Heraclea at Partizan

The boards and figures were loaded into the car and we made the trip down to Kelham Hall near Newark.

We'd met up with Keith and Adam from Aventine the previous evening for a couple of pre-game drinks and it was good to see them again on Sunday. Also taking part in the game were Simon Miller (AKA BigRedBat), his son Harry and James Symmons.

We used Hail Caesar, tweaked by Keith, for our refight. Keith was a real Saint over the course of the day; he was the only one of us with more than a passing familiarity with the rules and he was frequently called on to direct we no-knowledge Tyros!

Various people took pictures over the course of the day and I'm sure many of them will be better than mine! Unfortunately, the lighting can be quite strange in the building and some of the shots look to have been taken through the early morning mist! Quite atmospheric.. (no pun intended).

The quality of the pictures is a bit mixed, but hopefully will give you something of the flavour of the thing before far better photographers get to show off their snaps. Enjoy!

 Pyrrhic deployment, with pikes in the centre, flanked by Tarentine hoplites and cavalry and light infantry wings.

 Roman deployment, just after they've (mostly) crossed the river.

 Close up of the cavalry and light infantry on the Roman right during the initial stages of the river crossing.

 Roman left flank

 Pyrrhic right centre.

 Pyrrhic right wing cavalry

 Pyrrhic left centre

 Close up of left flank Tarentine unit

 Keith and Simon (L-R) get stuck in on the Roman left flank

Close up of the scene.

Overall, a great day in great company. Although we didn't quite play the game to a conclusion, we declared a Pyrrhic victory following some pretty freakish dice throwing over the course of the day...

Roman/Hellenistic General

Whilst painting pike, I've also spent a bit of time indulging myself painting up this mounted general figure. It's not often I take time out to paint an individual figure, and I'm pleased with the results. You may notice he's snuck in as my new avatar...

Armour "fashion" from the latter fourth century BCE to probably the second or even third century CE was much of a muchness across the Greco-Roman world, so he could equally be leading Romans, Greeks, Macedonian or even Pontic troops.

Roman Army

Thought I'd try and get some shots of my full Roman Army from Aventine, so set it up on the table on an old piece of grass matting I dug out of the garage.

I took the shot in the early evening, so it wasn't so bright to wash out the colours, but some of the reds still look a bit intense.

The army is made up of two Roman legions and two Allied legions. Each legion has two units each of Hastati and Princpes (16 figures in each), one unit of Triarii (8 figures) and four units of Velites (8 figures). Only half of the Velites are shown here. At the moment, I've done one unit of 12 Roman cavalry and one unit of 9 Allied cavalry. I've just bought another unit 12 Italian/Tarntine cavalry that will work to flesh out the army.

An eye level shot across the front of the army

A slightly higher view point

The left wing

A shot across the front from the right flank

A shot of the right

Across the front.  All pictures are clickable

I would have liked to have shown them in the classic quincunx formation, but the table wasn't big enough!

Aventine Roman Cavalry Finished

Now completed.

As always, a joy to paint. Shield designs hand painted.

These are the first shield designs I've done on this army, as I'm not convinced any were used this early. The shields looked like they needed something "extra", so I've gone with something fairly neutral and generic and I'm quite pleased with the results, particularly as they were relatively easy to do.

 All pictures are clickable.

Late Romans!

This unit was originally destined to take part in the SOA Games Day Zama and subsequent Salute demo game in April 2010 and was started before then. It was finally finished in May this year - hence the title.

Figures are from the ever incredible Aventine range.

As a result of their protracted arrival time, I decided they had done long service and their look hopefully reflects this. I've tried to make the shields look bruised and battered; so much so that they've lost some of their leather coverings so you can see the plywood core. I theorised that such loose bits would get hacked off so they don't give the enemy anything to get hold of.

Shields are also pretty grubby at the base, as their shape and character lends them to be resting on the ground for good periods of time. When carried on the march, they would also be very susceptible to picking up mud and dust generated by marching feet.

Next up is a unit of 12 Roman cavalry to add to the 224 infantry so far painted for this army