Principes for Zama

I Legio Principes to go with the Hastati I've already painted. These 1st Corps figures have some touches that I really like. The standard bearer has a lion skin; the Hastati standard bearer wears a bearskin. There are two different standards, one of which has a small eagle part-way down the shaft as opposed to the discs the guy in the picture above has on his. There are also two kinds of throwing spears, one of which is meant to be the slightly lighter one for the initial volley, to be followed by the heavier one with the square weight behind the shaft. For the Principes, I've chosen to place the heavier one in the left hands behind the shields. The good thing is that all these slight variations plus the several different poses make the Romans a little bit less uniform; it certainly makes them less of a chore to paint. This is going to matter, because I'm planning to do four legions of them, and one can quite easily become bored if that number of figures are too similar. I have a large Seleucid army, and after a while all those pikemen became rather tiresome to finish, even when varying the paint schemes as much as possible. I've scheduled myself to paint a couple of dozen legionary figures every two weeks, which is within my budget. It will also allow me to finish the legions for the first time we put on the game in April next year - I'm in for the long term grind...

Armenians against Pontics

Last night was Armenians against Early Pontics. Simon chose and deployed the Pontic army (in red, above). Their right wing (William) was a mixture of cavalry types: T1 and T2 each 8 Tarentine light horse in two ranks; S1 8 Skythian horse archers in 2 ranks; and HC1 and HC2 each 12 Heavy Cavalry in two ranks. Their centre (David and Paul) was an interspersed mix: P1 and P2 12 Peltasts each, in two ranks; G1 and G2 each 36 Galatian Warbands in six ranks: B Brazen Shields Phalanx in four ranks of twelve; Ch1 and Ch2 2 Scythed Chariots each, followed by CAT x2, units of twelve Cataphracts in 2 ranks. Their left (Billy) was composed of Th, eighteen Thureophoroi in two ranks; HC 3 and HC 4 each twelve Heavy Cavalry in two ranks; T3, a unit of eight tarentines in two ranks; and S2 and S3, each eight Skythian horse archers in two ranks.
I chose and deployed the Armenian army, in blue above. The left wing (Willy) was CAT1, a unit of eighteen Cataphracts in two ranks, and H1 and H2, two twelve-figure light infantry units in two ranks. The centre (Gordon) was five Warbands of Iberian infantry, each of 36 figures in three ranks. The right (Finn), was two more units each of eighteen Cataphracts in two ranks, and two units of twelve Armenian horse archers in three ranks. Unlike the Pontic army, the Armenians had a large number of skirmishers spread across the front of the army. Because of the number of players, and Finn joining in, after set-up I bowed out, which was a nice change. I actually got to speak to folks for a change.
The Pontics won quite easily. The strong Armenian right wing failed to break its opponents, while the left was swamped by the large numbers of Pontic cavalry. In the centre, the Iberian warbands failed to destroy the Scythed Chariots on contact, meaning that the Armenian centre was mostly stationary (little impetus) when the Brazen Shields and Galatians went in, followed by the Cataphracts. The Armenian centre simply crumpled.
The plan above is my first attempt at a full battle deployment showing both sides in one image; I'm feeling a little more comfortable with Battle Chronicler.

Legio I Hastati

These are my newly completed Hastati for the 1st Legion at Zama; figures by 1st Corps. I bought all of the heavy infantry for this legion at Claymore at the beginning of August, and now the production line is beginning to roll. I find painting these figures easy, but the shields need a lot of work to do them justice. Having already used Little Big Men transfers, I decided (wisely, as it turns out), to finish the shields first, before gluing them to the figures. The reason for this is that the designs need to be carefully cut out and placed on the shields in two halves, one either side of the spine. Doing this on an already finished figure seemed as though it would be too difficult for my mediocre modelling skills, especially since some touching up is always needed. It took a while, but I am very pleased with the results.

I decided on a couple of specifics for these guys, so as to differentiate them from the Principes. First of all, I decided that I wanted men with pectoral plates for the Hastati, while the Principes are in mail as, of course, are the Triarii. I know this may not strictly be accurate for the Zama period, but I thought it would help to show the differences on the table top, as well as enabling me to use the figures for earlier legionaries in other games. Secondly, I decided to use slightly different colours for the crest feathers. Basically, the idea is that the more senior the troopers, the less deep red they use, and the more black. So the Hastati have two red feathers and one black; the Principes will have one red and two black; and the Triarii will have all black. I'll still keep the small ruffle of feathers around the base of the crest red for all three lines. I know that there is still a lot of debate about these colours, especially over exactly what constitutes what the sources describe as "purple", but my feeling is that we'll probably never know for certain anyway. Plus, red means Roman to me, and they're my figures...