Gripping Beast Plastic Late Romans

[eques]

What do people think of 'em?

[Patrick Waterson]

Have not seen them so cannot give any opinion on them, but I know a man who can ...

(Well, I do not actually know him, just found his review on the internet.  It should give a reasonable idea.)

[Justin Swanton]

They seem very nice, but how large are they? 15mm? 28mm?

[nikgaukroger]

Have not seen them so cannot give any opinion on them, but I know a man who can ...

(Well, I do not actually know him, just found his review on the internet.  It should give a reasonable idea.)

Links to a review of Saxon Thegns not the Late Romans ... 

[Patrick Waterson]

By the various deities, so it does!

Finding someone who has actually opened the Late Romans box is more of a challenge, but if the figures are up to the standards of the Saxons range they should be worthwhile.  So far, we seem to have just have the official version of what to expect, hence the Saxon pack probably gives as good an idea as any of what will be included.  See here for the Gripping Beast description (including some sprue pictures).

[nikgaukroger]

Saw some pics of them a bit back. Looked OK but the helmets were a bit odd as I recall.

[Belasirius55]

Hi

I bought a couple of boxes at discounted price at Partizan.

Assembly is straight forward and painting is easy.

I intend to use mine as either Romans or Byzantines. Why are there only eight armoured (front rank figures)? Figures look good and would seem to be acceptable to my eye.

There are no shield transfers supplied- so I went looking at Paritizan on the Ansty (Gripping Beast??)  stall and was sold four packets of Little Big men late Roman transfers designed for the Musketeer Minatures LR (M) 4 and LR (M) 7- which look to be the right size. I have still to apply the first one!!

Since coming home and starting to paint I have re found my stock of Veni Vidi Vici transfers which i bought from Essex some years ago. These are the right size and give a nice one colour transfer to go onto a painted and coloured shield.

Hope this helps

Regards
Peter

[valentinianvictor]

I've taken a look and admit they are not to my taste. Some very odd helmet depictions and not sure why one infantryman has body armour but no helmet. Also, why do figure manufacturers not do some background searching for the latest research for the figures they are producing. if they did in this case then I am sure there would have been no 'unarmoured spearmen' as the l latest ideas on Late Roman auxilia were that they were as heavily armed and armoured as their legionary counterparts.

[aligern]

Pon which we both agree Adrian 😀.

[davidb]

I agree with Adrian, I think that both were armoured for battle.

[Duncan Head]

I, on the other hand, think Adrian is confusing two separate issues: first, were auxilia as heavily armoured as legionaries? and second, were there any unarmoured close-fighting infantry on the battlefield?

I won't argue the first point, because while I know that the fashion now is to suggest armoured auxilia, I don't really know what the evidence for it is.

But the second point - "there would have been no 'unarmoured spearmen'" - doesn't follow from the first. First, we have Vegetius' clear statement that from some time in the late 4th century, infantry abandoned armour. Is that being completely discarded, and if so on what grounds? Second, we have Maurice's statement that not only would some 6th-century rear rankers be unarmoured, but even some of the file-leaders might lack armour. Are we sure that didn't apply in 350 or 400? Third, I know that Adrian has in the past advocated using the Arch of Constantine and other Imperial monuments as valid sources for Late Roman armour; yet the Arch clearly has unarmoured infantry in the siege scene and, IIRC, the bridge-battle as well. What all this suggests to me is that even if the auxilia palatina were supposed to wear armour, there were plenty of men - rear-rankers, or lower-status units, or units in provinces with a collapsed supply system, or men whose armour had gone the way of Synesius' Balagritae's horses, or men who'd just thrown it away - who would lack it.

[Patrick Waterson]

Vegetius (I.19) states:

"The manner of arming the troops comes next under consideration. But the method of the ancients no longer is followed. For though after the example of the Goths, the Alans and the Huns, we have made some improvements in the arms of the cavalry, yet it is plain the infantry are entirely defenseless. From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities.

Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.

But the case would be quite different, were they even heavier than they are, if by constant practice he had been accustomed to wear them."

We may understand from this that armour was habitually not worn by the majority of the Roman infantry of his time.  It seems still to have been issued, in whole or in part, but the thrust of his complaint seems to be that it was not worn.

