"28mm Plastic Republican Romans?" Topic

Nobody makes pre-marian republican romans. You might get away with using some of the Wargames Factory ones as the mail armoured troops but there will be a number of inconsistencies. They could probably be easily corrected, as the figures are plastic.

So your Triarii and Hastati wouldn't be covered.

You might be able to use the numidian set they produce for Velites and, with a little work, Hastati.

But nothing straight out of the box.

You would need conversions as Pictors points out.

Triarii are a simple conversion. They used mail shirts and would only need new helmets of type and a round shield – though a typical rounded scuta I'd have no objection to seeing. Not sure what you could do about a helmet though. You'd need a way to put an Apulo-Corinthian helmet on there. And you'd need a greave on the left leg.

Hastati are a little trickier. I'd go with Pictors' recommendation of using the generic Numidian set as primary option. though the WF Numidians have no sandal/caliga on and it would look somewhat odd having shoeless troops. The legs could be refit using the basic WF Romans for source parts. However, you might get away with using Immortal's Greek set as a basis. The reason I am thinking is Hastati, while often shown using the classic tri-circle breastplate "heart protector", are often mentioned as wearing cuirasses in some cases. Shrug. I've run across a lot of interpretation on this point. Some people point out that the Hastati probably wore no chest armor at all by midwar, but who knows. I'd consider that a cheapo leather cuirass may not be so far out of the picture, but that'd be heretical to some.

Not impossible with work. But the overall, what I did was just skip the heavy conversions and pick up Crusader Minitures where conversions got too heavy for me.

Scale's the thing, you can get 'em 1/72 or 54mm but not 28.

If you are happy enough to trade down slightly on the size to 25mm Warrior Miniatures do the Romans you are after at 40p a figure bought as a 100 piece army. You will not be looking at Foundry/ Crusader Miniatures quality but on a par with WGF plastics I'd have thought. Irregular Miniatures also do very reasonably priced 28mm figures for this period army if you buy a complete army.

What about Old Glory? Their figures are some of the cheapest metal around, and they have the figures for the period you are interested in.

If you buy the old wargamers' argument that there was a distinct and rigid difference between Triarii, Hastati and Principes armours then you are in trouble.

However, if you grant your fellas some (realistic) latitude you have everything needed available.

I have in the past converted (very simply) WGF Romans by replacing their nasty heads with those of Crusader Oscan Tribesmen

link

These can be bought cheaply from Crusader US. Plastic socket drilled out and putty/glue in place.

They make passable and more varied Milites and look good en-masse. I used them as Sullan veterans.

A few boxes of WGF troops and the requisite heads cost me less than $100.00 USD

If it appealed to you, perhaps the different crests could be used to differentiate further? Four plumes for Triarii – working the way down? I don't know :-)

IIRC Allen Curtis has done the same and posted results somewhere on the Inter-Web.

Velites are simple, get the WGF Numidians and slap a round shield on them. Not all Velites wandered around with a Rover-skin headress.

This said, were I to "do" that era seriously, I would go for Aventine's line. Excellent figures, well priced and outstanding customer service from Keith.

Actually, two of the four poses on the numidian sprue have sandals/caligula. Pop on the right helmet from one of the suggested sources and maybe a back/breast plate from putty and you are good to go for hastati.

If you don't want to buy direct from the new WF, I am pretty sure there are a couple sites that still have boxes of their romans that would have been bought from "the old team" before all of the recent drama:

michtoy.com

link

link FACTORY&S=

link

All four of these guys still seem to have some WF in stock. The only one that doesn't have Romans is Warstore – but they do have Numidians……

Porkmann, did you do a special order for those Roman Plumage heads? I have yet to find the option to order the heads seperately.

why bother buying plastics when old glory are cheaper, easier to assemble and look better to boot!

cheers
Matt

Plastics:Victrix. I don't use them but they're cheap and availbale. Agema miniatures came out with very nice plastic velites that will for order shortly. They're very versatile – you can have the wolf pelts on them or not. Hopefully they'll soon start the Hastati and others. Too late for me, but good for everyone else.

If you're doing metal anyway, I'd suggest you also look at Aventine. I have a mix of them and Renegade (nice figures but Renegade are the bigger figs that don't mix as well with figure from Crusader, nor do they have many poses, but they're okay with Aventine).

Our Velites are indeed available right now (and thanks for the kind words Mars Ultor). The legionaries are work in progress (currently being sculpted) – all being well should be available late this year.
agemaminiatures.co.uk
(and apologies for the shameless plug!!)