Collection: Late Romans and Arthurian Britain

Under pressure from Barbarian migration in Europe, the Roman Empire finally withdrew from the island of Britannia in 410 AD. They had already been involved in defending the Eastern shore against ‘Saxons’ a mix of Germanic tribes raiding from the sea, and Irish and Pictish raiders from the West and the North. The long Battle for the dominance of the Island began.

 This was an era of Warlords, of Kings of legend like Arthur, of fading Roman infrastructure and later of incoming Christianity. The Romano-British were eventually pushed west, becoming the Welsh and Cornish people. I have included the Welsh among the invaders for simplicity, although they don’t deserve that description.

The ‘Arthurians’ defending Britain are represented by the normal Late Roman forces with s couple of extra, slightly irregular-looking Romano-British sheets to stir in. I mix the available half-dozen infantry shield patterns in my Romano-British troops to suggest a more ad-hoc organisation. For normal late-Roman units you might prefer a single shield pattern per unit.

There is a sheet of playing markers for Dan Mersey’s popular ‘Dux Bellorum’ rules (Osprey) which deal with this period.  You’ll also find an innovation suggested by Dmitri Zhernachuk, two sets of kneeling front rank figures intended to be based on a 15mm strip and added to the unit front of infantry units to mark their adoption of the shieldwall formation.

Goths, Franks, Huns and their allies will be the next 28mm Paperboys project to complete the downfall of the Roman Empire in the west.