Here Come the Landlords

Although I've been concentrating this week on turning my old DBA Swiss army into a Lion Rampant retinue, I have made some progress on the force that was my original inspiration to try the rules, these Sarmatian cataphracts.

They are by Warlord and I bought them at the Penkridge Wargames Sale two years ago.  Today they were finally finished.

My plan is to back-date Lion Rampant to allow me to run a series of games set in Western Gaul in the early fifth century.  At this time the Roman Empire was giving areas of land within the Empire to Germanic tribes in exchange for military service.  These land grants would, within a few decades, become the seeds of new medieval feudal states (France, for example, in the area allocated to the Franks).

My plan is to base a series of games between the Roman/Germanic forces of law and order (well, order) on one side and the Bacaudae on the other.  These were farmers and townsmen of Gaul in particular who rebelled against the domination of initially absentee Roman landlords and later their German replacements.

Sarmatians aren't mentioned in this context in any of the sources I've read so far but I figure if legend can have Arthur's knights based on folk memory of Sarmatian auxiliaries in Britain then I can have some in Gaul.