[Darklinger]

Aye - for me, Romans (and other overly drilled types) are the enemy...... but would say that was an argument winner!
And a touching tale of human frailty to boot.

[valentinianvictor]

I've changed my viewpoint over the years due to the amount of extra research I have carried out. I think one of the issues many years ago was many of us wargamers relied on Phil Barkers 'Armies & Enemies of Imperial Rome'. Now,  I have a great deal of affection for this book but it does contain a number of inaccuracies that have come to light in the decades since its publication. Unfortunately it still has a great deal of influence even over modern authors, figure designers, wargamers etc as seen by its central use in the recent 'The Late Roman Army' by Gabrielle Esposito. I gradually came around to the idea that the Auxilia during the 4th Century were as heavily armed and armoured as their legionary counterparts after undertaking a great deal of research, which included reading the descriptions of auxilia in action by contemporary historians, as well as examining monumental and other Late Roman artworks. Certainly Ammianus does not describe the Auxilia as being different to the Legionary troops they fought alongside, and the fact that he describes several battles where the auxilia fought as the front ranks would imply that they could fulfil the role of heavy infantry if and when needed.

The difficulty I have with the comment Vegetius made about the infantry when he wrote his Epitome abandoning their armour does not stack up when taking the artwork of the 5th/6th century AD into account where even border troops in Egypt are shown wearing helmets and body armour. Vegetius was railing against what he saw as the 'barbarisation' of the Late Roman army, a necessity after the disaster at Adrianople. The Eastern Empire, and the Western to a limited extent, had to rely on an influx of troops from the very peoples that had inflicted the terrible defeat, namely the Goths. Whilst many Goths had managed to arm themselves in captured Roman equipment, the new Gothic waves would no doubt have had no access to Roman gear and these may be the very troops Vegetius saw on a daily basis and who he believed were to blame for the decay of the legion.

Back to the original comment by Duncan, Ammianus went to great pains to describe the 'glittering crests', 'glittering armour' etc when talking about the infantry of his day, I cannot see an infantryman being without his helmet on the battlefield as it was a major source of protection. The only time he may have been discussing infantry without their armour was when discussing the troops crossing of the Rhine on their shields, and when discussing troops travelling quickly as 'expeditii'.

[Patrick Waterson]

Fair points, Adrian, although I do not think the infantry Vegetius refers to are barbarian, particularly as he mentions them as being helpless against, as opposed to being similar to, the Goths. 

Pampered and over-indulged Romans would seem to be his target, especially given the parameters of his solution:

1) tighten up on recruitment (select countrymen not city-dwellers, I.2; at puberty, I.3; from particular trades, I.6)
2) tighten up on exercising (I.9-18)
3) reorganise the legion back to what he thinks it was (II.4 et seq).

We may note his emphasis on the legion as opposed to the auxilium, the latter being a traditional repository for barbarian recruits whereas legions were meant to be drawn from citizens of the Empire.  He does mention auxilia, but principally under:

"Another cause of the weakness of our legions is that in them the soldiers find the duty hard, the arms heavy, the rewards distant and the discipline severe. To avoid these inconveniences, the young men enlist in the auxiliaries, where the service is less laborious and they have reason to expect more speedy recompenses."

This seems to parallel the apparent growth of the auxilia in numbers and importance relative to the legions over the 4th century AD.

One might expect that soldier-emperors like Julian and Valentinian would exercise their men and encourage them to wear their armour, and that less soldierly emperors might simply not care.  Vegetius is usually assumed to be dedicating his work to Theodosius, and it is possible that Theodosius might have listened, or rather read and to an extent acted, this of course depending upon how one interprets the figures on Theodosius' column.  Hence I would expect the better soldier-emperors' troops to appear on the battlefield with at least the officers and front ranks wearing armour (a sort of Maurikian arrangement), but also that the wearing of armour would be an optional extra under the likes of Valens or Gratian, particularly if one had just force-marched on a hot day as far as Adrianople.

Sculpture would naturally depict armour as long as armour was still authorised issue; getting men to wear it on parade would not be a problem ("Cohort will parade at the fifth hour for the artist, and you will [expletive] well be wearing your [expletive] armour!!!")  Actually wearing the issued armour under service conditions would have been a totally different question.

Hence I would still conclude that armour was still issued during the period but was often not worn on campaign, at least by a significant proportion of the infantry.