Last of the Caetrati

Finished the last of these bad boys.  Skirmishing Caetrati in traditional white, by Navigator Miniatures.  All that's left for me to do for this army is the light horse and some more command stands.

How they look from above.  I've put them in a wedge for absolutely no reason - just to vary the photos, I suppose.  There's no game effect for it.  Running total for 2013 is 82 cavalry and 736 foot figures.

Triumphant Celtiberians: the Battle Report

Despite the fact that they destroyed several Roman armies and gave the Ancient Borg a really hard time on and off for over 200 years, the Iberians don't seem to turn up on the wargames table as often as they deserve, except when fighting as mercenaries for someone else.  They are one of the forces I've always fancied getting, just because a whole army of them would be rather out of the ordinary.  So when Dougie said he had a load of the Companion Miniatures figures available, I went for it.

Our ongoing campaign has now reached the point where one of the major conflicts between the peoples of Iberia and the encroaching assimilators of all joy has erupted, and for the first time I was able to field the army in its own right.  Deployment map:

I don't have any photos of the battle itself, because I still don't have the lighting the way I want it, but here is a short series of Battle Chronicler maps.  The first one (above) shows the field and the relative deployments.  The Celtiberians, in blue at the top, have come out of their hills and encountered a Roman army in a relatively well watered area with some woods scattered around the place - probably the plantations of that most odious of species, the Roman Eques.  The Celtiberians have formed up with the mass of their infantry in the open area, flanked by contingents of cavalry and those nasty Caetrati for which they are so justifiably famous.  I chose and deployed the army, because I supplied it, but to be as umpirically fair (is that even a word?) I built the forces before rolling for terrain - hence the two loose formation warbands at both ends of the main line.  I also supplied the Romans and built their force for the game, but I left it to others to deploy this lot.  The guys in red are Romans, white are Socii Legions, and yellow denotes mercenary skirmishers.  The Romans basically have a proconsular legion minus the Triarii.  Simon set them up in alternating "cohorts" of Hastati and Principes, deployed in depth in the centre and with each end of the line held by troops in a more shallow formation, ably supported by the heavy cavalry.

After seeing the Roman set up, I thought they would hold back and let the Celtiberians come to them.  The Romans have superiority in skirmishers, and hold the field - all they need to do is hold for a draw in campaign terms.  However, they did that Roman aggression thing that got so many of them killed at Cannae:

I've zoomed in on the central action because I was playing the Spanish left wing and I couldn't really see what was happening on the other flank.  Also, the two sides seemed to settle into a bit of a stalemate over there, so the decision point would come, inevitably, in the middle of the field.The Warbands were held off quite easily by the Latin legions, who seemed rather unperturbed by supposedly wild charges, but the Roman legionaries had a worse time of it in the initial stages.  The Roman right had a bit of an overlap, and I held my contingent back as far as possible to prolong the time before contact.

However, the legionary line facing me came forward, allowing the Equites to go in at the oblique to help against the loose formation loons at this point.

Just as it looked as though the legions would win through, the leftmost (shallow) unit of Latins collapsed - well, it was outnumbered - but unfortunately for the Italians there was a cascade failure and the whole left of their line ran for it.  One of the Roman units disintegrated as well, but the rest of the boys in red didn't seem to mind too much.  The warband hit by the Roman cavalry routed at the same time, as did one of the closer formation warbands, disordering some of their friends and my Caetrati, but it wasn't enough.  And, just because I can, here's a picture I took of the Celtiberian victory when I managed to get some decent daylight:

Very little deters the juggernaut of Rome, however, and another army is already on its way...

A Roman City in the Making

You have to see this to believe it.  Pino Chiodi left a message on the blog post about our Ilipa game, including the link to his blog, and I had a look.  Amazing!

Quick addition: welcome, Giuseppe, and thanks for joining.  I'll try to reciprocate - I just need to work out how the Google circles thing works!

Triumphant Celtiberians

A single shot of the aftermath of yesterday evening's game:

The light in the evenings isn't good enough for photos, but I left the figures on the field at the point of Celtiberian success.  The gap in front of them was occupied by Socii legions before they had a catastrophic morale collapse.   Just wanted to record the moment before Rome sends in another army...

Skirmishing Caetrati

First of two batches of 24:

I made this lot multicoloured so that they fit in with the Celtiberians.

The rest will be in traditional white.  Figures by Navigator, courtesy of Magister Miltum.

Saying Hello...

...to Nortius Maximus and Legatus Hedlius.  Nortius has a blog here with a nice baggage element in progress at the moment.  I really should think about this sort of thing too!  Legatus, on the other hand, has FIVE blogs.  Click on his profile picture to get to them...

Thanks for joining, guys.

A Few Slingers More

Sixteen of them; I thought I had another twenty-four, but at least this means I was able to finish them more quickly:

I wanted some in different colours, to help differentiate them from the men in white.  And also because I could - it made them more interesting to paint.

And that's me finished my Companion Miniatures Spanish.  I have some Navigator Miniatures skirmish infantry and light horse to do, plus some cavalry command bases as well as a high command stand by Gripping Beast.  And that will be this project finished, at least as much as they ever are...

Companion Miniatures Spanish Slingers

Nasty, these - they'll do very nicely for Balearics:

A ground level shot.  I've varied the shield and sling colours for some interest.

And one from the vantage point of the gamer.  There are 24 of them, and I have the same again already painted but needing to be based.  I've painted the second batch in various colours to make them fit in with my Celtiberians.

Ilipa again

On Tuesday we replayed the scenario for Ilipa, mainly because when we ran it the first time none of our local players was able to make it.

We played the game in the evening, when the light is so poor that photos don't come out.  However, I did take some shots of the initial setup on my home table.  First up (above) is a long shot of the whole battle, Romans on the left.

Second is a slightly angled shot of the Roman army.

The third and final photo shows the forces fighting for Carthage.  It was an all-out Roman victory this time, with Carthage being comprehensively crushed.

Dust

Coarse sponge, splatted with sandy paint.  I dislike markers, especially for large display games.  I want things to look uncluttered, so I have gone for casualty dials and now dust markers.  Certain unit types gain extra impetus dice in our rules of choice, and I wanted some way to represent this.  I shamelessly "borrowed" the idea from a post made by Big Lee on 6mm WWII desert warfare - credit where credit's due, after all!  Having said that, his look a lot better than mine.  Maybe the elephants are being chased by giant gerbils...

On the Painting Tray: December 2013

40 slingers and 48 Caetrati: skirmishers for my ancient Spanish army.  The slingers are the last of my Companion Miniatures figures.  To finish off, I've bought the extra Caetrati and a load of light cavalry from Navigator Miniatures at Magister Militum.  They are noticeably smaller than the Companion Miniatures guys, but I'm not too worried about that because they are meant to represent units of younger guys in the skirmish line and on little ponies.  They would fit well with the likes of 1st Corps.  We'll see how many of this lot I manage to finish for the end of the year...