What we hope to represent
The Maine Historical Wargamers Association is embarking upon a group project to represent the portion of the Battle of Sabis in which Caesar is nearly defeated by the Nervii. This project will be the focus of several months' work undertaken by individuals, clubs, and shops scattered across the State of Maine.
Wargames Factory will provide all of the troops to the club at no charge. Yes, that's right, they are donating all of the figures! The club will assemble, paint, and base the 25mm miniatures, prepare the scenario, and then run the game at Huzzah!
Tim Kindred has agreed to coordinate the project. Here are his notes regarding the battle, and how we will turn it into a game.
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This action represents the 7th & 12th Legions, along with Auxilliaries, bearing the brunt of the assault of the Nervi, and then the appearance of the 10th Legion to finally tip the balance in Caesar's favour.
Caesar lists the Nervi as having 60,000 present. I believe him to be fairly accurate in his estimate, despite the almost constant Roman tradition of minimizing their own forces and padding the numbers of their enemy's. Caesar was striking directly into their national lands, and, as a result, they could easily pool their manpower as they were fight8ing locally, with short supply and transport distances.
The three legions would each be composed of 10 Cohorts, with 480 men per Cohort, EXCEPT for the 1st of each legion, which had double the number, or 960. This gives a theoretical number of 5280 men per Legion. That number does not include any auxilliary and cavalry attached. Those numbers were small, cavalry-wise, and can be accounted for as separate units to the Roman TOE.
Since this is such a large action, and we want to portray it as such, I reccomend using a figure-to-man ration of 1:30. This keeps the numbers within reason, while still allowing us to field a large force and give a visually-appealing look at this scenario.
This also has the added advantage of tying in nicely with Wargames Factory packaging. It makes it easier to determine the number of sets required without having to go for individual sprues, etc. For the barbarians, it lets us use 1 box per unit, which works out nicely.
My calculations for figures required for this scenario as are follows:
Nervi: 70 boxes of Barbarians. These should be mostly German infantry, although a number of Celtic may be mixed in, as the Nervi were "German-Influenced" but also had much contact with the Celtic tribes of Gual, England and Spain. Maybe a 50/20 split, but a pure German force would be acceptable. The Nervis had no cavalry present, to my understanding, so none will be required.
Romans: 3 Legions of 10 Cohorts each. Each Cohort comes in at 16 figures, and their are 3 Cohorts per box as packaged. Figuring a double-sized cohort as well in each Legion, that gives us 4 boxes of Romans per Legion, for 12 boxes total. The extra troops may be modded for Engineers, Scorpion crews, or pulled togther for reinforcements, etc.
Each Legion also had a number of Cohorts of Auxillia attached, and a minimal number of cavalry. I would ask for 2 boxes of Numidian Infantry, as this will give each Legion a 16-figure Cohort of Auxillia, enough to make a showing and also represent the light troops present, etc.
Roman cavalry can best be represented with 2 boxes of Celtic Cavalry, with an additional 8 sprues of horses, the only extra items we will need. Each boxed set comes with 24 riders and 12 horses, so as to pick armoured or unarmoured riders. 2 boxes with the extra horses will give us 48 cavalry, half armoured and hald unarmoured, enough to easily represent the cavalry present.
This the total will be:
Barbarians: 70 boxes.
Roman Infantry: 12 boxes
Numidian Infantry: 2 boxes
Caltic Cavalry: 2 boxes
Horse Sprues: 8 total.
Hi, Chris.
Tim Kindred is putting together a guide on basing which will be ready for Saturday at the Game Day. I'll post them as soon as I have them.
Okay everyone...
Here's a quick note for those planning to paint. Dean and I have been discussing the basing for these minis. On the one hand, it would be nice to have large bases with multiple minis for ease in moving. On the other hand, we'd like to be as flexible as possible with the troops involved. The solution is this:
Each person painting minis from the acquired stock will be responsible for providing the bases for the figures. To that end, I strongly suggest using 1" diameter metal washers and attaching the minis with CA (superglue). Having the minis mounted individually will give us great flexibility if we then use movement trays. The trays can be made from any available material, and then we'll mount a thin sheet of magnetized rubber to the top of the tray. VOILA! Magnetic movement trays. The magnetic rubber can be painted, or even obtained in green so as to blend in more easily with the gaming surface.
Don't worry about making movement trays just yet. I'll be working on the actual size of them as we go over the rules modifications for the game, basically using one large movement tray for each unit.
