Dan Becker's Late Roman Archers and Slingers 28mm Figures

This article describes Late Roman Archers and Slingers figures from the Victrix Dark Ages historical line. The 28mm figures are suitable for use as displays, painting hobbies, and table top wargaming. I intend to use them with the big skirmish game from Osprey Publishing Lion Rampant.

Scroll to read the story and see smaller photos. Click on the photos for a gallery of all the larger images.

The Victrix Late Roman Archers and Slingers plastic warrior set comes with 36 figures to a box. There are 6 main bodies with a multitude of heads, weapons, shields, and accesories. There is no leader sprue, so to make any figures stand out as a leader you will have to kit bash from other warriors.

I made my Late Roman Archers and Slinger set into three sets of 12: Byzantines (East Roman Empire), Arthurians (Post Roman Brits), and Goths (Germanic warriors).

Since the time period is post Dark Ages and early Middle Ages, I tried to make the archers and slingers a bit more uniform. The warriors would have been funded and supplied by the emporor. The tan tunics with the fancy slings and hats on the left are the Byzantines, The white tunics with lots of capes and shawls in the center are Arthrians. The green tunics with big beards and hair on the right are the Goths.

The rules for Lion Rampant typically have infantry units with twelve men and cavalry and skirmishers in sets of six. So what you see here are one unit each of Byzantines, Arthurians, and Goths. You can probably also use this a two units each of skirmishers, but if they are ever caught, it might be easy to get three casualties and thus cause cohesion tests for the unit. Retreat!

This photo shows the unit of 12 Byzantine Archers and Slingers. All have tan tunics and most have a tan hat as well. These warriors all have some sort of stick sling. As a result of their specialized weapons, all 12 figures are made from just two body types. The variation comes from different arms, weapons, and heads.

Some of the slings have a big iron dart. I bet receiving a hit from these missiles would be debilitating.

This photo shows the Byzantine Archers and Slingers front.

As with the last few sets of miniatures, I based coated these with black primer, then white primer from above, and a bit of white dry-brushing. This performs a fast highlighting and shading for the next step.

Then I block in the main color areas of the figure with Armypainter Speedpaint. Because the Speedpaint is semi-transparent (like an ink), the highlights and shades poke through the paint. Then I fill in details with regular Armypainter Warpaints.

This shows the Byzantine Archers and Slinger shields.

The shields are made with designs from Little Big Men Studios. By far these are the best shield and banner designs for 28mm figures.

This photo shows the Byzantine Archers and Slingers rear. The bases are made with 22mm (7/8") washers. There is some wall spackle to help hide the plastic bases. Then there is some scale model gravel and static grass. These Byzantines get nearly straw color grass because I imagine they are fighting in dry Greece or Anatolia.

This photo shows the unit of Arthurian Archers and Slingers. Arthurians are are post Roman Britons who flourished following the end of Roman imperial rule (410 AD) unti the time of the Anglo Saxons (late 500, early 600 AD).

All the warriors have white tunics. To get a little color variation, I used 4 colors of brown to vary the belts, straps, and quivers.

Rather than just count off all permutations of 4 colors A, B, C, and D, I used Heap's Algorithm to come up with the best variation. This way you don't have color A slowly cycle while color D rapidly alternates. Here you see the third and fourth rows include all the colors and change rapidly.

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This photo shows the Arthurian Archers and Slingers front. Victrix did a good job with all the variation in the heads, poses, and weapons.

This photo shows the Arthurian Archers and Slingers shields.

These figures have Christian religious motifs on their shields such as the Greek letters Chi (Χχ), Rho (Ρρ), Alpha (Αα), and Omega (Ωω). Chi and Rho are the shorthand abbreviation for "Christo" and Alpha and Omega refer to the verse by Jesus symbolizing that he is the beginning and the end.

St. Augustine came to Britain in 597 and helped spread Christianity there.

This photo shows the Arthurian Archers and Slingers rear. The grass is a very bright spring green because it they are fighting in a "green and pleasant land."

This last set of photos shows the Goth variant of the Late Roman Archers and Slingers. Goths were the Germanic people who migrated from their early native lands likely/remotely Gotta Sweden from which the name comes. They settled for centuries next to the western Roman Empire. Then they had wars with the Romans. Then they allied with the Romans. Then they became Romans. Then they found the Eastern Roman Empire.

Victrix calls them Goths, but they could be any of the "Germanic" kingdoms from this era: Suebi, Allemanni, Burgundians, Lombardies, etc.

This photos shows the Goth Archers and Slingers front. The helmets are spangenhelms, made from four curved triangles (spangen) that are held together by rivets and three metal bands.

This photo shows the Goth Archers and Slingers shields. These tiny bucklers were carried on a sling over the shoulder. They were a last ditch defense against incoming arrows or blade equipped troops. Archers did not tend to carry large swords. They typically had this small shield and a small axe or short sword.

This photo shows the Goth Archers and Slingers rear. You can see the various quivers they carry. I painted the arrow plumes white as I imagine them to be common chicken feathers.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the details of these figures and the photographs. These figures were enjoyable to build, and I will certainly be expanding my Dark Ages and early Middle Ages figure collection. Thanks for reading about my latest miniature figures.