Since I left you last I have been steadily building and painting my Imperial Roman Legion. The good news is that several units are now beginning to take shape and a big push over the next couple of months should see the bulk of this army completed.
As a reminder my legion will consist of the following
10 cohorts of heavy armoured Imperial Roman infantry. With
Warlord figures readily available at a cheap price on eBay these have been my
go to range. For the best discounts check out the big army boxes. There will be
some of you out there that will wax lyrical about the Victrix models and I can
testify that they are beautiful but when building these big armies sometimes
quality has to be sacrificed for cost.
Each cohort will consist of 20 figures with four to a base.
The bases (warbases) are 5cm x 5cm giving the overall frontage of each unit
25cm. This is consistent with the basing used for the Britons. I understand
from some simple research that the first cohort was numerically twice the size
of the others so it will be double ranked with 10 stands (same facing). This
means I need a total of 220 legionaries…..and guess what, the good news from
the Shed is that aside from command, standards and musicians they are all
painted.
The bases still need painting and grass added
I also discovered that a typical legion would have 60
scorpions (light artillery) so it seems entirely reasonable to put one scorpion
with each cohort as a separate base. I have 8 warlord scorpions available and
two from black tree. These are yet to be assembled etc.
This infantry core is going to need some support so in the
plans I have set out the following
Three units of Imperial Roman Cavalry (these are sourced
from Victrix). Each pack delivers sixteen horse and riders and with my units 10
figures strong I can field the three units and have two riders spare for
command stands. The figures have all been assembled and painted. Just waiting on their horses.
Five units of Auxiliary infantry (Warlord Plastics) –
to cater for the lack of command stands I will press into service some spares I
have from the standard legionary boxes. These are all now painted and dipped. Just need to be based and shields added
Three units of archers, these are mix of warlord and black
tree metals. There will be two western style and one eastern style unit. No progress on these yet
Finally there are a couple of extra units to be thrown into
the mix
One unit of Praetorians (warlord) – a large cohort (40
figures/10 bases) has been assembled and primed. I appreciate the Praetorians
rarely saw campaign action but they look nice and pretty. Status – assembled
and painted - to be based and shields added
One unit of Marines (warlord) – this is a standard unit of
20 warlord legionnaires that will be given blue tunics and the spare hexagonal
shield that came with the Roman cavalry. Status - assembled and Primed.
part 3 here
Finally there will of course be the usual rag tag of
commanders and officers
More soon
