Roman Praetorian Guard Cavalry and Supply Wagons

Last weekend I got to play the first game with the new Romano-Dacian collection at the Devon Wargames Group monthly club meeting.

I had hoped to showcase these two units before the game but I was away in London most of the preceding week and found myself getting the bases finished on the Guard cavalry the night and morning before going to club.

My first unit of Praetorian Guard Cavalry from the Warlord range on their new movement tray from Products for Wargames

So both these units have been in a game, which you can catch up on at the DWG club blog, a little scenario entitled 'Hold the Pass'.
Devon Wargames Group - Hold the Pass

Much ink has been spilled postulating about the Praetorian Guard and its fighting role against its very well known political one, with Emperors made or broken seemingly on the whim of a force initially established to protect the man in charge.

The Praetorian Guard have been considered by some commentators as more of a ceremonial formation rather than a fighting one, being the envy of other troops seeing them enjoy better pay, bonuses and a shorter term of enlistment.

However others see their combat role very much underestimated and place them in the category of the more traditional army reserve elite fighting formation.

The Praetorian Guard were involved in the first major actions against the Dacians under Emperor Domitian when an army led by Praetorian Prefect Cornelius Fuscus was heavily defeated in 87 AD and they were very aggrieved when Domitian was assassinated later in 96 AD.

This grievance vented itself on Domitian's successor Nerva who was forced to surrender one of the Praetorian Prefects, Secundus, suspected of involvement in the assassination, to them for execution and only preserved his own position by naming Marcus Ulpius Traianus (Trajan) as his eventual successor.

Trajan on his accession with the death of Nerva in 98 AD immediately stamped his authority on the situation by ordering the execution of the other Prefect and his supporters.

Trajan, it seems, was very much of a mind to deal with the Dacian problem once and for all and his two campaigns against them would see a massive mobilisation of the Roman military in the theatre which if Trajan's column is to be relied on featured involvement by the guard.

The principle inspiration for the look of my Guard Cavalry has been the illustration by Richard Hook in the Osprey Elite series 'The Praetorian Guard', which is also a great reference about the Guard as a whole and a recommended addition to the research library.

Some units adopted symbols associated with the birth sign of their founder with, for example, several Augustan legions adopting the half fish, half goat symbol for Capricorn. The Guard are associated with the scorpion motif which is thought to be a reference to their second founder, Tiberius, a Scorpio.

Praetorian Guard Cavalry with their distinctive helmet crests and scorpion motif hexagonal shields

So are my Praetorians a bunch of ceremonial peacocks or a battle deciding elite?

Well it all depends on which Praetorian unit has turned up, with 'Augustus to Aurelian' allowing the chance for them to be not quite as good as they think they are.

As in my previous posts where I have illustrated the combat statistics for the game I thought it would be interesting to look at a so called elite unit and their abilities to inflict and take punishment.

The table above shows unit characteristics for bulk-standard auxiliary cavalry rated as 'untried', 'regular' and 'hardened' versus the two flavours of Praetorians either palace guard 'Pseudo' or the real deal.

Immediately obvious is that the Pseudo option are still pretty good, rating alongside hardened or veteran auxiliary cavalry for combat and shooting effectiveness using the five column on the combat table below for both types of attack before modifiers which means they hit on 8 or less with a d10 against an unarmoured target, rolling three dice in combat and two in shooting.

However a comfortable life in the Rome garrison has had an effect reducing their outlook to just 4 meaning four hits will cause them to go shaken.

As can be seen the Praetorians proper are a potent unit with improvements in combat and morale over veteran hardened auxiliaries.

My Praetorians are from the Warlord Games range of figures using shield and banner decals from Little Big Men.

To add to their look as an elite unit I have chosen to follow the Osprey illustration and have them mounted all on black horses. In time I will do a second unit of ten to produce a full ala of about five hundred men.

One of the great advantages and features a Roman army of the Principate had over most of the foes they faced was the ability to supply their troops from a series of depots and magazines stretching back to the food baskets of the empire focused on keeping their armies in the field and able to fight. These supply lines form a ready source of scenarios covering the battles to keep them intact.

In addition, the Sarmatians, a steppe people, travelled with their families and belongings carried in wagons with the famous 'night battle' illustrated on Trajan's Column showing the carts and wagons in the midst of the fighting troops.

When building this collection I really was keen to include this aspect into the game and so I wanted some supply wagons to feature occasionally when called for.

