Roman Units Still Present in England 460AD?

As you say, Matt, there’s a lot of guesswork and supposition. If any ‘Roman’ remnant units are present , they would almost certainly look less and less ‘Roman’ from a wargamer’s perspective as time went by.
Although I cheat by using LIR legionaries as the 4Bd in my II/81a army, I doubt if they’d have looked so uniform once the State Armouries situation deteriorated or disappeared. Likewise the 4Ax, remnant border troops/Limitanei. I have a bunch of Donnington Late Roman Ax ready to go to make the 4Ax heavy version....a single 4Ax element of Limitanei I painted for the LIR, with assorted trouser, tunic and shield colours just ooozes an aura of ‘left over and left behind’ . Fits my personal view of how grotty and grimy it may have all become as the post-Roman states deteriorated.

I think you probably have free rein to build an Arthurian force as you wish, because the lack of solid information means no-one is in a good position to contradict anything you decide ( 😊 )

Martin

ps....beware terminology with this part of Brit history:- the ‘English’ are the Angles/Saxons/Jutes/ indeterminate Germanic invaders. The guys left behind by the Roman vacating troops would best be called ‘British’ (and later called ‘Welsh’ by the English newcomers).

This dilemma has troubled wargamers for many years. I think what you have to do is to step back and look at what is going on across all of Britannia at this time and then apply this to what remains of any army.
When the Roman army left Britain there is evidence that shows there wasn’t a sudden cessation of everything Roman. People still went to the bath house and lived in stone building etc.
I think many of the population thought the Roman army would be coming back and it wasn’t until the realisation that they weren’t and that the Roman administration had also left that things started to change and peoples lives took on a more ‘tribal’ feel. How long did this take? Nobody knows, it was probably different in each region of Britain.

If you then apply the same to what remained of the army in Britain then it’s likely that a slow decline in unit types, weaponry and uniforms took hold. You can see this in the army lists by comparing ii/81a with ii/81c. 81a has Legionary but in 81c they are no longer present. Why? Because its easier and costs less to arm and train a spearman than it does a Legionary? I think when the need came to arm and train units they used whatever and whoever was available.
Some units may have retained their old Roman titles but by the mid 5th century did not have look or fight like their original brothers.

If the 3Kn elements in the list are meant to represent Catafract and variants then I haven’t found any evidence to support them in Britain at this period. I suspect they are Roman cavalry with the rider wearing some form of metallic armour, helmet shield and carrying a long spear.

So this gives the wargamer pretty much a blank canvas to model his Sub-Roman British army, bearing in mind to some extent it doesn’t matter what they look like on the base its all about what the element represents e.g. Blade, Spear, Cavalry etc. I’ve made my elements as generic as I can so that I can field any of the ii/81 army lists. For example 4Sp (or 4Ax) are un-armoured Levi with an oval shield and spear, 3Kn are cavalry with all riders wearing mail where as 3CV are a mix of riders in mail and some with just helmet and shield. 4Bd are Late Roman legionary.


Andy