"Why is the Roman invasion of Britain so popular?" Topic

If we look at a lot of modern games and miniature companies, a lot of times the first products we see are EIRs and ancient British. Warlord is a prime example of this.
There are also tons of campaigns and such set during the Roman invasion of Britain.
A lot of wargames rules use celts and romans as examples, and have celtic and roman artwork strewn throughout the book.
Why?

Why is this topic so popular within the ancient gaming community?

Am I missing something?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's interesting, just as interesting as any other time in history, and it's one that I really enjoy gaming in, but why do wargames focus on this particular topic?
a lot of games even take the extra step to include BRITISH chariots as a troop type, to ensure that people are able to "accurately" play with their ancient british.

Thanks
Austin

Well, in my day it was popular because Aifix made 1:72 plastic Romans and Britons.

I had about a dozen chariots, plus scads of Briton warband and Romans in silver armour and gold coloured helmets. What's not to like about bendy plastic chariots with solid wheels with the paint flaking off?

Cheers,
JohnG
PS: Rules used were 1975 (?) Ancient Warfare by Milgamex

1. British companies.

2. Relatively well documented in English.

I think that Romans are popular and that the enemy, more than being British, are just cast as hairy naked barbarians (HNB.) People see the Imperial Romans as sort-of a Roman arch type with the rectangular shields and so forth.

If you look at WAB, for example, the army list for Barbarians in the main rulebook can cover Brits, but also Gauls or Germans and you could probably use it for Spanish of a certain period.

The Romans in the book could be used for anything post Marian reforms really up to the late Imperial period.

In other words, it covers a lot of ground. You can do Romans vs. Romans, Romans vs. Celts, Romans vs. Germans and on and on.

The Chariots are included because some people want the option of doing the British force and chariots are neat.

Without the chariot the barbarian armies can be a little one dimensional.

I really don't think that the invasion of Britain itself is something that people do focus on all that much because of the history. They might do it more than the Romans against the gauls or against the germans simply because they can use chariots, which are neat.

It is pretty much the latest period in the West that you can use a chariot.

It is fairly "normal" for people to root for their "home team" . . . and in Ancient Warfare that becomes "Ancient British" unless you jump forward to the Feudal period and then you get Anglo-Saxons vs. Normans (another very popular pairing).

So for companies trying to sell Ancient figures to a British public, the choices to feature become rather obvious. Go with the "home teams".

-- Jeff

Personally, I'd do an EIR vs germans match-up before EIR vs Britons…

Damon.

The Weather?

Then we spoke of the rain, always back to the rain.

The reason is that both sides are well known and are familiar with the Celtic Culture either through Caesar's Gallic Wars or the Boudicca story Then add in early books by Rosemary Sutcliffe followed by scads of recent authors and most gamers can claim a basic knowledge reinforced by early experience with plastic Airfix figures.

I feel that a lot of us who game those armies are really trying to re experience the fun we had with our Airfix forces and now are intending to do it right.

I would suspect that the recent 300 Series of movies may introduce a lot of potential gamers to Spartans and Persians

You cannot do that with many other Ancient Periods where you require a lot more pre-knowledge and will have rely upon your ability to first find your figures and then paint and organize them correctly. It will take a lot more effort and marketing to convince a new gamer that they should field a Sarmatian, Pontic or Parthian army for example .

There is a limited market for a lot of ancient armies but Romans and hairy barbarian types are always popular and a good start for any manufacturer

For the same reason that the Peninsula is such a large part of Napoleonic gaming, despite also being a relative sideshow: British companies making figures for British wargamers playing British rules. The historical UK focus of the hobby has its drawbacks, but then again imagining the hobby without it is sort of like imagining NATO without the Americans …

I don't know that I'd describe Roman Britain as a side show.

A lot of time & effort was put into taking & holding her.

Trade, security, prestige: all made Britain important to Rome.

Lots of Wargamers – and therefore wargaming companies – are British?

Same reason the American Civil War is popular in the US, I guess!

John T

Some interesting recorded/known battles – an opposed river crossing, an attack on a hill fort and so on. Claudius and politics – Hardly a sideshow for it's time. A tenaciously heroic opponent. Lots of available figs, including cheap plastics. Simon Scarrow novels.

I game Caesar's "raids" on Britain

See my blog twomarshals.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/caesarian-romans-vs-britons-using-bfe2.html

When I were a nipper in the 60s children's history books in the UK were full of pictures of Julius Caesar invading Britain and Boudicca's Revolt

One was given the impression that the Britons gave the all-conquering Romans, especially JC, a hard time and were therefore a cool army

This has probably stuck in the psyche of many gamers

"Why is the Roman invasion of Britain so popular?"

Not with me it isn't.

Yes, and not one single company makes really suitable 28mm figures for the 43AD invasion. Warlord – where are the legionaries in chaimail? Where are the early versions of lorica segmentata found at Kalkriese? Where are the figures still wearing earlier helmets than Imperial Gallic? Grr! Look at plate C in the Osprey Roman Legionary 58BC 069AD book that's what I want!

