Essex Miniatures Roman Infantry

The Painting Challenge this year for me has been mostly about my Dominate Roman army. I did start it with one unit in last years challenge but then I dropped it to finish Project Waterloo, but with the troops for that finished I have been able to give this army far more attention.

I really like the sculpts for these figures. Unfortunately I can only have the four bases and if I do I can't use the bow or slingers. Still they can be used in different armies so all is not lost.

I really like that they don't just have the one javelin so more look the part. These will be most useful for chasing away or fighting the opponents light infantry as their limited range and small number would make them next to useless against other heavier formations.

Fairly distinctive uniforms and I must say the availability of images on the net is rather slim so much of the painting has to be based around a fairly unhelpful Osprey as few of the images are all that clear on the uniforms making me think little is actually known of the uniforms of this period.

Keeping to the same base uniform as I like the idea that both units are somehow linked, here we have a unit of Auxiliaries I went for medium rather than heavy infantry as much to have a 6 base unit as 4 base units are very fragile.

Fairly basic shields, OK very basic, these are actually brighter in colour than I at first had in mind but they are growing on me. 

Ready for battle, here they are in the role of protecting the Auxiliaries as they close with one of Rome's numerous enemies, 

A second unit of slingers, to the ones I painted near the start of the challenge. Nothing much to say about these guys as they are fairly pedestrian.

Again went with some fairly bold colours, bright shields and deep red pattern to the tunics. One of the other Roman armies from this period allows eight bases of slingers so they can be of use.

My favourite unit of the bunch, and again on the bright side. The shields as the others are taken from the Osprey I mentioned before from a set of B&W drawings with colour codes.

This almost brings to the end the infantry I have for this army, just a few more bow troops. I plan to paint these up at the same time I finish off the cavalry and camp. That will bring to a close the whole army and I hope to get this done either as the Challenge comes to a close or soon after.