I am leaning heavily towards making the movement trays out of black foamcore. It has the advantage of already being black, thus giving a nice edge to the tray without painting. It's fairly sturdy, especially with plastic minis (even with using metal washers for bases) and with the magnetic rubber sheet maounted to the top, will be very unlikely to bend or break during transport or gaming. Plus, it's inexpensive and easily replaced if needs be.
In the coming days I will have a brief painting guide for both sides, and more infor on the armies, equipments, organization etc.
So, to sum up, if you pitch in to help us, we'll provide the minis, and you provide the cement, paint, and a 1" diameter steel washer (or disk, blank, etc) for each mini.
Feel free to ask any questions. I'll be available all day saturday to answer questions about the battle, the minis, painting, rules, etc.
Respects,
Chris-
I know that you are buying your own figs to paint so we will work with whatever basing style you use. The game will be large enough that we'll have to be flexible in order to include everyone's preferences. No worries.
Dean
Wow, fantastic, i wish i live in Maine, and could paint a lot of Barbarians, i will follow u work, very interesting!!! From Canary Islands Bear Up!!!
The three legions would each be composed of 10 Cohorts, with 480 men per Cohort, EXCEPT for the 1st of each legion, which had double the number, or 960. This gives a theoretical number of 5280 men per Legion. That number does not include any auxilliary and cavalry attached. Those numbers were small, cavalry-wise, and can be accounted for as separate units to the Roman TOE.-wargaminginmaine
Did the late republic legions have a double strength 1st cohort? I thought that the double strength 1st cohort was an imperial invention?
What rules set are you planning on using to play this game? I might have missed it in another post.
Sounds like a lot of fun
Matt W.
Berkshire Wargamers
Hi, Matt.
I'll ask Tim Kindred to chime in on the discussion of the first cohort as he has been doing the research.
We are planning to use Howard Whitehouse's rules, Clash of Iron. These are in beta at the moment and I am not sure when or how Wargames Factory plans to release them. I think they were playtested at Historicon.
Dean
Hello.
As I understand it, the Roman Legion came down to 10 Cohorts of around 400 men each in the field. Each Cohort had 5 Centuries of 80 men. The first Cohort had more like 600 men, and carried the eagle for the Legion, which was about as sacred an object as they had.
There is considerable debate (and has been for decades) about whether tunic color varied by Cohort or by Legion. I tend toward by Legion, but have no real basis for it. That said, my Romans in 15mm vary by Cohort. So much for consistency!
In all cases, dyes are vegetable or mineral based and thus rather dull by modern standards. Also, dust, dirt, fading, &c., would tone down colors as well.
Hope that helps.
Bob Bailey
The Marian reforms of the 1st century BC did away with the various classes (Hastati, Pricepi, etc) and standardized the legions makeup. The later Republican legions, which is what Caesar had, were composed of 10 Cohorts. The Cohort was sub-divided into 6 centuries of 80 men each, for a total of 480 men per Cohort. The first Cohort, however, was initially increased to 8 Centuries, and shortly thereafter, some Legions increased the size to 12 centuries, or double the size.
In essence, the only noticable differences between a late Republic period legion, and an Imperial legion, would be the equipment style and patterns, although their still remains a great deal of debate over those issues.
I chose to represent the large double-sized first cohort for several reasons. First, it was always made up of the most experienced soldiers. The Romans themselves refered to the 1st Cohort as "The Elite Men". As it was the anchor of the line, deploying on the right, it was important to ensure it had staying power. To add to that, the mext cohort, or 2nd cohort, was made up of inexperienced or "weak" soldiers. Thus, in case of a collapse there, the 1st cohort could expand to it's left to cover more ground.
Finally, we are using only 3 legions in this scenario, to represent the actions on the right side of the battlefield. I thought it best to use the large cohort size for the 1st Cohort in order to ensure playability in the game. It was a VERY hard fought engagement, and the Nervii came very close to destroying the legions on the right. It was through the personal direction of Caesar, as well as the training and stubborness of the legions that they were able to prevail and create such a decisive result.
Thus, each legion would have (for our game) 9 units of 16 figures each plus one unit of 32 figures.
Please don't hesitate to ask any questions. I'm more than happy to try and answer them. Also, any ides you have are always welcome. This is a group effort, so feel free to toss in your opinions, comments, etc.
