Dacian Warband

So following a slight detour into WWII and my collection of British bombers and German nightfighters brought to completion with the few purchases made at Salute, it was back to my main project, the Romano-Dacian collection which sees Warband number eight added to my Dacian host and about two-thirds of the force completed.

If you are interested in looking back on the others in the collection since work started back in September 2017 with Warband number one I have put links below to the other posts, together with a link to all the work on the collection completed too date with terrain and games played.

Dacian Warband One
Dacian Warband Two
Dacian Warband Three
Dacian Warband Four
Dacian Warband Five
Dacian Warbands Six and Seven

JJ's Dacian Wars

As with previous builds, my Dacians are primarily composed of the Warlord plastics with a few strategically placed additions from Wargames Foundry, which work well with Warlord, to help add further variety to the look of the unit as a whole.

With an eye to the army as a whole I have given this warband a blue and white themed draco standard to compliment that carried by number seven, thus pairing my warbands into regimental groupings of about two-thousand men.

Each thirty-six figure warband is accompanied by a two figure 'brave warrior' marker that is used to indicate when the unit has used it brave warriors to gain an advantage in combat, rather similar to Romans throwing pila and I try to have these markers looking that little bit more aggressive with multiple weapons in hand or carrying the odd head, careless of their own preservation as they launch themselves into the hated invader's ranks.

The plan will see at least twelve, possibly fourteen of these warbands available to the Dacian player to line up alongside the Sarmatians and really create a big battle look to the table opposite a Roman line.

I was really excited to see the plans for the Victrix Dacians and will no doubt add a few units of their offerings to add further variation to my host as well as all the loveliness that Victrix brings to any collection.

Talking of Victrix loveliness, next up will be my first cohort of Victix Roman Auxiliaries complete with heads held aloft on spear points, which I am really looking forward to taking a brush to.

As mentioned my warband is composed of figures from Warlord and Wargames Foundry and the shield decals are from Little Big Men

Dacian Warbands

So onwards and upwards with the Dacians and an opportunity to bring progress up to date with my Dacian Warbands recently outlined in my project update that stated boldly that I had six warbands done and planned to press on with the next six.

Romano Dacian Collection Update

It was on the completion of warband number seven that I realised that I hadn't taken any parade shots of warband number six completed back in the early autumn of 2018 before I started work on my Sarmatians and so when I went back to put links to the previous units in this post I suddenly realised my error; this despite the previous unit taking part in Will's and my Xmas game and appearing in that post - doh!

So here are the previous posts for those interested on looking back or seeing them for the first time and here I will feature units six and seven.

Dacian Warband One
Dacian Warband Two
Dacian Warband Three
Dacian Warband Four
Dacian Warband Five

Warbands six on the right and seven on the left

As will be seen from previous posts I have looked at the wargaming features of these large units that like most warband armies focus their hitting power in the initial charge and by using their size in manpower to hopefully overwhelm the smaller Roman units they are most likely to come up against.

In addition a Dacian force offers added extras in terms of slightly better protected and more enthusiastic warriors in the form of their Cap-Wearer elite units and the added punch of their falx wielding ones.

Illustration by G Embleton - Osprey - Rome's Enemies - Germanics and Dacians

What little information there is on the look of these units is based primarily on the visual references left from antiquity in the form of Trajan's column and the Adamclisi monument which gives tantalizing hints as to the look and dress of Dacian soldiers captured in the illustration above and which informs the look of my units.

Warband number six with its 'brave warriors' out front 

As for the way the Dacians organised their forces and how they operated on the battlefield it is left to the imagination and educated guesswork but based on more recent periods I have wargamed in I think units or groups of infantry anywhere between five hundred and a thousand warriors wouldn't have been unreasonable to have seen used; allowing for command and control issues with sizes greater than that, with these groups representing the upper end of that scale and twice the size of my Roman cohorts.

As a warband force the Dacians tend to get lumped alongside the Celts and Germans who engaged the Romans along the Rhine-Danube frontier particularly as the delineation between empire and barbarian tribal areas became more established.

However whilst showcasing these new additions to the collection I thought it might be interesting to look at the early clash between Rome and Dacia just prior to Trajan assuming the purple and describing the challenge that they posed to the empire.

Moesia, Pannonia and Dacia - 117AD
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpire_117_-_Moesia_Superior_and_Moesia_Inferior.svg

The Dacians were a Thracian people, but Dacia was also occupied by Daco-Germans and Celto Dacians supported by allies such as the Roxolani Sarmatians as outlined in my post covering the Sarmatian units.

Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus 51 - 96 AD - Domitian
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domiziano_da_collezione_albani,_fine_del_I_sec._dc._02.JPG

In the winter of 85/86 AD Dacian forces attacked Roman defences in Moesia, ravaging the wider country and killing the Roman Governor, Oppius Sabinus, in a battle which is reported to have seen the loss of three thousand legionaries; which prompted Emperor Domitian to reorganize Moesia into two provinces before leading the operation to clear the provinces of the invaders.

The Dacian ruler at this time is thought to have been Diurapaneus (Durpaneus) who either forcibly or willingly yielded power to Decebalus.

The new king attempted to sue for peace but his approaches were contemptuously rejected by the Romans and Decebalus is reported to have sent a second messenger, mockingly advising Domitian to buy peace from him by forcing every Roman citizen to pay him two coins each year if they could not expect war and great misery - talk about nerve!

In the spring of 87 AD the jibe had its effect with Praetorian Prefect Cornelius Fuscus leading, what is described as, a large army built around Legio V Alaudae and many auxiliaries across the Danube via a floating bridge where the river narrows above the Iron Gates, an eighty-three mile long narrow gorge on the central Danube.

Little is known from the few surviving accounts of this campaign other than Fuscus' army was seemingly crushed by the Dacians to the extent that Fuscus was killed and Legio V lost standards and artillery pieces that were not recovered until fifteen years later in 102 AD by Trajan's troops.

The latest addition to the growing Dacian host, warband number seven, with plenty of flesh on show.

Rome renewed the offensive in the following year led by General Tettius Julianus (Iulianus) who already had considerable experience fighting tribes on the Lower Danube, leading a much more powerful force of four legions (III Sythica, V Macedonica, II Audiutrix and VII Claudia), again taking the direct route towards Sarmizegetuza via a pontoon bridge of boats and engaging the Dacian army in the narrow mountain valley at Tarpae, not for the last time.

The battle reported by Cassius Dio was described as fierce with countless Dacians killed and Vezina (Avezina) one of Decebalus' chief aides surviving by hiding among the dead to wait for darkness to make his escape.

Tapae erased the shame of Sabinus and Fuscus' defeats but victory was soon eclipsed with a rebellious uprising on the Rhine lead by Antonius Saturninus, Governor of Germania Superior, forcing Domitian to order a rapid withdrawal from Dacia to redeploy his forces in response.

If that were not the only issue Domitian was facing he was also attempting to prosecute a war against the Germanic tribes in Pannonia (Marcomanni and Quadi) and the Sarmatian Iazyges for not supporting Rome in its war with Dacia and thus indirectly supporting the latter.

However according to Dio the operation against Marcomanni ended in disaster, much to Dacia's benefit and to quote.

"Domitian, having been defeated by the Marcomanni, took to flight, and hastily sending messages to Decebalus, king of the Dacians, induced him to make a truce, though he himself had refused to grant one in response to the frequent requests of Decebalus. And so Decebalus accepted his overtures, for he had suffered grievous hardships; yet he did not wish to hold a conference with Domitian personally, but instead sent Diegis (his brother) with the men, to give him the arms and a few captives who, he pretended, were the only ones he had."

When Diegis arrived in Rome he went before the Senate and symbolically handed over the weapons and in an impressive ceremony was crowned with a gold diadem by Domitian himself, however Dio states that:

"the truce had cost (Domitian) something besides his losses, for he had given large sums of money to Decebalus on the spot, as well as artisans of every trade pertaining to both peace and war, and had promised to keep on giving large sums in future."

Dio then went on to describe the festivities that followed to celebrate his victory!

"He graced the festival that followed with many exhibits appropriate to a triumph, though they came from no booty that he had captured; ... The exhibits which he displayed really came from the store of imperial furniture."

The stage was set for what would be increasingly seen as Rome's humiliation at the hands of Decebalus and his Dacians.

 Following Domitian's assassination in September 96 AD and the following rebuke placed on his reign by the Senate 'damnatio memoriae' or condemnation after death, both Emperors Nerva and Trajan who followed him actively distanced themselves from his memory and in the case of the latter used his record to provide the 'casus belli' or justification for the war that followed in the winter of 100/101 AD.

Command Sabot Bases for Augustus to Aurelian

The new Command Sabot Bases together with the activation chits that identify which commander can act during a game of Augustus to Aurelian

The recent game of Augustus to Aurelian (AtoA) between Will and myself over the Xmas break, revealed my glaring need to get on and produce some specialised command bases to enable my respective commanders to be easily identified on the table as and when their respective command chits were drawn as well as allowing me to easily identify a particular commander possessing specific traits and the orders they were operating under at any given time.

