Irregular Wars Wargaming

Continuing on my slow plod towards raising a couple of Dux Bellorum armies, here are a couple of shots of my Germanic foedarati shieldwalls that will bulk out my Romano-British infantry. Although my Romano-Brits will have an overall red colour scheme, I have made these guys blue to a) distinguish them as 'different' from their comrades, and b) in case I decide to do a fully fledged Saxon army in the future, they will provide me with a core. The shieldwall on the right is my SAM Anglian warband rebased. All figures are Pendraken from their Late Roman range and include figures from both the Saxon militia and Roman militia packs, led by characters from the Arthurian personalities pack. One Saxon has had his spear replaced by a boar standard. I will used them as a regular shieldwall. The shieldwall on the right is made up principally of Pendraken Norse figures and include a mix of berserkers, bondi and hirdmen. The command are made up of a late Roman officer converted to ...

The Spartan phalanx, disrupted by Romans garrisoning the village. Elephants and cavalry go head-to-head on the left flank. Final positions. The entire combat south of the village was a perfect draw.

For some time now I have been pottering away building and painting a 6mm army for a friend of mine. When he was looking over the list of powers that might get involved in our c .220 BC theme for Hail Caesar , he decided that the crumbling state of Sparta was going to be the faction for him!  Now in theory, this is a fantastic period in Spartan history with fascinating personalities, social and military reforms and the joy of watching the driving ambition of a third rate power trying to regain it's previous ascendancy. In practice, after the reforms of Kleomenes III in the late 230s and early 220s, there are a whole lot of pikemen. I didn't really think about this before I started the painting project, but by golly  (after painting eleven units of the buggers)  I realise it now. Using the existing Classical Greek and Hellenistic Greek army lists as the basis, we did a bit of research and came up with the following specifically Hellenistic Spartan army list. There ...