Legion exhibition at the British museum and ramblings

 I went to an exhibition on the Roman army at the British museum the other day and thought it might be of interest even if it is a bit London specific! It was pretty well laid out, following a real citizen who couldn't get into the legions to start with and had to join the marines ( the lowest level auxiliaries) until eventually being able to transfer over to the legions, based on existing letters between him and his father, first century AD, he took part in putting down the Jewish revolt.

I like the mortuary statue of the imagifier and I think the twisted image of Galba is absolutely splendid, distorted he looks like some kind of robot villain! 

The blue enamel medals were also interesting I thought?

The cavalry bits were nicely laid out and while I knew of the Greek and Amazon cavalry parade/display helmets the Trojan on the right was a new one on me. 

Seeing the Dura Europas shield up close was a treat, plus the usual swords and helmets. The bits of Roman military tents and pegs were fun and I was particularly taken by the cataphract kit, very large scales! 

Worth a visit even if you know a bit about Roman Legions, it's on until June. What it has done is make me have another look at what I'm painting. Virtually all my French Napoleonics are now at least primed and assembled and my Austrians aren't far behind.  I was going to follow that up with getting a brigade of Bavarians and at least that or maybe more of Prussians.  

I've put that on hold at least for the moment and  have moved late Romans up into the paint queue, I  guess Napoleonics have been almost the exclusive focus of painting for a number of years , since the start of 2021, and while they're not going to be going away I think I'll be having a bit more variety, I was particularly taken with Jonathan Freitag's Republic Romans in his multiple games of Trasemine and they might become a project down the line, especially as one of my nephews is doing a successor army in 28mm, I will be expanding my Celts from more than just chariots and building, priming and painting two early Imperial Roman armies that I already have figures for, before then I want to paint my Late Roman and Romano British armies for Dux Bellorum and maybe expand them a little into a To the Strongest forces. I've also finished my Imperial Guard book and am now reading one on the Picts!  Expect more Napoleonics for a while but at some point there should be other units coming through and maybe something rather more left field  for me? 

Sorry for the wall of text and I promise there will be toy soldiers next time! 

All the best

 Iain