based Mid-Republican Romans (MRR) came to a screeching halt when I discovered I didn't have enough bases for the figures I painted up. Trips to 2 local gaming stores failed to turn up what I needed so I turned to the net and put in an order with Litko Game Accessories.  And waited.  And waited.  I love their product but I hate the 3-4 week wait.

Roman Medium Cavalry:  During this era, Roman cavalry was generally "not the equal" of their opponents. I'm trying to mince words because I don't want to jinx my first and only Roman cavalry unit!  Essentially, these boys will be fodder on the battlefield.  

Velites:  If you know how to properly pronounce velites, congratulations!  You're the rare bird who's had the benefit of a classical education that includes Latin. As the skirmishing arm of the Roman legions, velites were composed of the youngest and poorest soldiers, armed with a short sword, javelins and a wooden shield.

For the photograph, I stacked all 5 units of Velites together.  In a game of Impetus, each base operates independently.  As a painter, I appreciate that 4 figures represents an entire skirmishing unit!

You've probably noticed that velites wear an animal's head or a bit of fur in lieu of a helmet.  I did tell you these guys were poor, right?  Before you comment on their fashion sensibilities, everyone on THIS side of the Atlantic should remember that American frontiersmen were also in the habit of wearing animal hats, bits and fur on their heads as well.  I propose that Davy Crockett was not just King of the Wild Frontier, he was also the penultimate velite!

Up next will be my Roman baggage.  In Impetus, armies are accompanied by a baggage train which is represented by a rectangular base on the battlefield.  On the base, you can create a small diorama of a camp.  Loss of the baggage costs you 3 points, which is a step towards your army breaking.  While somewhat predictable, I'm creating a fortified Roman camp to represent my Roman baggage.  After that, I basically have a playable MRR army!

Ottoman Heavy Artillery

These Ottoman Heavy Artillery minis are from Venexia Miniatures and they'll help port my Later Ottoman Turks into Field of Glory Renaissance.  Bruce is busy painting up a Cossack army and we'll give FoG Renaissance a go later this year.  I found a US distributor for Venexia and bought out their entire stock of Ottoman artillery.   There's something about the freakishly enormous wheels on these. Once I saw them, I knew I had to buy them and paint them up!

I painted the metallic areas on the wheels and frame in black and then painted silver over the top, thin enough to leave a thin strip of black as a shadow. It worked to good effect, given how much metal is on these monsters.  I used Devlon Mud to blacken the ends of the brass colored barrels to give the appearance that they've been in heavy use. There's a ton of detail on these figures and such excellent molding give a painter the opportunity to shine.  One day, I'm going to have to paint up a Venexia army.

Lastly, I want to share some photos that came to me from a blogger from Istanbul named Artar. Remember the line from the movie Crocodile Dundee when Paul Hogan is threatened by a tough guy with a switchblade? Paul says "That's not a knife!" and whips out his enormous Bush Knife and says "THIS is a knife!"

Paul Hogan looks over my Later Ottoman artillery and says "That's not Ottoman Heavy Artillery.  THIS is Heavy Artillery!"

Spotlight on the Gauls

The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, a region roughly covering what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy.  The Gauls had the great misfortune of sharing a border with the Romans and the two were often at war.  The Gauls managed to sack Rome in 387 BC and as a consequence, the Romans had a deep fear and hatred for them that lasted until they were conquered by Caesar in 50 BC. When Hannibal invaded Italy during the second Punic war, a number of Gallic tribes joined him and contributed to his many victories over the Romans.  That didn't help the Roman "fear and loathing" either, I bet.  

This was a project that I fell into rather than planned thanks to a bargain on Bartertown for an unpainted Old Glory Gallic Starter Army with Litko bases.  I snapped it up and then began to wonder what I'd been thinking.  The rumors are true...painting a Gallic Army is a test of endurance. Of the 184 figures of Heavy Foot in this army, every one has a unique color scheme and that's why painting Gauls is so tough. I'd suggest  a simple cheat to speed things up.  Select 4 to 8 color combinations/patterns that you really like.  Mount the like-posed figures together on Popsicle sticks. Paint each stick with the same scheme and when you're finished, make sure that you don't put the same pose/colors next to each other.  I believe a smaller set of color combinations would make this army more pleasing to the eye than the "every man in unique" technique I employed.  When I was halfway through this project, my son walked in, looked the figures over and said, "It looks like a clown army!"


Heavy Foot:  The first set of pictures is all 46 bases of Heavy Foot.  One of the challenges in running Gauls is that you have to decide early on whether you want to run them as Heavy or Medium Foot.  Given all the Roman armies in our club, this was an easy decision for me. I chose to build them as Heavy Foot.  To run them as Medium would give me more speed and the ability to go into terrain but at the cost of being extra brittle when losing to heavy foot and cavalry.

Soldurii:  In Field of Glory, the Soldurii represent a well armored, elite bodyguard.  As armored elite heavy foot, they're the single killer unit the Gauls get to field. You can only take 6 bases of Soldurii so use them wisely!

Cavalry:  If you're going to run Gauls in FoG, this is where you need to figure out a way to win.  Running an army of protected, average, undrilled Foot is a challenge in the ancient world.  I put together a lot of cavalry and chariots in hopes that I could win on the wings in battle.

 Chariots:  Chariots are quite expensive and also, labor-intensive to build. Make sure you have a pin drill handy for assembling these.  Still, it's a nice visual effect when you put them all out on the table in a single file!

Slingers: The Gallic list is a light on skirmishers so I consider these fellows a must-have.  This was the first time I utilized "black lining" and I was pleased with the results.

Javelinmen:  One of the great things about having teenage children is that my very existence can be an embarrassment to them. When my daughter saw that these Javelinmen were going to be  fielded with no clothes, she asked if I was going to take them out in public. I explained  that the Gallic proclivity to fight sans pants is well known amongst history geeks and thus, I wouldn't be embarrassing myself by fielding nude figures. Well, at least not these figures.  I was quite careful in applying highlights and washes  to these figures as I didn't want to draw too much attention for reasons of, um, modesty!

A quick note about the tattoos.  I started with dark blue but kept working my way up for something that popped. The sky-blue looks great to the naked eye (get it?) but I couldn't get a shot that captured that effect with my camera.  In these shots, it just looks washed out.  

Commanders:  I put my Commander in Chief in a Chariot.  All the better to run away when things go south, I suppose.

Camp:  This camp is nearly scratch made. The tent is made out of paper towel and toothpicks. The large rocks are actually driftwood from the North Shore.  Okay, so I didn't scratch make the 2 figures or the tree but for me, this is pretty good!

I enjoy my Gauls for their color and vibrancy.  I also enjoy their "lost cause" history.  They dared to stand up to Rome and were crushed under her heel.  If you are thinking of painting up a Gallic army, one of the big pluses is how easily they morph into the other "barbarian" armies of the period such as:

1.  Galatians

2.  Picts

3.  Early Germans

4.  Early British
5. Teuton and Cimbri

While Roman versus Gauls is a tough matchup for Gauls in FoG, they have a fighting chance in Impetus.  This weekend, I'm going to take these boys out of the box and run them against my newly painted Mid Republican Romans.  Large Unit and the Impetus bonus should give the Gauls a fighting chance to win.  While this army is based for FoG, I can field it in Impetus as long as I make sure that the units are no more than two bases wide.    Brent put dibs on the Gauls and I suspect he's going to hit me with the dreaded "Boar's Head" formation to cave in my thin red Roman line!