Italian Extraordinarii

The Extraordinarii were Rome's most heavilly armored Italian allies. They were equipped with a hoplite-like shield and a mix of Greek and Roman styled armor, helmets and grieves. The mid-Republican Roman army list in Field of Glory allows you to have one battlegroup of Extraordinarii comprised of four stands. They're rated as Superior, Drilled, Armored, Medium Foot, Light Spear and Swordsmam. This makes them an excellent all-purpose troop. Although they're possibly the best troops available for occupying terrain, they're able to hold their own in the open against most foot and even light cavalry. The small battle group size isn't too much of a problem for troops of superior quality, and the Roman army is woefully short on troops comfortable in terrain, so I knew I needed to paint up this unit for my army. I wish you were allowed to have more than four stands of these, as two units of six stands each would help out the Roman army a lot! No worries, you are allowed an additional unit of similar Italian allied infantry that is Average quality instead of superior and protected instead of armored. They'll be the next unit on the painting table as they are a required battle group for the mid-Republican Roman starter army.

These figures are Old Glory 15s.  I decided to base them three figures per stand, even though Old Glory provides them in packages that suggest they expect you to base them four per stand. I've decided to base all of my medium foot three per stand as this will help my opponends as well as myself distinguish them from heavy foot. Additionally three figures per stand is the much more common basing for auxilla in DBA/DBM which is the other rule set I'm likely to use these figures with.  The shield transfer artwork is from Little Big Men Studios.