Petulantes Seniores, Auxilium Palatinum

The the use of armour in battle - or lack of it - for auxilia is another area where WRG Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome book, the reference for my 1980s nostalgia figures, differs from current thinking. The book has them un-armoured apart from helmets and shields.

An obstacle to making a unit of these was that I didn't actually have enough infantryman figures - only two packs of 8 when I needed 20 (plus the 3 command.) I did however have a pack of what the book (and therefore Minifigs) labelled as Lanciarius 4th C with a smaller shield than the legionaries and auxiliaries and slightly more dynamic pose than the auxiliaries - on the right in the photo below.

I made larger shields for these and re-purposed them as auxiliaries. Several figures had lost their rather fragile spears so I replaced them all with brass rod at slightly different angles adding more variation. I also trimmed the crests off some figures and reshaped them with a small file to leave an unadorned ridge helmet.

The trumpeter's trumpet was mis-cast so I replaced it with brass rod and miliput. My understanding is that infantry in this period used the almost circular cornu or buccina whilst the cavalry used the straight tuba. However Minifigs went for the straight tuba for everybody and, in the spirit of 80s nostalgia, as well as the spirit of re-modelling some figures to cary a cornu being beyond my abilities, I've stuck with that. The officer (also with a new, larger, shield) and draconarius are from Gladiator Miniatures.

Some fantastic late Roman shield transfers are available now from Little Big Men but unfortunately these are specifically sized and shaped for Khurasan or Legio Heroica and considerably bigger than the Minifigs shields so I would have to hand paint the shields again. I chose the Petulantes Seniores on the basis of being a simple design, using blue - so clearly different to my earlier two units and having a lot of yellow. 1980s 'rules' for late Roman crests were very simple - red for legionaries and yellow for auxiliaries. More recently I've read it wasn't so clear and, if there was any logic at all, maybe it was that crests matched or picked out a colour from the shield design. Choosing the Petulantes Seniories keeps both theories happy.

I wanted to get some variety of appearance despite using 1980s mono-posed figures (OK, 16 identical plus 4 in a marginally different pose). In addition to the previously mentioned crest / no crest mix and variation in spear angle, I used three slightly  different triads for the off-white tunics as well as varying the blue pattern shapes on the tunics and the colour of the leggings.

That's three infantry units complete now - so half way through the legions and auxilia. I have another unit's worth of old Minifigs Legionaries, which I have already started, then the other two will be modern Legio Heroica armoured infantry. Also loads of cavalry, generals, ballista and some infantry archers. Lots still to go but I feel I'm making progress.