Edward I assembles his chivalry

Finally! With enough down-time to relax, I've trimmed up all 12 of Strelets' English Cavalry of Edward I. As you'd expect from Strelets they are the opposite of attractive and some are truly bad. However, they are one of the few sets that fit the period.

I have brought in a couple of ringers from Itaeleri's Templars - they don't stand out too much next to the Strelets chunkiness.

Heraldry is going to be a challenge, but the result should be colourful.

Marian Romans

This little army is a good opponent for all sorts of opponents. It's strange that so many manufacturers offer Early Imperial armies with the lorica segmentata and semi-cylindrical shield, but virtually none offer armies from the late Republic, when civil war and vast expansion provide so many foes.

This particular army is created around Caesar Miniatures' Republican Roman offering, which - for Caesar - received a poor review from PSR. To cope with the poorly defined lorica and to speed up the painting process I decided to use a black base and white then silver 'smudge brush' to highlight detail.

Marian Romans require 8 Bd and may have 9 if a BdGen is used. The other elements were problematic. Because they fought all over Roman Africa Asia and Europa, Roman armies drew auxilia psiloi and cavalry from all manner of allies. I decided to recycle Numidian Cv and LH (HaT), throw in Augustan slingers (HaT) though I'll probably swap in Balearic slingers once they're ready, and Spanish infantry as Ax (HaT).

And then there is the Roman Cavalry problem. My understanding is that the Marian reforms did away with equites style cavalry, but the army list seems to expect up to 2 cavalry elements including CvGen to be Roman. I've compromised so far by using one CvGen from HaT's Roman Command pack. I may change my mind and swap in two elements from Zvezda's excellent but alarmingly large Roman Cavalry pack.

Gallic Camp completed.

Gauls defend the camp!

This "cross-section" design was inspired by one of the fanatici and I wish I could remember who so as to thank them. It allows a model in the correct scale to exist on a legal camp base size.
The design of the camp itself is taken from the "Oppidum" phase of early Celtic fortification illustrated in Viollet-le-Duc's Annals of a Fortress. Once again it is just as valid for an Ancient British camp.

Gallo-Briton Morph Complete

With the completion of the last two Wb elements, I finally have all options for either a Gallic army (II/11) or a Briton army (II/53). Here's the mighty army morph arrayed:

So, loads of elements! 6xLCh, 3x4Wb, 8x3Wb, 5x2Ps, 2x3Cv, 2x2LH. Enough for a big-battle double-size army in fact. I'm looking forward to testing out the light-type configuration of Britons in difficult terrain.

Fresh draft of Gallic warriors rush to battle

These handsome, brightly-clad fellows are reinforcements in my long-drawn-out struggle to replace the old Gallics. They are all by HaT; one in three have some armour, if only a helmet, and about half have a sword. Shields vary in shape: the worst that can be said is that the overall (likely) most-popular shape, the cropped-oval, barely features. Everything is hand-painted: so if you blow up the picture you can see the shields are by no means perfect!

I went with a mixture of plaid, stripe and plain for clothing. They are all to be morph-able into ancient Britons so I think the balance is about right.

Gallo-Britons add skirmishers

Plaid, plaid, plaid! No end of plaid! I completed six Ps elements - which should be more than enough since I can't imagine wanting to field the 3x2Ps option for the Britons - and most of them are dressed in at least one plaid garment.



These slingers are most likely to see service with the Britons though could help out Carthaginians in a pinch.

More Gallo-British

Camp followers!

And the LH, which provide the Britons valuable mobility:

These LH are conversions of course, since HaT don't issue any. The bare-chested riders are snipped from foot bases, and the shirt-wearer is an Atlantic Apache with a HaT head. All mounts are Atlantic and I'm pretty sure they are all from the buffalo hunt and Apache sets. They are the right size for ponies in 1/72nd scale, though probably too thin.

Gallo-British Light Chariotry

It took forever but I am finally motivated to tackle all that plaid! Here are three of the four LCh the Britons will need.

I/6c Early Bedouin