Secundani Italiciani, Legio Comitatensis

Light at the end of the tunnel: my fourth and last large infantry unit of old 1980s Minifigs figures and the last one for which I have to hand paint the shields. My remaining two Auxillia Palatina units will be Legio Heroica figures and use Little Big Men transfers for the shields: oh happy day!

One thing I questioned before completing this unit was what standard bearer to choose. The old Asgard and Gladiator ranges have an aquila for legionaries whilst the Minifigs command group has a trumpeter and draconarius, unarmoured and dressed as their auxiliaries. Modern figure ranges seem to just have dracos for all infantry, with no distinction in dress or equipment for legions or auxilia. After reading around a bit, asking for advice and buying the relatively new Osprey "Roman Standards and Standard Bearers (2) AD 192 - 500" my understanding is that dracos were increasingly used for legionary sub-units but the emblem for the whole legion remained the Aquila. The book includes an illustration of a mid 4th C legion aquilifer from one of Julian's legions with a black bear pelt headdress, square base (perch?) for the eagle and gold coloured staff. Interestingly (or surprisingly) he wear leather armour. I based my Aquilifer on that illustration.

As previously, the trumpeter is a modified Minifigs Byzantine figure with a headswap. The Aquilifer and officer are Gladiator Miniatures - the latter with a new, larger shield made from brass and Milliput to match the Minifigs legionaries. As with the earlier units, I removed the helmet crests from some figures to get more variety, filed down some of the details of the legionaries sandals and disguised the rest with thick paint to depict them all in trousers.

The key thing with Late Roman armies is, of course, the glorious choice of shield designs. With the Lanciarii Gallienci Honoriani, Secunda Britannica and Petulantes Seniores already complete, the primary consideration was finding a shield design that would be significantly different but easy to paint. I settled on the Secundani Italiciani because it appeared to meet both of these criteria and I liked the idea of trying to make an interesting design from a white cross on a white background. I must admit though that I prefer the shields on the three earlier units

If you are tempted to hand paint the shields for this unit, my advice is to think again. I hadn't taken account of how hard it would be to reconcile making the inner circle (and hence the width of the crosses) big enough to paint with distinct colour graduations but leave enough length on the horizontal crosses for the three red dots - especially as the Minifigs shields aren't quite symetrical and there is less space on the figures left than the right. It took me several goes on some figures to get an acceptable result and even then I’m not really happy with most of them. If despite that, you do want to give it a go, here is the sequence I followed to get the basic features - the ‘white’ areas of the shields are my standard Vallejo triad of Khaki Grey, Iraqi Sand and Ivory. To give a different white, the helmet crests are London Grey, Light Grey and Foundation White.

I posted some photos and some of the text from my last unit on TMP and one of the comments was that these old 1980s Minifigs figures were a bit of a blank canvas. I hadn't really thought about it before myself but I think that hits the nail on the head and is a lot of what I like about these models. The overall proportions are quite good but the smooth surfaces give some space for the painter to create interest without being over constrained by exaggerated sculpted detail. This is especially so on the unarmoured figures with relatively large areas on the tunics where you can add or ignore shadows more or less as you like.

Late Roman Command Group - started 1980s, finished 2020

 

I had painted the Asgard (Table Top Games, by the time I got them and Alternative Armies today) Late Roman Army Command group of a general and standard bearer some time in the early 1980s but then they languished in a box with the rest of this incomplete army. On digging them out again, on close inspection, the general figure was far below the standard I try to achieve today so it went into the paint stripper jar but I really wanted to use the standard (the Labarum of Constantine I from page 82 of WRG Armies and Enemies if Imperial Rome0 that I had so painstakingly painted all those years ago, even if such a massive standard seems an unlikely candidate to be carried by a cavalryman and now belongs in the same WRG rejects pile as all my leather cuirassed Legionaries. For the standard bearer, I limited myself to a bit fo tidying up and repainting his cloak. With a repainted general and Minifigs heavy cavalryman as bodyguard, I'm quite pleased with this little group. The cavalryman's shield is the WRG interpretation of the Notitia Dignitatum for the Scola Scutariorum Secunda. I might use this design for all the general's bodyguards; as though this unit of guard cavalry had been split up to protect all of the senior leaders.

I've always struggled a bit with painting grey horses - and horses in general to be honest - but I was quite pleased with this one in the end, acknowledging the limitations of scale and that I was aiming for a nice effect and popping colours rather than real equine accuracy. I think I might do a few more for other officers.

I'm building this army for Mortem et Gloriam rules which categorises generals as Legendary, Talented, Competent or Mediocre and suggests identifying them with red, yellow, green or white (respectively) base edges or declining numbers of figures from 5 to 2 per 40 x 40 mm base. Neither of these options seem satisfactory to me, either aesthetically or for practical flexibility - what if I want to play around with army composition and need a different mix of generals? 

I wanted something that would be obvious, unambiguous but subtle and flexible. I considered different coloured standards or dracos but, apart from not having enough spare dracos, I'd painted my army standard almost 40 years ago and wasn't about to recolour it and make a spare. In the end, I decided to try adding an interchangeable shield in the appropriate colour, held in place by a magnet.

After digging around in the garage, I found a couple of steel washers, of 9 and 10 mm diameter and turned them into shields with the aid of some Miliput. I wanted to create some visual interest and make them look like the sort of thing that might be carried by barbarian enemies or Rome whilst sticking to the colour theme - for these test cases red and yellow. The overall effect worked well but the 3 mm rare earth magnet that I used is far too strong. For the other generals, I'll use offcuts of magnetic basing tape so I can swap the shields round without damaging them.