Here come the cavalry

Well, the first assessment round for this semester is over, and so I've finally been able to get on with some painting.

The other week I received my order from Dadi & Piombo; the 'full' version of Impetus rules plus the two expansions. Looking at the army lists for the Late Roman East and Western armies, I'm happy to see that the Basic Impetus Patrician army I've been working on provides 90% of the bases needed for either of these forces, so it should be relatively painless to switch over to the full system. I'm really looking forward to building some kind of camp/baggage train, which is another addition in the full version.

One of the additional units needed to expand the army is this lot of Roman medium cavalry hot off the painting table. The figures are from Gripping Beast, but as I've never been overly keen on their horses, I've mounted them on the Aventine nags. I must say I'm really impressed with how these go together, and the smaller size of the horses works perfectly for the smaller breeds prevalent in Late Antiquity.

These are painted up as the Equites Batavii Iuniores, one of the vexillationes palatina from the Gallic field army. The shield pattern is taken again from the Notita Dignitatum. Inspiration for the colour schemes I've taken from the Osprey Warrior on Late Roman cavalry, and the commander is based on a plate from the excellent Ancient Warfare magazine on the Belisarian era. Next up on the painting bench I've been working on the first of two units of Frankish heavy infantry. Stripey tunics, braids, angons and franciscas here we come. :) I'm actually enjoying working on something even less uniform and more colourful than the Romans. I've put up a work-in-progress picture, they're some very characterful figures.

I've also made an addition to my Sassanid army. After reading a bit on the Savaran cavalry, i now realise that using Parthian horse archers to represent these is fine for the very early era, but as time progressed these would have been more heavily armoured. Accordingly, i went ahead and ordered a bunch of Savaran armed with swords, bows and kontos(es?), riding a mixture of barded and unbarded heavy horses. The figures look great, and should give the 'heavy but not too heavy' look I'm going for on these bases.

Anyhoo, hopefully i'll get the Franks finished off in the next week and get a chance to post another update. After the Franks, i've got some commission work, more late Roman infantry.