4 legions (II Augusta, IX Hispana, XIV Gemina and XX Valeria Victrix) landed near Dover, after an initial rebellion of the legions terrorized to pass the Oceanus. The II legion was commanded by Vespasianus, later emperor himself.
Some of the Britons tribes submitted to Romans, others declared war, the Romans won the Medway battle and the emperor had his Triumph ceremony! By 46 A.D. the large part of the south of England was taken.
Only in 60 A.D. the Boudica rebellion initially put in crisis the roman power, but at the end also the warrior queen was defeated, and the roman empire arrived up to Scotland borders (except Wales and Cornwall).
Apart the Medway battle, the advancing Romans had to take many hill forts, characteristic Celtic fortresses, and my new diorama will show one of these fights.
As beginning I collected pictures on how were this hill forts (Google imagines it’s an unbelievable source of info for our hobby!), here below what I used for inspiration.
The idea is to show the romans attack to the fort’s gate, obviously using their trademark formation, the testudo.
Let’s go with the fortifications:
Gate: using two of the towers of the Italeri Napoleonic accessory set plus sushi wood sticks
Earth wall with wood revetment, made by polystyrene plus sprues recycling. The short trench in front of the gate is always from Italeri Napoleonic accessory set
Wooden palisade, again from Italeri Napoleonic
For the testudo penetrating through the gate door, I realize that such a dense group of soldiers is not possible to assembly directly on the diorama, with all the walls around, therefore I’ll make a base where I’ll build the soldiers and the ground, so I’ll have to just insert the “module” on the diorama (easy to say, I hope it will work !!).
White base for the future testudo
Then walls completion : base creation, grass cover with holes for the figurines, the grass is made with one of those tissues used to clean the metallic pots, at the end of its life. I’ll have to paint it properly
In the meantime, I have prepared the figurines, 70 between Britons and romans, Zvezda, Italeri and Linear, with some adaptation/modification
Next step will be completion of walls and gate, then figurines painting.
Stay tuned
!
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