Roman Legion Diorama (Part 1)

Last year I made a Fellowship of the Ring diorama for my dad as a Christmas present. During my time home last year, my dad and I had some really fun discussions on the Roman military and the history of Rome itself. I decided then and there that the next diorama I made for my dad was going to be of a Roman Legion.

From the start I knew this was going to be a big project. I had never done a diorama with this kind of ambition. I did not want some puny diorama with only 8 or 9 figures on the display. I wanted to make something that conveyed (at least in some small part) the full weight of a Roman legion. It had to have a lot of figures period. The figures need to look good. They also needed some variety in the uniformity of the legion so as to prevent the feeling of "Hey he just painted the same figure 40 times". No, the all needed some level of uniqueness to them.


The first question was what figures to use. I decided to go with Warlord Games Roman Legionaries as I already had some painted and to be quite honest the Warlord Games figures look like they came out of the movie Gladiator. I know that that movie is not very accurate historically, but I like the look of the film. This also helped reduce the number of figures that I would have to paint from scratch as I already had some painted(the figures did require some improvements on the paint jobs).

The second task was display size. I finally chose to go with a 19 1/2 inch by 6 inch display case. This would allow for some freedom in designing the display.

Finally I needed some inspiration for what I was going to make. I also need to make sure that I was not going to make something stupid in the process. Here is what I put together as inspiration.

These photos are of a diorama kit that you can buy online.

Gives a good sense of scale.

Lacks in realism and dynamic pose.

Good mix of realism and pose.

 The next post will have some in progress shots and will hopefully convey some of my ambition in this project.