The picture below shows part of the action from our Xmas game and the Roman commander in the bottom right corner can be seen with his command markers in tow and all rather scruffy and inefficient.

My 'jury-rig' solution for marking up my commanders in our game at Xmas seen bottom right

So following that game I made a mental note to start really looking for a better alternative and then remembered seeing some command sabot bases designed by Michael Scott at Supreme Littleness Designs and being used for a Sharp Practice II collection, a game that is similarly driven by a card or chit drawn method.

Supreme Littleness Designs - Command Bases

I however was after a larger design for my sabots to enable my 50mm, 60mm and 70mm diameter bases to be successfully accommodated and with the space offered at the back to succinctly contain all the game data and identification that I wanted them to hold.

Early work on the new bases with the smaller 50mm junior leader bases at the back of the cutting mat

The first part of the design was relatively simple and Michael confirmed that he could cut the same design to the sizes I required and once they arrived I then had to think about the method to include my game data.

As you can see in these two production pictures I settled on using the designs I produced for the number chits that are produced by Sally 4th as my base identities

Sally 4th Roman Chits
Sally 4th Barbarian Chits

On the other corner I simply placed a 1.5 cm square piece of steel paper that allows me to affix the commander portrait under which I can also affix the order chit he would be operating under during the game.

A bit of a proof of concept moment as I placed some markers and a command base on the new sabot

The final look to my Dacian Command bases with number IDs designed to match the draw chits and the magnetic character profiles which will also cover up the orders that commander is operating under at any given time

Once the marker numbers were printed I sprayed them with some matt varnish to protect the ink and once affixed on the bases gave them and added coat of gloss varnish to seal them.

To soften the overall look I decided to cover the marker areas with masking tape before terraining the sabots around the edges and in between the portraits and identity numbers, thus creating a clearly delineated space to allow the markers to stand out and be easily seen.

In the end these marked up bases are a bit of a compromise as you don't want  the eye drawn away from the figures but you do want to be able to see who is who when playing the game.

Similarly my Roman commanders are marked up and ready to go for the next game

I am happy that these new bases strike the balance for me and are the best solution I have come up with so far, complimenting the look of the game chits as well.

The commander portraits are also the same markers used in the campaign system that I am currently playtesting with Steve that will allow a simple transfer of commander identities from the map game to the tabletop, more on that later.

Also not shown in these pictures are my 50mm bases that I have in reserve for the junior commanders, Level I Magnus Viri, as they are called in AtoA, examples of these being leaders of warbands or primus pilus with the legionary eagle who offer a command bonus at the unit level and for which I will in time produce some bases to act as these junior commanders.

So that takes care of the commanders and next it will be back to the units with work commenced on Dacian Warband number seven.

German Light Cavalry and Dacian Skirmishers

In among all the walks, shows and room reorganisations, the work to progress the Romano-Dacian collection has continued which the post covering the changes to my games room revealed with an early sneak preview of these charming gentlemen.

I picked these German light cavalry up at Partizan earlier this year and they are the new Warlord offering in their Hail Caesar range of figures.

I really liked the modelling of these warriors complete with a range of severed heads to be arranged around the bridles and complete with a command group with cornyx, standard and leader bearing an axe and sword whilst heading along at seemingly full tilt.

However if I were to add some small criticism, the legs and ankles or should that be fetlocks on these steeds are very thin and can be easily bent with uncareful rough handling.

In addition these chaps are illustrated on the box artwork carrying shields which look very much like those offered in the Warlord German warrior warband boxes, however if you are expecting to find shields contained you will be slightly disappointed.

Thus my hairy horseman have had shields supplied from some left over Gripping Beast plastic types from my recent Saxon/Viking collection build and I think they help complete the look of the unit.

German light cavalry are a ubiquitous type to have on hand when building an Early Imperial Roman collection as they can come in handy for supplying German style cavalry for my Dacian, Roman and German armies as required.

I also have some Wargames Foundry German cavalry waiting to be painted up so they should compliment these chaps quite nicely with the variety of looks to entertain the eye when out on the table.

Alongside my Germans I have added another couple of Dacian skirmish units of which Dacian armies seem to be well endowed.

This brings my Dacian skirmish groups up to six with three javelin groups, two archers and now one of slingers.

The intention is to allow my four divisions of Dacian warbands to be potentially accompanied by two groups of these annoying skirmishing types which should please the Roman player no end.

As with the German cavalry, all these light skirmishing groups are pretty ubiquitous and should serve pretty well all my ancient armies when required.

