"The Green Legion" --Polybian Romans II/33

When I first started painting, I decided that I would never do Romans.  There's nothing particularly wrong with them, but they seemed so...generic, like everyone had them (not that I actually knew many people with Roman armies, it just seemed that way).  And yet, when I saw a fantastic deal on several packs of Old Glory Republican Roman infantry, I couldn't help myself.  At least it wasn't Imperial Roman, I told myself.  

Anyway, they languished on my lead pile for a couple of years, lacking cavalry and light infantry.   Until this spring, that is, when they were just the excuse I needed to order some more Napoleonic Spanish guerrillas from Warmodelling.com (nee Fantassin Figures).  The fine folks there were even willing to break up packs so I could get the command figures I needed without buying unneeded lead, and make sure a certain female guerrilla figure that I wanted was in the assortment they sent.  This was my second order with them, and went smoothly.   As a result, the heavy infantry in this army are Old Glory 15s, and the other figures are Fantassin.

This is the first of two legions that I finished this spring; I'll post the "blue legion" later.  In total, there is 40 infantry and 6 cav (1x3Cav general, 1x3Cav, 6x4Blade, 2x4Pike, 2x2Psiloi + an extra stand of pike).  Here is the full army.

The cavalry are all from Fantassin.  Apparently the cavalry of this period wore brown-black "cavalry cloaks."  There was no standardized shield design until later, so I decided to do these as laurel wreaths (I had tried this on a Hoplite shield in my Athenian army and liked it--and it seemed Roman enough).  The figure in red is a Consul in field attire, commanding the army.

The bulk of the legion are Princeps (the few figures wielding swords) and Hastatii (with pilum).  These shields are simpler, a solid green with metal bosses.  Black was a common plume collar, and I decided to keep these all uniform.

The Triarii were veterans of long service, in heavier armor and wielding pikes.  These particular figures have spears rather than pikes, but they are armored in chain mail (instead of the bronze breastplate the Hastatii wear), so I'm using them as Triarii.  In keeping with the practice of higher quality equipment, I did their shields in the same laurel wreath pattern as the cavalry.  The official army list calls for 2 stands of these guys, but I accidentally painted 3.  Oh, well.

The velites were the army's skirmishers.  Since they were unlikely to be rich or well-equipped, I painted their shields in a simple pattern of green and white concentric circles.  Roman velites often wore animal skins on their heads, especially badgers.  Getting the white on black stripes right on these figures' badgers took some doing, but I like how they turned out.

Now the question is what to do with them.  Historically, their primary opponent was Carthage, but I really don't want to paint Hannibal's army, with its elephants, Carthaginian hoplites, Spanish cavalry, and Gaulish infantry.    So maybe I'll try to sell them.  We'll see.