Thursday 3 December 2020

15mm Republican Roman Anti-elephant Wagons

 The DBMM Camillan Republican Roman army list allows up to six of these wagons and I thought they would be fun to do, so decided to include them:











I had originally only ordered six from Xyston Miniatures but, when I was putting them together, I discovered there was a wheel missing. I emailed Robbie ahead of my next order and he said he would send me the wheel, but instead sent me an entirely new model which was much appreciated. I couldn't very well leave it lying around so made it up along with the other six, albeit with a dodgy home-made replacement wheel.











The models themselves have a mixture of figures with bladed weapons, and one holding a stick with a burning wad on the end, all designed to scare Carthaginian elephants. For some reason, when I look at them bring back memories of that cartoon the Wacky Races:





















They gain a +1 combat bonus for that purpose when actually used against elephants, but may also come in handy at some point as a defence against a cavalry opponent:





















That being the case, I can't see them taking the field too often, but it will be nice to have the option to include them if required.











Only some Republican Roman generals, artillery and Italian allied cavalry to complete now, which should be within the next couple of weeks.

16 comments:

  1. Wow that's a lot of carts!! How many elephants are you expecting?
    Nice work :)

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    1. Thanks Mark. We did play all nine allowable Carthaginian elephants in one game, but they moved so slowly they were easy to avoid and never made contact with the enemy. A great waste of points.

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    2. Interesting, I just bought DBMM army list book two, will have to give the Republican and perhaps Pyrrhus a go :)

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    3. We played a DBMM game with Republican Romans against Phyrric Greek a couple of months ago and it turned into a real grind which we ended up calling a draw in the end. It was fairly historically accurate in that respect, we thought.

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  2. A lovely bunch of anti Elephant carts Lawrence

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    1. Thanks Keith. Something a little different, at least.

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  3. These wagons look great, Lawrence! Wacky Races brings back memories of Saturday mornings spent in front of the TV as a kid.

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    1. Cheers Jonathan. The Saturday morning cartoon sessions were always a big hit in our house. That was probably the most television we watched all week.

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  4. Most beautiful, impressive...and may be efective...chariots, well done!

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    1. Thanks Phil. They do put you in mind of early primitive chariots.

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  5. Lovely finish as always, I guess they could do double duty as a wagon train or camp?
    Best Iain

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    1. Cheers Iain. I have quite a bit of the Baueda camp stuff I'm looking forward to getting stuck into over the next month, once the Romans are complete.

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  6. Very handsome if odd devices - looks like a torch on a boom there. I thought the Romans were supposed to just open up lanes for the Elephants to trample through harmlessly? :-)

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    1. I thinks that is what they did at Zama isn't it Peter? These are part of the earlier Camillan Roman army and don't appear in later lists, so they must have dropped out of favour by Hannibal's time.

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  7. Excellent looking wagons. I'd love to see them taking on the Nellie's in a game?

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    1. Thanks Ray. I must remember to make a resolution for 2021 to put together some decent AARs, especially as the group I game with are starting to forget some of the details of the games we have played.

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