Colonel Bill's Wargames Depot have put together a great and affordable range of their own MDF wagons together with the lovely models from 4Ground and offer a comprehensive range of loads, crews and draught animals to complete them.
https://www.colonelbills.com/

These particular models are the 4Ground offerings kitted out with Roman wagon teams and escorts and some appropriate loads.

The covered wagon has a tilt made from roll up cigarette paper which is just perfect for the job and I have mounted the wagons on the MDF vehicle bases supplied by Warbases.
Warbases - vehicle bases

Just to complete the look, I replaced the shields provided with the auxiliary escort with some Warlord ones I already had decaled up in the spares box. I then made some scratch built boxes covered in a tarp from some more cigarette paper, which you can see in the front and back of both wagons and have them looking fully laden.

The weapons load had the shields decaled up with Warlord and LBM decals and I added some brass rod nose rings to my oxen so I could attach my leads to the two drivers.

I had never built any vehicles in MDF before and was very impressed with how easy and well they went together and how easy to paint up and modify, with my covered wagon getting a bench seat for the driver added.

I aim to add four more wagons to the collection with some kitted out in a more tribal look which can be added to the Roman column as impressed locals or be used with my Dacians and Sarmatians as required.

In addition I have some mules loaded up with legionary kit to follow along and so plan to have an attractive table-top target for future games.

Next up more travel reports from myself covering our trip to Chester this month and Mr Steve's visit to Roman Viriconium (Wroxeter).

Roman Auxiliary Cavalry

The principle arm in most Roman forces is going to be composed of a solid core of legionaries and/or auxiliary infantry.

That said the armies of the Principate were well served by a comparatively smaller but no less effective body of cavalry mainly composed of the auxiliary ala with many of the soldiers hailing from conquered tribes used to fighting in the saddle.

As in previous posts and with my first game using these figures with 'Augustus to Aurelian' (AtoA) coming up, I thought I would illustrate the combat effectiveness of this kind of unit.

I intend to operate my auxiliary Roman cavalry in half, or perhaps that should be demi, ala representing about 250 men.

The Combat and Shooting table from AtoA

A half ala of 'new kids on the block', untrained auxiliary cavalry will get to roll three d10 in combat and two when throwing javelins.

Their 'to hit' factor in both cases is 2, which reading down the appropriate column in the table above means, against unarmoured or lightly armoured opposition they will cause casualties on 5 or less or 4 or less respectively before any column shifts for specific factors that might make those odds harder or easier.

Of course you would rather hope not to take on Cataphracts too often!

The more usual trained and experienced troops illustrated in the table below add a 10% improvement on those dice even against cataphracts, although I would still urge caution with the latter.

In addition to improved combat ratings the training(Outlook) and morale (Rating) are improved meaning these units can take up to five hits before becoming shaken and would need to roll seven or less on a d10 to pass a reaction test before any additions or subtractions for additional factors.

The hardened or veteran ala go another 10% on the combat dice and start to become competitive against the better protected cavalry opponents.

Like wise the Outlook and Rating means the ability to take casualties and to respond well to difficult situations is also improved.

Finally we can model the unit to represent one of the specialised ala such as the Batavians who proved their worth at the Medway and likely at the crossing at the Menai Straits, Anglesey with their inherent swimming abilities for getting across difficult waterways.

The special ability 'Expert Waterman' means these troops treat different types of watery terrain one level of difficulty less, thus a simple ford or boggy ground have no effect on their movement.

This added combat skill might of course be regretted for some Roman units when we come to do some Batavian revolt scenarios.

My auxiliary cavalry are from the Warlord range of figures and are finished off with shield and banner decals from LBM.

I am hoping to add a similarly sized group of Praetorian cavalry to accompany them before the game - more anon.

Finally it would be remiss of me not to say how much I am looking forward to the release of the Victrix plastic EIR cavalry planned to be rolled out in September so I hope to add yet more cavalry going forward.

I'm off to London this week to watch England play India in the second test at Lords and to take in a bit of Roman Londinium. So that means more travel reports, a Roman supply column and some Praetorian Guard cavalry to show you, not to mention the first run out with the collection next weekend at the Devon Wargames Group.

Roman Infantry and Commanders

As I write this post I am sat in the centre of Roman Deva, now known as Chester and the former base of the XX Valeria Victrix, victors over Boudica at the Battle of Watling Street, so what better time than to introduce the latest additions to my Roman force.

With the core of my Dacian force put together it was time to look at adding some additional punch to my Roman force.

Roman punch doesn't come more emphatic than a cohort or two of legionaries and my force now has two with the addition of a second consisting of the Victrix attacking legionaries.