I hadn't really noticed that it was popular – – at least not in the United States. If anything, the Saxon and Viking "invasions" of Britain are much more popular. In all my years of gaming I don't think I seen a single Romans versus barbarians game, even at conventions, in 28mm (largely due to the constraints of the barbarian side needing to have 300+ figures.) I think if they did something for saga you might see it more…

It was, back in the day, the easiest to deliver to the masses from a company standpoint (Airfix for instance). Consider the troop types. Romans were relatively uniform and had few troop types. Perhaps a half dozen in all for a given Roman army? The "barbarians", while an irregular army, also have relatively few troop types. Perhaps even fewer than a half dozen. From a sculpting standpoint, it is easy to produce such figures.

From a gamer standpoint, few troop types can mean easy to paint figures, especially if the armies are fairly uniform like the Romans. Barbarians are a bit more problematic since they would benefit from may different types of clothing colors patterns etc. But you still buy gobs of infantry and few cavalry.

In the US, the ACW army can largely be formed by 3 different kinds of troops, all with similar uniforms. Also, incredibly easy to produce, obtain and paint.

Romans.
Chariots.
Caesar got smacked.

Gonna go with Mr Treadaway's answer as one good reason.

"So for companies trying to sell Ancient figures to a British public, the choices to feature become rather obvious. Go with the "home teams". to quote Jeff of SaxeBearstein.
In Belgium we play Romans vs Gauls for the same reason, allthough one should take in account that documentation is apparantly more extensive than that for Brittain and the clashes on a bigger scale. Caesar got in serious trouble on various occasions.

So is Boudicca considered to be the equivalent of R.E. Lee and the Britons the Confederacy in the British isles?

I much prefer the British invasion of North America. Still humming those Beatles tunes after all these years.

I like it because the Italians beat up on the British. Don't see that often.

What is "chainmail"?

So on the argument on whether or not Britain was a side-show – I don't know how true it is or not, but my IMPRESSION was that, even if it weren't a big deal at the time, it would become a post-hoc big deal due to Julius' leading position in Rome eventually. So might his campaigns have come to be held as more prominent than others?

That's not really a slight on Julius or Romans or anything, it's just an observation on how our attention span works.

Following that of course is the point about contemporary wargaming being a thing with fairly deep British roots (or at least, it is to me, but I'm an English speaker in the English speaking world, so I'm not sure I could see it otherwise).

It's a thing that happened here and it's important to national mythos. Had H.G. Wells been French (and Fred Jane, probably?) or had Kriegspiel been also used as civilian entertainment, we'd likely be wondering why Rome's wars with the Germans are always the first range produced, or why Vercingetorix's revolt always got campaign books written about it.

How often have the less important got all the popular hoopla? Why is Frederick the Great played less than Napoleon, or Baibars than Saladin? Why does Joan of Arc get the attention that Bertrand du Guesclin should enjoy? Why can more people name Crassus than Suren?

I doubt the invasion was popular with the British at the time

It was an invasion which took 40 years to subdue the tribes. So, not an easy war to conduct even if it was done in stages. It certainly didn't take Caesar 40 years to subdue Gaul or Trajan Dacia.

In the early '60s there had been a rash of archeological work published on excavations in the UK dealing with the Roman invasion and conquest. Leonard Cottrell published his 'The Great Invasion' in '62 (titled so as I recall because of his estimate of its impact on British culture and history). As noted in a review of Cottrell's book this created quite a bit of interest in the invasion.

Couple this with the concurrent build up of the miniatures gaming community and start of a number of manufacturers in that era and it was a natural development.

I don't think it is so popular … although as above, once upon a time the only ancients youngsters could get were some peculiarly attired Romans, a Mile Castle from Hadrian's Wall and a set of Ancient Brits …

I once put on a massive Boudica's final Battle at History in Action … but that was because the prestigious English Heritage event was being held in Northamptonshire, near to where I thought the battle might have taken place

Phil
Ancients on the Move

Fellas – JC isn't EIR. Claudius' invasion was a reasonably big deal for its time.

I don't think anyone is saying that JC is EIR

I do think JC's second invasion was a reasonably big deal as he had 5 legions with him as opposed to 2 in the first invasion.

Well yes and he was no fool that's what he thought he needed.

Still though I think Airfix made a big impression.

The subject continues to resonate in popular culture. It hasn't been that long since Chelmsford 123 was on TV, and then only slightly tangential is the French Asterix series of movies.

It has been so popular with me because on on side you have the uniform Romans and on the other you have chariots, blue woad, war hounds, Gasatae, Druids, head hunters, and a new strange land. Fun!

Its not just wargaming, it's a far wider phenomenon. Go into any British bookshop's Ancients section, outside the denser academic tracts you'd be surprised to learn the Romans had an empire outside Britain (Or the Vikings also went to Ireland/Russia/France, the Normans conquered Italy, the French won the 100 years war etc etc). Thank heavens for the Crusades! Permission for a Forrin excursion…

And historical novels set outside the British Isles/Outremer….only in the 2nd hand bookshops.

OK I exaggerate…but not that much