Roman Shield Patterns

These are my first attempts at creating shield designs for my Romans. They are supposed to represent the Defensores Seniores and the  Cornuti Seniores respectively. No reason why I chose them, besides that they were relatively easy to bodge up using Word. I'm not sure of "brigading" of regiments in this period, so I may well have started off on the wrong foot completely, but there you go!


As the majority of the shields in the Miniart set are ovoid, rather than round, that's how I've created mine so that they'll fit on the shields. If anyone out there would like to use these for their own collection or to modify, please feel free. Obviously these are made for 1/72 scale, so you'd have to up the scale for 28mm or reduce for 15mm.

They're Heeeere!

My Miniart Romans and Goths arrived in the post yesterday.

I'm quite pleased with these figures. The sculpting is quite good with quite dynamic poses and all the proportions are anatomically correct.

A couple of drawbacks, as covered in the PSR review, though; there is a fair amount of flash that will require a bit of work with the scalpel and heated needle to remove.

There's a couple of figures that I'm not sure about though. The Roman soldiers in the so called 'Attic' style helmets just don't seem right. Even though there are frequent representations of the style in art, there's no archaeological evidence that they actually existed. I'll see if I can get by without them, but I may have to use them if I need the numbers.

As the Romans have a surfeit of missile troops, I might actually make some of them defect to the Gothic side to bolster their skirmish abilities!

I'm not looking forward to painting the shields, I can tell you now! I'll try and experiment with designs made on the computer before I try bodging up some hand painted shields. I'll keep you posted with my progress!

Roman sprue (1 of 4 in a box)

Gothic sprue

Magna Consilia!

I've got these chaps on order from Britain via the Drum & Flag e-bay store:

They should be turning up any day now.

I've seen these at Hearn's Hobbies locally, but the crazy thing is I can get them cheaper sent from the other end of the world!

I suppose it depends how quickly I want to get my hands on them; If I pay the premium, I'll have them in my hands now, otherwise I'll be waiting a couple of weeks for them to come in the post. Anyway, the question's academic as my hobby funds have temporarily dried up recently!

Gothic Command

Roman Command

These are the command figures from Newline Designs (images from their website) which I'll need for the Comitatus rules system. The rules call for individual command stands to offer inspiration to the nearest units, as well as to issue challenges to single combat to one's enemies if so desired!

As the Miniart Gothic set doesn't have many skirmishing figures, I am also considering investing in some archers by Newline Designs, too.

Primum dispositis

My first post on this new blog; HaT's Late Roman Medium Cavalry.

I am planning to build an army of Romans and Goths to use with the Comitatus rules by Simon MacDowall. On order, I've got a set each of Miniart's Goths and Late Roman Infantry which I'll use as the basis for my armies. I'll probably get a couple of command sets from Newline Designs and possibly some other figures like Gothic archers and auxiliary Roman infantry as well.

The stand below is the first of at least 3 medium cavalry stands I'll make. Eventually, I'll also get HaT's light cavalry set as well