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.