Shields Up... Hold the Line!: Celtic Barbarians (started)

Monday, March 4, 2013

Celtic Barbarians (started)

With the arrival of my two packages from England (Warlord UK - http://www.warlordgames.com), I've begun to think about how I'm going to model the enemy facing off against the 2nd Cohort, 8th Legion and other attached Roman forces. I'm focusing on the Gallic Celts of what is today, France and Belguim (then known as Gaul). The Warlord figures are mostly the plastic variant of 28mm and seem nicely made. And numerous metal minis are included. Overall they seem well done as minis and will match well with my excellent Roman minis from Aventine UK.

Here I'm cleaning the "flash" off of the minis and preparing them for primer. Wasn't too bad overall; and much better than Foundry minis I've purchased which require a lot of cleaning and sanding.

These minis are two packs Warlord's Celtic "Line Breakers". These figures represent the Berserker style of fighting common with Celts as they grow frustrated with the Roman army Shield Wall and attempt to break it through their brave leaping chargers.

A few of the Warlord figures are naked and I don't want naked enemy minis (no matter how true to life it might have been). So with some Squadron Green Putty I've made loincloths. A few of the minis needed extra attention for attaching the heads to the bodies; using a gap-filling CA glue along with some Green Putty this was pretty easy. And I really like the idea of some customization with the figures. For primer selection, I purchased Army Painter's primer in Barbarian Flesh color.

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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 Although in the third century, large cavalry units gradually superseded the Legions as Rome's most important force, many of the foot Legions remained well into the fourth and early fifth centuries.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!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Celtic Barbarians (started)

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The birth of the Legion

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