The First of the Newly-Raised Legions

A long time ago, even before I went to Poland at the start of the nineties, I painted an army for the original Tactica supplement's list for the Pontics. I used Essex figures, because those were pretty much the best available at the time, and I still have a soft spot for them. One of the options was the imitation legionary, so I painted three units of 24 figures, each with a different colour of plain shield, using the Essex 'Roman' Argyraspid figure.

I had always intended to pick up from where I left off with these, and use them as the basis for a newly-formed legion. Fast-forward another few years (!) and I finally got around to doing this with one of them. I took the guys with the red shields, 'distressed' them a little bit, and added another forty legionaries and assorted command stands to bring them up to strength. The original guys are lurking at the rear in these photos.

This is something of a test, and I think they have come out fine. I can do the same with the other two batches at one point, but I thought I'd give this a shot now so that I could use them as part of my cast of many for the upcoming Philippi game at the Society of Ancients conference in October.

They will probably be needed in the coming years of our campaign, because there is going to be a lot of Roman in-fighting. At one point I will paint up some Greek-type commands to turn them back into Imitation Legions again. I hope the uniform look and the plain shields make them look like raw recruits.

Next up: a mounted legate and some casualties for this legion, then it's some cavalry for Philippi: Roman Equites and Celtiberian auxiliaries.