By way of an intro:
The Collections, Part I:
These are the collections I have (mostly) under control or are done with.
1st Century AD:
One of my oldest collections, covering the eastern edge of the Roman Empire in 6mm. I chose this particular end of the Empire to avoid the "standard" Romans vs Barbarians set up. The rules I use are The Shock of Impact, which give a nice feel, allowing units to be whittled away as well as smashed in a single massive blow. They also cater for a variety of combat styles, so I selected forces to maximise the vairety. 1/300th (or 6mm) is my scale of choice for massed battles, easy to paint and impressive en-masse, plus cheap as chips. The models for these collections come from Baccus 6mm.
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| The Might of Rome: The full vexillation of Legio X Fretensis |
Facing off against the might of Rome are two opponents, the forces of Parthia, consisting of anything up to 10 units of cataphracts, 12 units of horse archers and some light infantry archers, javelinmen and slingers. The challenges for each side in a confrontation between these two forces is using their strengths while avoiding the enemy's. The Parthians have to maintian their freedom to manoeuvre in order to make best use of their horse archers, before using the catphracts to smash any demoralised survivors. Hampering them in this effort is the relative indiscipline of the cataphracts, who may go charging off if they so much as get a whiff of the enemy. The Romans have to find a way to pin down enemy units, using their not-too numerous cavalry usually, so the infantry can wade in and do what they do best, all the while contending with the massive speed disadvantage of close order infantry compared to open order cavalry.
And for when the Empire is merely in revolt rather than under invasion, the second opponent is a Jewish Revolt army. Almost all their forces are lightly armoured infantry, armed with javelins or bows, backed up with a couple of small units of light cavalry. The catch with these is, although they will die in huge numbers, there are a lot of them, plus they are all fanatical, top notch troops (A class fanatics under the rules). This means if they get into combat they will almost certainly fight to the death. Roman troops (class B regulars) have heavier armour, plus pila can devastate an enemy in the charge, but holding out against the waves of fanatics can grind down or smash even the toughest cohort. The Roman Praetorians, class A regulars can stand toe to toe with the fanatics, but are too few to hold the line alone. The key, as in the actual revolt, is often how the Romans handle their cavalry, in which they have a massive numerical advantage.
A couple of self criticisms of my collection, firstly, the paint job (being from one of my first collections) is pretty poor, particularly in the shiny and silveriness of the armour of both the Romans and Parthians. Even on parade it seems doubtful that legionaries would shine quite as these do. Also, The Shock of Impact is designed for 15 or even 25 mm models, so uses figure removal. Foolishly, I based up these 6mm troops for individual figure removal, making moving a hassle. Ideally I would rebase them in groups of about 4, 5 or 6 or so that some formational flexibilty remain, but making movement easier. Combined with some markers to indicate how many figures are already killed in the whole base remaining, this could make the whole business much more efficient. Giving the Romans smaller bases than the Parthians or Jews could also allow them greater flexibility, as in reality.
Next time (when I get round to taking some photos), Spanish and English fleets for the Armada era.
