And now for something different

When I started this blog I was going on about how I'm starting on 2 new armies. Up until now I've only been going on about my new force for 40K, I haven't even touched on the new historical army I've been planning. It's time to change that.

My plan - and it's an idea I've been kicking about for ages - is to put together an army based on Spartacus' slave revolt. I'll admit it right up front, I'm a fan of the TV series and even though I know it's about as historically accurate as Braveheart it's still my primary inspiration here. But I think I can still put an army together that fits the historic details while capturing the feel of what I want to do. Either way, it's going to be fun but it's also going to be a longer term project.

I made a start at Salute, I picked up a box each of Wargames Factory's Ancient Germans and Numidians - they're the right period, they're wearing tunics or less, with a few head swaps I figure they'll make up a couple of decent sized units of slaves. What I'd like though is to be able to field some of them with equipment looted from fallen Roman troops; weapons and especially shields. I got a few free sprues of Warlord's new Republican Romans at Salute as well, so that gives me a dozen shields plus some gladiuses and pilums to play with. Gripping Beast do a pack of scutum shields for an excellent price that I may have to pick up.

So next on the list are some gladiators. The obvious candidates are Foundry, plenty of character and variety. I've got plans to use the retiarii as skirmishers with their nets counting as bucklers. There's a good mix of weapons and armour types too. My only possible issue is one of scale, I know Foundry's miniatures tend to be on the smaller end of the 25mm scale. Fortunately Foundry have an event coming up soon that I'm planning on attending to try out Gods of Battle so I can see how they measure up then.

My big issue though is finding a ruleset to use. WAB is the obvious candidate, but I've had issues with the rules in the past and the fact that it's out of production is another issue since I don't own a copy of Armies of Antiquity. I picked up a copy of War and Conquest at Campaign the other week, partly because the army lists are a free download. I've not had a chance to play a game yet, but I'm hopeful. The other alternative is Hail Caesar from Warlord, but as far as I can tell they don't have an army list for the slave revolts so I'd have to adapt something. I've not played that one yet either, so I see some practice games in my future.

Anyway, that's the plan. Such as it is.