With Britannia on the telly, I’m fired up for Roman Britain.  The Emperor’s finest stabbing druids has given me the focus to paint these eight Late Imperial Roman spearmen.

“Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy,” they sang.

Late Imperial Romans?  Late for what?  They’d better hurry up and carpe those diems.  The Late Imperial period, for me, covers everything from Septimius Severus as Emperor (AD 193–8), the Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235-84), the Barbarian Conspiracy (AD 376–7), the Roman Exit from Britain (AD 410), Flavius Aetius versus Atilla (AD 452), the Fall of the Western Roman Empire (AD 476), and beyond into the time of King Arthur.  The army gives me a lot of history to play with and a lot of excuses to visit knee-high ruined walls in the rainy English countryside.

“Roly poly, roly poly, holy poly poly,” they sang.

I invented a mythical beast to paint freehand onto the unit’s shields – the ophiosus.  It’s a creature with the head of a pig and the body of a snake.  The component animals might, based on the altar below, be symbolic of Veteris – thought to be the god of Hadrian’s Wall.  If you like you can call the creature a “boar constrictor”.

An altar found at the Roman fort of Magnae Carvetiorum, with a pig and a snake carved into opposite sides.  RIB1805.

The first shield took several hours to do – from idea through to pencil sketch then freehand painting.  The next shields I batch-painted and they took about 45 minutes on average.  I experimented with a couple of variations from shield to shield, refining it as I went.  The minor variations in design I rationalise along with the different armour styles I’ve mixed together.

“Derpy merpy, derpy merpy, slurpy merpy merpy,” they sang.

The miniatures are from Crusader Miniatures, and are satisfying for army building as they’re one piece castings (with separate shields).  I worked on them as a batch of eight, imagining them as a contubernium – the smallest organisational unit of the Roman army who all shared a tent or barrack room together.  Conveniently it’s also an instantly game legal unit for Saga’s Aetius & Arthur.  Eight is enough figures to make me feel like I’m making progress on a significant chunk of infantry, while not causing burn out.

“Sminky pinky, sminky pinky, sminky pinky pinky,” they sang.

Congratulations for getting to the end of this post.  As a special reward, let me tell you about a marvellously named woman.  She discovered another altar dedicated to Veteris, and her name was “Miss Fanny Bacon”.

I’m researching and constructing a 28mm Late Imperial Roman army. It’s mainly for the thrill of watching a painted collection amass in the display cabinets, though also to serve as an anchor for researching and understanding the period.

The army will be constructed with the classic Foundry range as the basis. These miniatures are Perry classics. Here’s one of the best packs from the range.

I want to use the Foundry’s house style of painting for my army, but not necessarily the garish colour schemes shown above. That commander second in from the left! Red and blue and purple clothes? All at once?! Blerk! No thanks, sensible muted colours please. This is a historical army after all. I’ve dug up Late Imperial Roman forts, every archaeological find is brown,

So I dipped into my reference library to find out what shades of brown would have been in vogue circa 400AD, and this colour plate jumps out. Blerk, it’s that guy from the Foundry range, resplendent in red tunic with and orbiculi!

This is Graham Sumner’s reconstruction of a soldier as depicted in a Syracusian catacomb painting. The colours are taking from the original painting, so they’re authentic. I thought it really surprising. And cool, as the miniature has transformed from generic Roman into a real-life soldier with a name and dress sense.

This is Maximianus (hurr hurr, “-anus”), and he’s my first test model.