Instant Army! Just Add Paint!

I hadn't meant to build an Early Imperial army this year. Honest. I've got Caesarian/Late Republican and Late Imperial armies in 15mm already. An army for the Early Empire/Principate had it's appeal obviously, but if and when I built an army of the Principate logically it should be in 15mm, right? Yeah well, Opportunity knocked, so I thought it behooved me to answer the door.

So obviously I've been fondling my new found Legions a lot lately and mentally sorting them. I've got a very good start on a decent sized army. The Warlord Starter Army contains:

• 60 Legionaries
• 24 Auxiliaries
• 20 'Veteran' Legionaries
• 20 Praetorian Guards

Add to that the 24 Auxiliaries from the boxed set and the 3 Scorpions. Plus there is the very nice Centurion that came with my copy of Hail Caesar.

I also discovered in my unpainted stash that my thoughtful friends have brought back from assorted conventions 16 of the Warlord sample Legionaries. That's a decent sized unit! While working on some WW2 Russians the other night I also remembered that on my book shelf, guarding my copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars and Goldsworthy's The Roman Army was a sample figure I got from Navigator Miniatures years back and painted up for fun. He's a nice Tribune from the Punic Wars who probably never thought he'd be commanding anything, let alone Imperial Legionaries! But here he has become the first painted figure for my new project! I want to rebase him (I'm thinking all my command will go on round bases) and do some shading on the cloak but otherwise he looks not-that-bad:

Currently I'm thinking 16-20 figure standard units. 4 figures on a 40mm x 40mm base (50x50 for cavalry and artillery). This would give me:

• 3x 16 figure cohorts of Auxiliaries
• 4x 20 figure cohorts of Legionaries (including the veterans)
• 1x 16 figure cohort of Legionaries
• 1x 20 figure cohort of Praetorians
• 3x Scorpions
• 2x Commanders

I am of the opinion that one should have at least 50% Auxiliaries in an Imperial army, so obviously I need more, at least 3 cohorts. I need more shooty bits too, so some cohorts of Sagitarri (archers) are a must. Especially some Eastern ones, just because their uniforms are different. Also a cohort of Funditores (slingers) would be very useful against just about anyone.

Obviously I need cavalry. 3 or 4 8-10 figure alae of your basic javelin armed Auxiliary cavalry. Cataphracts are very nifty but they didn't enter the Imperial Order of Battle until the reign of Hadrian. Of course I'm probably going to want to use this army for battles from the reign of Augustus right up to Marcus Aurelius, so maybe some cataphracts and eastern horse archers wouldn't be wrong.

I also need more commanders. A mounted Legate or two, with some other staff types to add to their bases would be nice.  In 15mm I have some nice command stands with the mounted legate surrounded by trumpeters, a standard, and a few junior officers. I'd like to repeat that in 28mm. The cohorts will also need more command groups so that every unit has at least a signum and a centurion. I also need an Eagle! I mean what self-respecting Roman army doesn't have an Eagle?

Baggage too. As readers of this blog are aware I'm quite partial to having a supply echelon for all of my miniature armies. I do have some 25mm baggage mules and wagons in my Medieval collection that I could co-opt if I can come up with some suitably Roman looking drivers.

To fight them I am fortunate in that two of my friends are also building 25mm Romans. There were certainly lots of civil wars to inspire scenarios until somebody can build a German or Persian army.