So these last groups complete phase one of the collection build which I have documented here on JJs and which can be reviewed by looking through the posts labelled JJ's Dacian Wars.

With the run into Xmas I am intending to hold fire on the start of phase two as I have some US 7th cavalry to complete in time for the Gus Murchie Memorial game, our annual big Christmas game in December at the DWG and they will form my small contribution to the game alongside some Plains Indians I painted up years ago but should be adequate for our purposes.

In addition I promised Steve M that I would help complete his FIW Seven Years War British collection by doing some British artillery teams and a Colour party to join the 60th Foot chaps I painted earlier, see the link below if you haven't seen that earlier work.

The 60th Royal American Regiment

So phase two of the Romano Dacians will see another six warbands, plus around fifteen units of Sarmatian cavalry added to the Dacian force alongside about another five cohorts of Roman legionaries and auxiliaries plus more Roman cavalry and artillery, which I hope to get the bulk of them finished by the end of next year along with some new terrain items as well.

King Decebalus, Warband Five and Roman Archer Cohort

Another update on progress with the Romano-Dacian collection with additions to both the Roman and Dacian forces.

First up we have King Decebalus which is a conversion job using the Wargames Foundry mounted Dacian commanders but with my lead figure getting a head swap with a Warlord Games helmeted head to create the look of the great king.

The king is accompanied by his standard bearer, again using the Veni Vidi Vici decal set BB3 from Magister Militum which offers some Greco-Thracian designs that may well have influenced Dacian designs given that there was a lot of sharing between the neighbouring cultures.

I was really pleased with how the head conversion turned out in the end and the horse is a particularly nice model which benefited from a suitably stand-out dapple-grey paint job.

The picture in Radu Oltean's 'Dacia The Roman Wars Volume One' was the inspiration for this group.

Next up, my Dacian host continues to grow, as does my knowledge on what works with these figures and possible conversions and range mixes.

This is the fifth thirty-six figure warband created and leaves another eight to go which should make an impressive show when on the table en-mass.

I mention conversions and range mixes as this is my first group to mix Warlord and Wargames Foundry figures, plus I have been doing a bit of cutting and swapping out of hands and weapon arrangements to help create a more varied look between my different bands.

I mentioned in my post covering the first game using the collection at the DWG meeting a month ago that I was using tokens to indicate each time the warband used a brave warrior to add to their combat score in a hand to hand battle and that I intended to replace them in time with suitable figures.

All my warbands now have two figures attached to indicate their allotment of brave warriors and they can be removed one by one as they are used.

The individual figures will also come in handy to do some skirmish games with the collection as well.

I was really pleased with how nicely the Foundry figures broke up the Warlord look and I intend to add more to each unit as I go.

I am also thinking about mixing in some casualties to add yet more interest for the eye to catch.

The Romans also got some new units added with another two groups of skirmishing archers and slingers together with a Cohortal command group for my archers.

The inclusion of a centurion, optio, standard and musician enables two skirmish groups of auxiliary archers to be combined into a cohort to fight on table as another formed unit.

Roman Archer Cohort with four figure command group added in the centre

Of course even those these guys are armoured and carry short swords they don't have shields and were not designed to mix it with warbands or equivalent heavy infantry.

That said, it seems the Romans found a use for these combined archer cohorts to be able to deliver a significant amount of arrows onto a particular target when the fighting tactics required.

Specific examples might include Germanicus' battle at Idavisto vs the German tribes under Arminius where the archers were used in strength to break up the charge of the Germans before being met by the Auxiliary spearmen.

Likewise Arrian's tactics against the Alans positioning archers behind in-depth cohorts of legionaries to receive the charges of the cataphracts whilst firing volleys of arrows into them overhead.

Augustus to Aurelian facilitates the use of these combined formations and the cohortal acies that allow units such as formed archers to fire and retire behind their supports.

An archer-spearmen combined cohort ready to deal with Vince's Parthian horde

So there we are onwards and upwards towards getting a largish game up and running for Xmas

If you would like to see my thoughts about the collection, some of the books and materials I am reading to inspire and develop my thoughts about the games I want to play using them then I have put together a short video clip looking at these and some other units from the collection so far.

Lots to come on JJ's this month with a report on Clotted Lard, the Lardy Day this weekend at the Devon Wargames Group meeting, then I am off next week on another two day walk with Mr Steve along the border with South Wales taking in Offas Dyke and the Three Castles, then next weekend we are off to Colours which is always fun to do and report back on

In between I have another book review planned plus more on Chester and Roman London and maybe a few more figures painted up to talk about.