One of the joinable factions in
Skyrim is the Empire's occupying force, the Imperial Legion. After the murder of High King Torygg by Ulfric Stormcloak the Empire sends General Tullius and his legion to Skyrim to suppress the Stormcloak Rebellion.
Imperial Legion soldiers often favor one-handed weapons and shields and have a slightly higher defense than their Stormcloak foes. They will commonly wear light or studded armor while higher-ranked officers will wear heavy plate armor.
Based heavily upon the ancient Roman Empire it was clear from the conception of an
Elder Scrolls miniatures game focused upon
Skyrim that the best figures to use would be
Warlord Games' plastic 28mm Imperial Romans. This being a small skirmish game it's important that each piece be their own character so we decided the veteran box with chipped up shields and armor would look the most interesting. Each box gives you parts for twenty figures total with three of them being command figures.
The pieces are easily convertible but slightly shorter than other ancient miniatures so a penny was added in the base of every figure to hide the height difference. To break up some of the repeated poses weapons were swapped around. Warlord provides shield transfers in all of their boxes but we opted to paint the shield patterns on ourselves.
Using the
Valiant! system to create rules for the Empire's forces we broke the faction into four parts:
- Auxiliary - lightly armored troops disposable and cheap in points (will probably use early Roman Legion figures)
- Legionnaires - the heavily armored Guards pictured in this post
- Penitus Oculatus - specialized elite troops (will use either Praetorian Guards or Numenorians from Games Workshop's LOTR line)
- Thalmor - elves sent by the Aldmeri Dominion (will use elves from GW's LOTR line)
The guards have a sturdy +6 ATK and +8 DEF with a save of 4+ and can re-roll 1d6 when they ready their defense. As a unit they are able to also re-roll 1d6 when they charge! Captains are a little stronger with a +9 ATK and +8DEF!
The Imperial Legion is certainly an army focused on a small number of figures working together to create a strong defense while also dealing a fair amount of damage!
More pictures of the expanding Legion to come!
