Late roman generals and a look back at my original inspiration

[Nathan]

I have painted two more sub-generals for my 15mm Late Roman army which means I now have enough figures completed for a 10,000pt army.



As with my previous commanders for this army, the quality of the general is shown by the shield colour, using the standard MeG colour codes and the shields are attached by magnets so they can be swapped over as required.



The figures are old Minifigs, Asgard and (the commander waving a mace about) Gladiator, with quite a lot of conversions and additions. I've no idea who made the grey horse, it was one I found in a box of odds and ends that seemed suitable after a bit of carving about of the harness. The vexilla are made from brass rod soldered into a cross then a small round disk cut from plastic sprue glued on and aluminium foil for the actual vexilla. I hand painted the designs based on pictures in the Osprey book 'Roman Standards & Standard-Bearers (2)'.





As I have written before, I originally started this army when I was at school back in the 1980s but only painted a few figures before moving on to other things, leaving it unfinished in a box until late 2018. I was originally inspired to want a Late Roman army by pictures and comments by Phil Barker in the PSL Guide to Wargaming, published in 1980 and long out of print. One of the pictures was of the right wing of an army using 25mm Minifigs models so I thought it would be fun to recreate now I have my army painted.

Here is the original:



And my 15mm version:



Although I have a few more figures to paint to provide more options for this army, they will have to wait a while as I have a WW2 project that needs some attention first.

As ever, I have some more photos and detail on my blog.

https://smallitalianwars.blogspot.com

[Lanceflint]

Amazing, inspirational, world class art work.
The shield idea is also very clever.
Lance.

[WillR]

They look fantastic. I'm going to borrow your shield idea.

[Nathan]

Thanks for the kind comments. Here is the whole army lines up for inspection.



I have some three ballista still to paint and spare old Minifigs, Asgard and Gladiator figures that would allow me to expand the cataphracts and heavy cavalry to 6 bases each, the skirmishers to 8 bases, and the legionaries and one auxilia with integral shooters . Alternatively, after reading 'nikgaukroger's blog post on the Imperial Roman Army of Constantius II, I'm wondering about using them for a fourth unit of legionaries. So many choices and so few points!

https://smallitalianwars.blogspot.com/2021/07/late-roman-army-for-mortem-et-gloriam.html