Below are pictures of my current project which is an Early Imperial Roman Army in 28mm. The figures are from +Foundry Miniatures in the U.K.  The opponent which is a Sarmation/Dacian army will be comprised by a combination of Foundry figures and +Old Glory 25s. Both armies were designed using the Field of Glory point system and in keeping with my philosophy concerning large armies both armies are 2,400 point armies. This was driven by wanting ten cohorts for my roman legion and having twelve stands per cohort. The points added up quickly but I decided that was a must and everything else would be based around that. Originally, the Dacians were the dominant partner with the Sarmations providing a couple of battle groups of Cataphracts. But I noticed that the FOG starter army for the Principate Army had the legionaries representing 49% of the point total for their version of the legion and my army had 70% of the army made up of legionaries! This had to be addressed. But instead of watering down my army I decided to strengthen the opposition army by increasing the Sarmation contribution to ten battle groups. The Dacians are all mediums in terms of infantry and they would not stand up well against the cohorts on their own. So now with the Sarmations making up roughly half the barbarian army now the battle should be more balanced. I'll post pictures of the completed first cohort soon and start with a unit of the barbarian army to mix it up a bit.

A Short History

After a long hiatus from the miniatures wargaming hobby I'm back in it again and very excited to be so.  Back in 1987 I was first introduced to the hobby by a friend who brought me to the local game club here in Southwestern Connecticut. That evening I witnessed a battle between Alexander's Macedonians and ancient Indians in 25mm scale. I was hooked. Over the next several years I participated in many miniature battles that spanned Ancients, Napoleonic s,  American Civil War and World War II. But the Ancient period has always been my favorite. Specifically, the Roman Empire. The early imperial period was the first army I wanted to build and game with. Back in those days before the career responsibilities began to encroach and my gaming friends had the time, the prospects seemed endless for placing historically accurate armies on the table.
Unfortunately, things did not work out as planned. Since it was important to me that I build my own armies I undertook a project that was quite daunting in retrospect because of the time needed to achieve my goals. None of the historical enemies for Imperial Rome galvanized my gaming buddies in those days so I had to build both sides. That proved to be too much and unfortunately life had a funny way of  intruding and impeding my progress. That was back in 1996. Then, in 2011, I was selling my apartment and was preparing to make a book donation to the Ferguson Library here in Stamford Connecticut. Much of my library was composed of books on history and politics all of which I had read and felt the local library could use. In preparing the boxes to be shipped, I came across all of my Osprey books, old miniature rule sets and painting guides. It was like 1987 all over again and the urge to start building the Early Imperial Army came flooding back. I decided to start this blog to share with anyone who cares, the journey back to this wonderful hobby and the thought process behind turning an idea for an army into reality.
Going forward I'll be sharing my design thoughts about figures, point values and rule systems. I will say that it is important that armies be reflective of the actual armies we are depicting and that they also be interesting to look at as well. When I broke into the hobby 24 years ago WRG was the ruling system for ancients. Armies were fairly large by today's measure and that made an impression upon me that I have never wanted to deviate from. As time went bye and new rules were written gamers tried them out and seemed to embrace the point systems associated with them that allowed for fewer figures to be needed and I suppose keep costs down for members of the hobby. However, I don't subscribe to this approach. I find it difficult to get excited over a roman cohort made up of a handful of figures in two small ranks as an example. I know figures are expensive and time is precious more so now than ever. I do get it. But I think the experience is lessened by displaying such small armies and the larger experience should be brought back. So I will be sharing my thoughts and my progress from the Workbench and hopefully receive some feed back on what I post. Excelsior!!