Roman Marching Encampment in 1/32 Scale

 

1/32 scale (54mm) Roman marching encampment.
The manufacturer is TSSD (Toy Soldiers of San Diego)

I want to have a Roman marching camp fort in my Historicon game in 2025. One of the games might feature a Roman assault on a Carthaginian city. The Romans would typically construct a fortress made of dirt and timber where ever they made an encampment while on the march. I wasn't looking forward to making my own camp walls out of pink insulation foam board and the one made by John Jenkins Designs is prohibitively expensive. I was pleased to find this fort model from Toy Soldiers of San Diego (TSSD) for a reasonable cost, relative to the other options. The model pieces come preprinted, but I think that they might need a different color of paint plus some dry brushing to finish it off.

The following two pictures provide a view of the interior of the camp:

My plan is to set the fort up on the back edge of the table and only represent the front and sides of the fort. The interior will have some Roman camp tents and vignettes and, of course, some soldiers to man the walls of the fort. The idea is that some of the game players will be attacking the Carthaginian city on one table while others are involved in attacking the Roman camp (which comes under attack from a Carthaginian relief force.

Both the Carthaginians and Romans set up walled camps while on the march so each side could have a fort on their back table. They march out of the camp and then deploy for battle. I will run multiple convention games at Little Wars and Historicon, so one day might have an assault on the city walls game, an assault on a marching camp, or some conventional set piece battles. Then, a second game on the day will have the reverse of the morning game, i.e. a set piece battle in the evening and a city assault in the morning game. Rinse and repeat for Friday and Saturday.

The front gate of the walled camp

Some of the soldiers' tents inside the camp.

Roman engineers use a groma device to survey the ground so that they can set up 
the location of the tents. These figures are from John Jenkins Designs.

I have a 32-figure unit of Celts/Gauls on the painting table right now and hope to have these finished within the next week. Hopefully the Thanksgiving holiday will give me some spare time to devote to figure painting.

Roman Quincunx

Roman 54mm Project Update

Three 54mm Roman legions formed up in the Quincunx formation

I have been busy basing a lot of the 54mm Punic Wars figures that I painted so that I would not face the day when I would have to base hundreds of figures. In other words, it was time to stop putting off the unpleasant part of painting and assembling war game armies: the basing of figures. Doing a few at a time is no big deal, but when I let the number of unbased figures accumulate, then an easy task turns into drudgery. Yuck!

So I have painted three Republican Roman legions so far. I finished the third legion last week. My legions consists of 32-figure Hastatii, Princeps, Triarii and 16-figure Velites (light skirmishers). That adds up to 112 figures per legion and they all needed to be based. I put the figures on 40mm round bases and then use movement trays from Litko (4 figures wide by 2 rows deep = 8 figures per stand). Four movement trays of 8 figures equal the 32 figures in the principal units in the legion.

The Romans would often deploy their maniples into staggered formations of three battle lines. I do not subdivide my units into maniples because this is too granular for the type of game and rules that I intend to use in my convention games next year. The Velites (light troops) would be out in front of the main mass of formed units with Hastatii in the front row, the Princeps in the second row, and the veteran Triarii forming the third and final row in the formation.

Apparently this formation must have worked for the Romans, but it seems that the open lanes in the battle lines would be a major weakness as it would allow enemy troops to move into the gaps of the battle line. I suppose that the Velites would retire through the gaps and maybe the Hastatii, etc would close ranks to form a continuous battle line. In a war game, I would not want to leave gaps in my battle line. My version of the Quincunx formation is depicted below:

Velites in front on the left, Hastatii in the second row, Princeps in the third line, and Triarii in the last line (shown on the left center of this picture next to the command tent).

Here are some pictures of the Princeps figures that I finished two weeks ago

Princeps troops

Hastatii troops in the mid-ground and some Velites in the foreground.

Triarii wearing chain mail.

I also painted 16 more Roman cavalry figures, bringing their contingent up to 32 Roman and 32 Italian allies cavalry figures, or 64 total figures. My Carthaginian army has 96 cavalry, half of which are Numidian light cavalry.

Roman cavalry organized into two 16-figure units:

I am slowly catching up on my figure basing. I have all of the Velites to base and 16 Celt-Iberians in the Carthaginian army.

Next up on the painting table: 16 Celt-Iberians and 32 Celts.

After all of that it will be time to start making Roman buildings for my town. One of my convention game scenarios will feature a Roman assault on a Carthaginian fortified city.

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