Tying up loose ends

I am trying to plan ahead and get the decks clear for when I eventually decide what the new army is going to be for 2016. I have mentioned the upsizing of the Romano-British and Saxon units to better survive in the dangerous world of the War & Conquest tournaments, this will now include the cavalry going from 10 to 12. I also need to provide these two armies with some accessories, the British are going to get a set of monks for Strategy Intervention Points and their Roman civilians are going to join the Twelfth in the searing heat of Mesopotamia. The Saxons have some lovely Irish wolfhounds for SIP's but they need a rally point, I have found a set of Dark Age binge drinkers which I think will do just fine. I also have some chickens on my 'to do' list, neat little models from Warbases to beef up my Dark Age scenery.

Binge drinking vignette coming up.

Romano-British SIP's

I got my Roman artillery from Warlord, I went for the large impressive ballista rather than the Scorpions, yes maybe that size was held in reserve for sieges but boy do they look mean, I can have up to four artillery pieces, one per unit of legionary's. That means if I could find crew members I could re-use the two Scorpions my Romano-British are now not allowed, but I can't, so what I am going to do is get some Roman manuballista's from Aventine and mount them on two artillery bases. What I would like to do is use these guys as crossbow armed skirmishers, but that is patently ridiculous albeit a fun idea, you see these men carried a hand ballista which looks almost identical to the big ones but is man portable, one was dug up near Carlisle if my memory serves me rightly. The overall cost of the Romans must now be approaching around £650.

Not mine but something to aim for, geddit?

Manuballista

Rob Broom and Dave Toone the keepers of the army lists for W&C have given due thought to my plea to introduce Contarii to the Roman Army of 150-200 AD, for want of a better name Trajanic/Aurelianic or simply Aurelian and I am now allowed up to one unit. I researched the troop type as far as I could and we know for a fact ala I Ulpia contariorum milliaria was garrisoning a fort on the Danube in the early 2nd century AD, other new cavalry units were in Pannonia at the same time. I suspect these are being raised as a counter to the Sarmatians with many of them heading east in due course for the wars against the Parthians and Sassanids. I have an idea that the contarii would eventually simply become true cataphracts/clibanarii and were perhaps a stop gap unit, mind you they seem to have been around for at least 50 years or more.

So where does all that put me, well the last cohort will be finished by the weekend, the contarii will be primed and on the tray at the same time, once these are done it's the artillery, then it is the field of glory for the Twelfth if I can get my son to fight them.