Shields Up... Hold the Line!: The Centurion

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Centurion

The Centurion underway. These views show him almost completed. I still need to paint the eyes (with a toothpick dipped in P3 Menoth White Highlight) and pupil with a fine gel pen. The shield is dented and chopped up (using a Dremel tool) to show battle scars. He still needs to be matte varnished with Testor's Dull Cote and weather dusting his shield (awaiting shipment of the weathering powder from Forge World UK).

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Roman Legions

A Roman Legion was an infantry unit consisting of heavily armed soldiers, equipped with shields, armor, helmets, spears and swords. In the early republic (circa 170 BC), the strength of a Legion was about 3,000 men; there were 4,800 Legionaries in a Legion in the days of Julius Caesar; the 28 Legions (about 185,000 soldiers) that defended the Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus counted more than 5,400 soldiers each (circa 10 AD). They were the backbone of the Roman army, supported by auxiliary troops, siege equipment and cavalry. Although in the third century, large cavalry units gradually superseded the Legions as Rome's most important force, many of the foot Legions remained well into the fourth and early fifth centuries.

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The birth of the Legion

By 390 BC, the organization of the Roman army was in need of change. Fighting in the Greek-style was proving increasingly outdated and inflexible, resulting in the severe Roman defeat and the sacking of Rome at the hands of the Gauls at the Battle of Allia (c. 387 BC). Following on from this catastrophe and in the next fifty years of warfare against Gallic and Italian tribes, a military revolution was born: the Roman Legion. This was a new unit of organization made up of three flexible lines of maniples consisting of troops of both heavy and light infantry. However, at the end of the 3rd century BC, Rome's prestige was shattered once more by the genius of Hannibal of Carthage, causing Roman battle tactics to be revised again. The legendary general Scipio Africanus achieved this, finally destroying the Carthaginian army at the climactic victory of Zama. A wholly new kind of soldier had been invented, and the whole Mediterranean world was now at Rome's feet. Later, Marius would improve the military greatly with his reforms around 150 BC. Finally, Augustus would make changes that would establish the Legion as the premier fighting unit of the Roman Empire; the army eventually became all-conquering and all-powerful.

Shields Up... Hold the Line!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Centurion

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The birth of the Legion

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