"Suggestions for 'auxiliaries' for Marian Roman army?" Topic

Working on my Marian Roman army using Old Glory's "Caesar's Gallic War" range but while they have an overall pretty solid range, they don't appear to have any Roman Auxiliaries. I'm working towards the FoG Late Republican Roman Starter Army and that is looking for a battle group of Illyrian Spearmen – anyone have any suggestions where I can get something suitable from elsewhere in the OG range? They don't appear to have anything listed under Illyrian at all. Obviously whatever I get I would like it to match closely to the existing figures I have, which are all (both Romans and Gauls) from the CGW range.

As per my other thread from yesterday I do appear to have some Gripping Beast Republican Roman figures that perhaps would do the job; alternatively I was looking at possibly PRR04 Armored Auxiliary Infantry from the Imperial Romans range or Thracian Spearmen (PPT03) or Italian Infantry (PPR07) from the Punic Wars range. Does anyone else have this army, and what did/would you use? Do the suggestions above hold any merit?

I would suggest could about ANY generic infantry for Marian Auxiliaries, but the one I would go with are the Wargames Factory Numidian Infantry plastic box.
Other good choices for more plain infantry would be the Punic War era Convict Legionaries, Foundry and Old Glory both have a set, and a mix of Gripping beast Thureophori, Thorakitai, and Imitation Legionaries.

I think Warlord makes some Illyrian infantry. If you want to stick with OG, I'd probably go with Peltasts from their Seleucid range.

Of your suggestions, I wouldn't go with the armored auxiliaries but the other two suggestions seem plausible.

A rather old thread TMP link offers some suggestions for slightly earlier Illyrians.
By Caesar's time I think you can probably get by with generic thureophoroi (e.g. Old Glory's Seleucid 'peltasts') though IIRC the Illyrians wore their tunics unbelted (at least in earlier times).

In this period, the auxiliaries are whichever non-citizens the Romans took with them or recruited locally, so you have the choice of Gauls, Spanish, Greeks or any of a myriad other races. Imperial Roman auxiliaries aren't really suitable.

Hmm. Thanks for all the updates, that really does help. So since I'm already working on a Gallic army from the same range to fight them, I could use Gauls as well? I mean I'm thinking I'd rather have two distinct groups of figures so I'll probably look at the Seleucid Peltasts as suggested but the Gauls would be plausible option in the short term?

I'm pretty sure nobody has the slightest idea what Illyrians looked like in the last century of the Roman republic. Every picture reference is centuries older, repeated since 'Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars' thirty years ago. They fought a long, mostly guerrilla war against the Romans in Augustus' time, and seem like mountain tribesmen rather than Hellenised soldiers.

I'd go with some tribal units of Germans, allied Gauls, Spanish infantry and cavalry, and Numidians. I have a unit of Ligurians, because they are a bit different.

Ditto what Mex Jack said. IMO to do a late Republican army, one must imagine where your general has done most of his campaigning and use most of his auxiliaries from there. Add to that one or two foreign aux units from another area to represent past campaigning in other regions as well.

If doing Gaul then don't forget some Germanic cav, unless they're supposed to be the enemy (and even then you can, pitting tribe against tribe in good Roman fashion).

I'm part way through re-reading Caesar's Gallic wars and he specifically mentions Numidians several times when describing deploying auxiliaries and light troops to screen the legions in the early actions against the Helvetii and the German coalition.

He doesn't mention them operating as horsemen in those contexts and the Numidian client king could certainly have been providing auxiliary infantry, either as javelineers or as 'imitation' legionnaires.

It's also certainly possible the Numidians were the better known light cavalry; Caesar may have assumed contemporary readers would know what role they played, but my impression is that he was usually fairly specific about distinguishing between infantry and cavalry.

Unfortunately, I haven't come across any specific descriptions of auxiliary soldiers' kit in "The Gallic Wars", Caesar just mentions that they are auxilairies and he is sending them to do this or that.

So, another option would be to use Numidian imitation legionnaire figs for the Auxiliaries. Or you could use Hellenic imitation legionaries, or as mentioned above, peltast figures.

I use Numidians,German Cavalry, Greek Cavalry { POMPEY HAD THESE}. Also foot to go with them! Mike Adams

If your legionaries have shields with wings or similar pattern, then you could paint those of Gallic allies to match – either the Romans have insisted on this for IFF, or the Gauls have decided that the designs are 'strong medicine'…
At Gergovia, Caesar's Gallic allies wore their shirts with the right shoulder bare as a field sign, but this might be harder to model (and didn't work too well in practice either, FWIW).

I've always had a hard time imagining exactly how Numidian garb would change by the time they arrived in Gaul. Not that it's that cold in the summer campaigning months, so maybe the usual tunic of various colors, but the stereotyped cowhide shield I have to wonder about. I'm fishing for future ideas, having 160 of the Warlord Caesarian Romans to paint – does anyone paint or equip Numidians differently for Gallic Wars?

The generic thureophoroi is a good solution. As noted, it's a bit silly thinking about uniform equipment with a lot of these auxiliary groups.

In terms of numbers, Marc Antony's disastrous Parthian expedition had huge numbers of "Armenians" – however you may wish to imagine that.

Germans, Gauls, Numidians – whatever you have available. It's what they did.

I painted some cloaked legionaries for this period as Gauls with Roman equipment – basically plaid cloaks over the usual arms and armour. The good thing is that they can then double up as the legion raised in Gaul by Caesar, Legio V Alaudae. Something a bit different…