Wargame Warrior
Tabletop games with model soldiers.
The Romans - End of Empire / Arthurian
This is a command stand for the only game I have yet played for the period. It was the Battle of Callinicum 531AD at the Society of Ancients Battle Day. We decided to concentrate on the decisive flank of the battle where allied/subject Arab contingents fought on both sides. This is the Ghassanid Arab leader al-Harith (or Arethas) receiving orders from Belisarius, the Roman commander.
Ghassanid Arabs (and their Lakhmid opponents) are not widely available in 28mm scale, so our solution was to incorporate Middle Eastern cavalry figures from a variety of sources and adapt them to suit our own vision of these troops. Thats not a turban he's wering, it a "head-wrap." We didn't get ejected from the event but it was a source of controversy!
A New Old Period
Since I was a just a nipper there were gamers at the Grays club using 15mm Late Roman armies for their games. This was the period of WRG 6th Edition Ancient Wargames Rules, so there was apparently a single year in the army lists where Legionaries could be armed with Pilum, dart, javelin and boomerang (probably) without the inefficient points cost of mail armour. This made for a deadly tabletop presence which was optimised for tackling pike based armies. It didn't really catch my imagination I have to admit.
It was some years later that a sort of group hysteria overcame three of us visiting the old Broadsword Show in Walthamstow. We found ourselves buying scads of the Gripping Beast Arthurian and Late Roman 28mm figures without the least plan as to how or why we were going to use them. The other two quickly came to their senses. Before I realised though I had already bought some more figures, painted a bunch and started to read up on the period.
So that was me hooked. It has remained a side project however for many years.
