Fun and versatility. To me that the describes the Late Roman Army. These very characteristics are what attracted me to paint this army in the first place. If you want an army that will provide you with enough historic enemies to be "worthwhile" then you have hit pay dirt with this force.

Now you have an army that works in both of Terry Gore's rule sets - Ancient and Medieval Warfare! Some minor tweaking of figures and presto, you can create armies that can conceivably fight from the Hyksos to the Burgundians.

The army lists for Ancient and Medieval warfare have a plethora of choice. In the Patrician Army of Medieval Warfare you can encounter Armenians of the eastern army to Huns and Alannic cavalry in the west.

One of the most difficult parts of this rules set concerns which units am I going to leave out of a 525 point army. Do you add more auxilia over foederati? Do you bring artillery and less cavalry? These are the hard choices that sometimes cause regrets later on. With that said, I for one am a firm believer in having as many figures as possible to allow oneself the possibility of anguishing over such a predicament.

Using the Patrician Army obviously represents Rome in its waning days of power. The foot will not have the punch of even Late Imperial Romans so any possible upgrades to strength and morale are imperative. I prefer to have a center of legionary spear backed by legionary archers (all with the said upgrades.) This should provide this army enough strength to withstand most opponents. Your skirmish, auxilia and allied infantry should be of some help, but your cavalry which is this army's main force needs to be judiciously employed along your flanks to gain any possible advantage.

Depending upon your generalship style and the enemy that you face you can load up on infantry or cavalry.

You're the general after all, and the army that you field may be the savior that Rome is looking for in its attempt to stem the incessant barbarian horde.

[Ed. As one who has both used and faced the Patricians at times, I can attest to their strength and versatility. Who could not be attracted to the army of Aetius as he strove to break the Huns at the Mauriac Plain? In the Foundry edition of MW, I have submitted a 'Snapshot Army of Aetius' forces, and this is also available as a download from our rules discussion group. The innaccuracies of the 'ATTILA' movie notwithstanding, the Roman army of the mid-5th century was one of mostly allies and foederati. The Roman citizen soldiers were a thing of the past. Amazingly enough, the generalship of Aetius made up for the lack of quality in his armies.]