Friday, December 9, 2011

Rome Classic

I finnaly got to paint Triarii, they have always been my favorite type of roman soldier, the story dates back to 2004, long before I became a wargamer. It was when Rome Total War first came out. In the game you can basicly play any nation/faction in the ancient world, the game starts around the time of the punic wars, rome is starting it's major conquests, Alexanders empire has fractures into the successor kingdoms, carthage is potentaly the new major power in the Meditarnian.

If you play as rome, you follow the republic into the first 100 years of Empire, that means in the early part of the game, you use the Maniple legions, with their Hastati, principes and Triarii.
I liked the triarii from the start, while not as powerfull as the "sacred Band" of Carthage or the Spartans of Greek Cities, they were still very good, the best roman infantry you had until you got the legionary cohorts of the empire.
Ofcourse this beeing a Total war game, they didn't pay that much attention to the details.
The early romans don't look much like they are supose to do, they look kinda like a mix of High Empire Legionaries and what they are supose to look like, atleast they didn't use the Lorica segmentata for these, but the hastati are more or less unarmord, the principes have chainmail which is correct, the triarii have chainmail and greaves.
But what makes the unit look totaly wrong is the shield, they basicly have the square much later shield. and the helmet is wrong ect. It's a mixed bunch, luckely there are mods like rome total realism that give more propper armor and uniforms.
But anyway thats when my love for triarii started, ofcourse back then I didn't know how to use them, so I always placed them on the flanks to protect against cav, after all they were pikemen.

But now when I sometimes take out the old game, I play with propper roman tactics, and I must say, there are few armies that can get through, hastati and principes and then handle fresh units of triarii.

Anyway over to the figures these are as the title hints at, classic romans, that means red. I always inteded my triarii to be red.





I was lucky, the red of the shield transfers matches perfectly with my russet red paint, meaning the shield transfers blend perfectly with the shields.








I also finsihed the bases on the generals.











1 comment:

Willie Anderson said...

Like the red my next legion will be all red!