Expeditionary Force Roman Cavalry

Expeditionary Force Roman Cavalry, we have the next upcoming offering from Expeditionary Force. We get advance word from our very good friend Peter Bergner. These figures will be very soon from the Expeditionary Force itself and your favorite dealer. These figures will be great additional to your Roman army.

Expeditionary Force Roman Cavalry Information

Here is Scott’s latest missive.

Dear All,

Greetings from Singapore!

Very pleased to inform you of the release of the second sets of the Roman Army series in the “60mm Wars of the Roman Empire (27 B.C. – A.D. 1453)” range.

There are 3 sets in total in this release:-

·        60 RMN 01 – S    Auxiliary Cavalry (Equites Singulares)

·        60 RMN 02 – A   Mounted Auxiliaries (Cohors Equitata)

·        60 RMN 02 – P    Guard Cavalry (Praetorian)

They should be available for shipment next week.

Each set contains 5 model cavalrymen and 5 horse models comprising of 1 commander and 4 troopers in various action poses plus weapons sprues. All models supplied unpainted

60mm Wars of the Roman Empire – Roman Army (Early Imperial)

Following the civil war with Mark Antony in 30 B.C., Augustus created a permanent corps compose of the more effective non-citizen auxiliaries to serve beside the legions (composed of Roman citizens). This corps, the Auxilia, becomes a major part (60%) of the Army. It is divided into 3 types of regiments:-

(i) Ala (Auxiliary Cavalry),

(ii) Cohors (Auxiliary Infantry); and

(iii) Cohors Equitata (mixed Mounted & Foot Auxiliaries).

The Alae (Auxiliary Cavalry) provide the majority of Roman cavalry in the field. Many of these horse soldiers are recruited from among Gauls, Germans, Spanish, Thracians and Numidians.

For our purpose, we have selected the famous Germanic cavalry unit known as the Equites Singulares for our reference models.

Following the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, the main source for Roman Cavalry becomes Celtic. Thus, many of the Roman cavalry equipment have Celtic influence. Our range would be incomplete if we do not include the ubiquitous oval Celtic cavalry shield among our sets.

The Cohors Equitata contains both infantry and cavalry elements and is especially handy for detached missions such as outpost defence and raids. From the pay records, it seems that the mounted soldiers in a cohors equitata are ranked below that of an Ala cavalryman. There is some speculation that these mounted soldiers are more in the nature of dragoons rather than battle shock cavalry. We decided to name this set as Mounted Auxiliaries rather than Cavalry. We will be doing a set of auxiliary infantry with matching shield emblem for those collectors who wished to have both elements of a full cohors equitata.

The above photos show the arms options for wielding a sword although their primary weapon is the spear, both for thrusting and for throwing.

(When we do the eastern legions, we will do scale armour for the cavalry sets.)

60 RMN 02 – P   Guard Cavalry (Praetorian)

To round up our sets, we have included a Praetorian cavalry set to match the infantry set already released. Each Praetorian Cohort was to consist of 6 centuriae (each 80 men) of infantry and 3 turmae (each 30 men) of cavalry. These cavalrymen are recruited from among the best of the Auxilia and granted citizenship upon joining the Guard. They are equipped as per the auxiliary cavalry. The shield emblem is based on a monument associated with the Praetorians. The Praetorian Guards were heavily involved in the civil wars of the four emperors (A.D. 69).

Additional Information

The remaining sets in the Roman range are as follows:-

Roman Artillery (Scorpio Bolt-Shooter)

Roman Auxiliary Infantry (including Archers)

Roman Command

Barbarian Symmachiarii (Early Germans) in 3 sets:-

Infantry

Cavalry

Command

There will also be a couple of supplementary sets for Classical Greeks that will be useful for the Romans:-

Greek Artillery (Lithobolos Stone-Thrower)

Mule-Cart for battlefield logistics.

All of the above is already sculpted but release dates are not certain due to toolings tests uncertainty affecting the production queue.

Napoleonic

The next set already in the tooling stage is 54 BRT 08 British Artillery (Royal Horse Artillery) of the Napoleonic Wars. It should be available for release in early-May 2019.

Looking forward to your kind support.

Cheers,

scott