Town temple ~ Beginnings

When most people think of a Roman temple they usually picture this, seen here in the original colours...

In reality there were different designs, such as the Romano-British 'temenos' style. This is a reconstruction of one near Nottingham, UK.

I built one of these with the attendant high priest/priestesses' house years ago...

Yes, that green is a bit lurid. I'll tone it down when I get time.

...but no thoroughly civilised Roman town should be without at least one in the classic Mediterranean style.

The beginnings of the temple, with an expanded foam core mounted on thick card and a square of MDF. Next up will be to clad the walls, fit the columns then the roof.

A little construction work.

Some years ago I began work on a 1/300th scale Roman town, with modular pieces which can be interchanged to alter the layout. Emigrating and other stuff rather got in the way, so it's been a while since I added to the set-up.

Here's a trio of urban buildings, based on archaeological interpretations of Silchester, Deva and Venta Icenorum. The middle is a courtyard apartment block, the right a combined apartment/emporium, and the lower left another, slightly fancier urban dwelling.

Construction is card on foamcore and expanded polystyrene off cuts. The emporium columns are slim cocktail sticks, those of the fancier building lengths of expired ballpoint pen tube. A balcony will go on top of this.

They're all a bit basic right now. Once I've filled up some gaps they'll get a coat of paint/filler mix then window and door detailing.

Following an idea from another gamer I plan to mount these on square sections of quarter inch thick floor tile, which should be sturdy enough for the purpose. Ideas for a temple and a theatre are bubbling away at the back of my mind. Just got to work out the details...

Early Romans & Germans

My gaming table is out of commission for a while as I need to rearrange furniture to make best use of what space I have. In the meantime I sorted through the 6mm Early Imperial Roman collection I brought back from England. So far so good - the contents of the box got a bit jumbled in transit but there's no sign of damage to any figures. Even the buildings came through mostly unscathed. I was quite stunned by the discovery. Airport baggage handling systems are not known for their delicacy.

The legion itself is made up mostly of Irregular Miniatures with a leavening of Heroics & Ros. The Germanic horde is mostly Heroics & Ros with a leavening of Irregular Miniatures. I use a man-figure ratio of 10:1, but with a bit of readjustment the legion could even take the field at 1:1. It's quite a sight lined up ready for action. Hopefully once the table's back in operation I'll be able to take photos of it.

Part of the legion deploys in front of a Roman civilis in the province of Germania, somewhere near the Rhenus. A cohort of Classiari (Marines) takes post behind the legion's left flank. Auxiliary archers take position in front of the Cohor Millaria whilst the legate gives a rousing speech.

All the buildings are scratch-built. There's even a statue in the centre of the pool in the apartment house courtyard. My eyesight was much better back then. A few Irregular Miniatures civilians gather in the grounds of the bathhouse, gossiping over the presence of so many soldiers whom they suspect vandalised the tree in the corner of the grounds. A funeral party attends the temple at top left. The dingy native quarter is at top right.

Not shown are the resin earthen ramparts and gates to make town walls for frontier settlements. I did make an entire basilica, the administrative heart of any Roman town, but unfortunately it proved too bulky to bring away. I shall build a new version. I also plan to expand the town with more buildings and roads to the point where I can play out a game of urban insurrection using the (in)famous Rioting in Alexandria rules published many moons ago in the Society of Ancients magazine.

So, here are a few more figures, this time Germanic tribesmen paying a not-so-neighbourly visit.

Tribesmen, comrades of Hermann. This is about a quarter of the total number of figures. I must do something to improve the basing, though.

Some of the relatively scarce Germanic cavalry and a gang of skirmishing youths make a speculative foray against the legion's left flank.