Skirmish during the Marcomannic Wars

Holes Haziran 08, 2022

Hi! The previous post was related to the Marcomannic Wars, and I remembered that I took pictures of a clash between Roman legionaries and Germanic warriors some times ago, a small skirmish that might have taken place during the Marcomannic Wars.

This is a good excuse to remember that these plastic toy soldiers are toys before anything else. The figures shown below are 1/72 ESCI figures, manufactured in the early eighties. Together with my brother, we used to play games with such minis, until one day we began to paint them (with Humbrol enamel colors). We followed the illustrations of the box to be as accurate as possible.

This was the box cover for the legionaries:

And the box cover for the Barbarians... No historical, but Hollywoodian accuracy :) You may notice that the shield is painted after an illustration in Osprey's MAA 121Armies of Carthaginian wars - it is a celtic shield -, and that the first character on the left is painted after Osprey's MAA 129 Germanic and Dacians... a figure that doesn't exist in the box !

Now that my painting skills have improved (yes, a little), I like to paint them again, using the most up-to-date documentation. Here you are the result :) The legionaries are dressed for the Mediterranean climate, not the cold of the forests in the Danube region ! Let's admit the barbarians came to Rome...