Ancient Sharp Practice

Once again, thngs have fallen together serendipitously. Or it's kismet. Or it's all Patrick's fault.

I've been fascinated by the shadowy 3rd century Roman army for ages now, since researching Legion & Empire. Armorum & Aquila are the only extensive and dedicated 3rd century range of figures out there. Here are some nicely painted examples:

http://lonelygamers.blogspot.com/2009/07/miniatures-palmyran-army-3rd-century.html

http://tartys.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-romans.html

Any other I've seen has been a disappointing mash up of Early Imperial troops with some Late Imperial cavalry and skirmishers thrown in.

Plus after the frustrations of designing Legion & Empire, I realized that the big battle wasn't really where it was at for most of  Imperial Roman military history. Most of your fighting was done by the frontier garrisons, chasing barbarian raiders or doing some raiding of their own. I've thought for a long while that an 'army' based around a cohors equitata (a mixed unit consisting of a cohort of 480 auxiliary infantry and a turmae of 124 cavalry) would be pretty cool, and satisfyingly heavy on the auxiliaries. I find most Roman armies have way too many legionaries and not enough auxiliaries to be honest.

So, last week Patrick gives me this:

Which gets the juices going again. And gets me looking at the A&A catalogue, for the umpteenth time.

Around the same time Richard Clarke lets out on social media that he's bashing on with a Roman adaptation of Sharp Practice.

Then, while surveying the lead pile, I notice that I have a nice little pile of close to 100 plastic (Wargames Factory originally I think) German tribesmen looking for foes. God knows where they came from, I think my friends collected free giveaways at a convention and sent them my way.

Then I see that Armorum & Aquila is running a nice "buy 4 get 1 free" sale this month.

Order sent. At a 1:10 figure ratio a cohors equitata is 48 foot, and 12 cavalry. A nice tidy little force to work on this fall.