Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Fifth Century Gaul Here I Come!

Since I got my copy of Lion Rampant at Christmas last year I've been in an unprecedentedly productive period as far as 28mm figures are concerned.  As well as having produced two completed forces for the fifteenth century Burgundian-Swiss Wars, I've now completed 20 points aside for my Bacaudae project.

As I've said before, I plan to run a Lion Rampant Campaign set in fifth century Armorica (western Gaul; modern Brittany).  First up are the Bacaudae themselves; rebels, revolutionaries, reactionaries against Germanic settlement?  Who knows?

The main body of the force currently consists of two units of Bacaudae foot troops.  They are  mixture of models; mostly Foundry but at least one Gripping Beast and several Bad Squiddo shield maidens. 



There's also a unit of skirmishers, one of whom has one of the early cross-bows in use in the Late Roman period. 


In a change of plan from my original force design, the Bacaudae are now to be reinforced by some Sarmatian allies; these six Warlord Games cataphracts.



Finally, these mounted bacaudae are stiffened by a couple more Sarmatians.


Their opponents are the forces of law and order in western Gaul, the local military representatives of the crumbling Roman Empire.


Made up mostly of the contents of a box of Gripping Beast plastic Late romans, the force has a legionary unit, two units of Auxilia (one with spears and the other archers) and a small unit of skirmishers.  They are backed up by a mounted group of Alans.  These last are probably in the process of being settled in the area in exchange for future military service.



On both the legionaries (above) and the auxilia palatina (below) I've replaced the over-thick cast-on plastic spears with wickedly sharp steel wire ones.


The skirmishers bear, period-appropriate I believe, appliqué designs on their uniforms.



The Alans have appeared before, though at the time I may have planned for them to be Huns.  Here they are again for completeness.

2 comments:

Phil said...

Great looking minis, archers are very impressive!

Counterpane said...

Thanks, Phil!