Respects,
Tim Kindred
Gentlemen, I just wanted to weigh in on the basing for Sabis. With approx. 3000 Celts we need stands of troops just to make the game work, without getting into the logistics of storing and carrying them. Perhaps we should step back and discuss options while we are painting, that way we can hopefully keep costs low and develop a reasonable way of moving and carrying thousands of figs. As an option we could base some fraction on washers for use in skirmish games while the rest are grouped on stands. I have 400 Zulus mounted singly and moving those slows down a game.
I had thought a thin masonite might be good with 6-10 per base. The bases could be personalized as people wished or simply flocked.
Tim, thank you for the time you have put in on this project and and the great links provided. I apologize for jumping in late on this but I was out of town for the game day.
Chris Penney
Chris,
Up above in an earlier comment, I posted that we would be using movement trays. The idea of the steel washers is that we will be making movement trays with a sheet of magnetized rubber so we can stick the minis on and move entire units rather than individual figures.
Anyone who is using their own figures for this game is welcome, of course, to mount them however they feel best. I am only talking about club minis here.
My first inclination for the movement trays is to make them out of black foam core. With the magnetic rubber sheet on the top, they will be strong but light, especially with the use of plastic figures. We also won't have to paint the edges, etc. The magnetic rubber material has a "crack 7 peel" backing and comes in a 4" wide by 50 foot long roll. Easy enough to use, and fairly inexpensive too.
I'm initially looking at unit movement trays for the Nervii as being 8" wide by 4" deep. That will allow up to 32 minis per base, although we'll likely be using 30-mini units. We've still time to work this out. The Romans will be on 4" X 4" trays, with 16 figures per unit, each unit equaling a single cohort.
The rule set we are currently planning on is "Storm of Iron" by Howard Whitehouse. They are in a beta test phase right now, and likely to be released in the spring through Wargames Factory. The rules will be simplified a bit, in the interest of playability for such a large game as this. Howard's rules currently favour an approximate 2:1 ratio of Barbarians to Romans in a unit to unit comparison.
The other reason this organization was chosen is because it also works well with Wargame factory's packaging. At 1:30 ration, a cohort of 480 men reduces to 16 figures, and, with 48 minis to a box of Romans, that gives you 3 cohorts per box, including all of the command figures. The Germans are packed at 30 minis per box, so one box will give you one unit/tribe/etc. Since WF is supplying the minis, it makes sense to help out with the packaging in terms of how many we need, etc.
Certainly, if someone wants to make larger or smaller units with their own minis, that's fine too. Like I said, we are flexible enough to work things out so that everyone will be happy, whether using the club's minis or their own.. 
Again, feel free to sound off with suggestions, questions, etc.
Respects,
Tim Kindred
All is clear with the basing. My apologies to Matt W. (Berkshire Wargamers) I was sopposed to get clarafication at last weekends event. Sorry man I had my hands full beating those Colonial Rebels.
Jack,
No sweat. I'm glad you had a good time. Sorry I missed you up here. Next time you come up, give me a shout and I'll give you a place to stay. I only live about a mile from the venue, and you can stay at my house, have a couple beers, and decompress before heading back. Always happy to help a fellow gamer.. 
PM me through the board and I'll send you my contact details.
Respects,
Tim Kindred
Tim, I am not clear on why we need 3000 Celts based singly on washers. The fit with what comes in a package is irrelevant especially given the number of figs and their cost to us. Casualties can be taken care of with casualty caps. As for flexibility that is relevant to a future use of the figs, but what skirmish game would require more than a couple of hundred individually mounted figs. The 1/8 inch plywood comes in a 4foot by 8foot sheet for $40, (that is enough for 384 2 by 6 stands) and would provide all the bases we need. If you saw the Celts that went in the ticket auction that is what they were mounted on. Doing it this way takes out a lot of steps to finish the figs, is easy to move and carry, and inexpensive. So hopefully we will consider alternatives before we jump in with both feet.
Thank you for your time, Chris Penney
Chris,
I'll have a definitive answer for you either tonight, or tomorrow.
As always, I appreciate your suggestions, and we are ALWAYS open to new approaches.
Just let me ponder what you are suggesting versus what we are looking at rules-wise, etc.
respects,
Tim
Tim, Thanks for the reply. I am not trying to be a nudge (is that the correct term?). I want the fastest route to completing the project before May, which will come up pretty quickly.
Chris
Tim, thanks man I am pretty sure there will be a next time. By the way I think I have the washer issue solved. No worries.