More animated than the standing cohort, these chaps are shown thrusting with gladius, punching with scutum and preparing to let fly with a volley of pila.

Roman Imperial Legionary Cohort

I really love putting these figures together which offer loads of options to vary the look of each unit and make them unique to your force, not to mention, buckets of detail to get a paint brush around.

In time the plan is to build fourteen of these cohort groups so we can do some big table games of Roman vs others or Roman v Roman.

These cohorts come in three flavours using Augustus to Aurelian (AtoA). If you want to compare them with the Light Dacian units you can see their stats in my previous post

 Dacian Light Infantry, Artillery and Commanders

The first option is the occasional 'untried' cohort, trained in which end of the gladius to use but not yet tested with looking down the 'nasty end' of a Dacian warband.

AtoA Combat Table used for shooting and hand to hand

As explained in the previous post the combat table in AtoA is used in both hand to hand and shooting calculations and works by finding the indicated combat or shooting factor across the top to find the column you are working with. Then simply read across the target's armour rating to find the basic score or less on a d10 needed to cause a casualty. Any additional factors simply move the column left or right.

As well as getting to lob their pila as part of the combat calculation, these chaps get to roll 2d10 on the combat table with a factor of 3 meaning before any additional factors have shifted columns right or left they cause a casualty on a 6 or less on each d10 rolled against unarmoured Dacians, which most of them are.

The pila are, as you would expect, nasty, effectively allowing the cohort to roll 4d10 on the first round of combat only and they ignore the target being shielded. If the combat should drag on into subsequent rounds, they then get to work with the gladius which adds a further d10 to their Combat Attack roll, bringing it up to 3d10 from then on.

With an outlook of 3 they can't afford to take three or more casualties themselves so rely on getting the combat won quickly or getting themselves replaced by a follow up cohort in the second line; and with a Rating of 7 they are pretty good at performing reaction tests when required needing 7 or less on a d10 before adjustments.

If you also note their 'Drilled' and Triplex Acies' qualities, it makes it much easier to pull these chaps in and out of a combat, replacing them with fresh cohorts as and when required.

The bulk standard trained cohort, with a modicum of combat experience among the centuries just adds to the concerns of any Dacian commander by improving the odds in terms of causing casualties on the enemy by another 10% on each combat and shooting attack, whilst also gaining a more robust reaction profile.

The hardened, probably veteran, cohorts are even better and if forming a first cohort with an additional 350 or so legionaries would add another d10 to those combat factors with a Rating that means they don't know when they are beaten.

As well as infantry reinforcements I needed some commanders to lead my troops in the upcoming game so put together another four command groups, with a mixture of Wargames Foundry and Warlord general officers.

With the Emperor Trajan foremost among Rome's warrior emperors I was keen to use the Foundry offering, here mixed in with figures from their Suetonius Paulinus group.

Paulinus ended up (centre) as a mounted Roman Legate accompanied by his Primus Pilus.

The two on foot general officers (left) were taken from the Trajan group and added to one from the Paulinus group to make a suitable mix of narrow and broad stripe tribunes as another command group.

Finally on the right I used the Warlord charging cavalry commander, another tribune, indicated by his purple helmet crest and saddle furniture accompanied by his fearless war-pooch.

These command groups will I hope, be soon added to with the forthcoming offerings from Victrix which I am eagerly anticipating.

Last but by no means least I have added a couple of Auxiliary units in the form of these skirmishing archers and slingers.

The western archers can be combined into two units of eight to form a sixteen figure formed unit rather than the smaller skirmish one seen here, allowing them to fire massed volleys of arrows and if necessary defend themselves with their armour and gladius short swords.

When used as skirmishers as here their added weaponry and armour makes them formidable against other skirmishers in combat should the opportunity arise.

The slingers are definitely a skirmish unit only as their lack of armour does not incline them to getting in, up close and personal, much preferring to bring their skill at arms with sling and bullet to bear and at range.

Slingers have the benefit of negating shields used by the target as the sling bullet was not easy to see in flight and thus known to cause casualties on first shots because of the target being unaware of the bullets until the first casualties went down.

Both these groups of figures are from the Warlord range and come with a nice amount of detail in their sculpts if very slightly diminutive to the Victrix legionaries, which may in time cause me to bolster their ranks with slightly bulkier offerings from Aventine and Black Tree.

To give these chaps a bit more of a Roman character I decided to give them a commander indicated by one of their number being clad in a suitably red tunic.

Next up travel reports from Mr Steve and myself, plus more Roman additions to the collection.