Roman Legions famously built a Marching Camp every night during their campaigns. In order to do that they needed to to have a substantial baggage train to carry all of the tents and other equipment.

Each contubernia of 8 men had a tent, carried on a mule, led by a slave muleteer. That is 10 mules per Century and 60 mules per Cohort. On my Paperboys 1:20 figure ratio, I have decided to represent this as a stand of three mules and one muleteer per Cohort.

I have used the baggage mule and a muleteer from the Republican Roman CR12 Roman Commanders and Scorpion sheet. Here is one stand of three mules and a muleteer. It is 75mm long and 15mm wide. I joined the mules together with a thick cotton thread and the muleteer is leading the first mules with a piece of that same thread.

To create some variety in the muleteers, I have coloured them using coloured pencils.

When cutting out these single figures, I trimmed around the outside of the legs first in order to get the front and back of the figure to line up exactly

So that the muleteers can be holding the end of the rope for the first mule, I cut around the muleteers arm before folding and gluing the figure, then lifting that arm slightly. I fixed the rope to the mule first, put glue under the muleteer’s arm, then slid the cotton rope under his hand and pressed down on it to secure it, before fixing the muleteer’s feet to his stands,

I made 11 stands, each of three mules and one muleteer. This is two for the first Cohort and Legionis Equitatas (the Legion’s own cavalry) and one for each of the other nine Cohorts.

I also made one waggon, pulled by two oxen, to represent the 20 waggons which would have carried the very large tent for the Principia (Headquarters), a large one for Praetorium (the Legate’s accommodation) and slightly smaller tents for the Tribunes and Camp Prefect, plus various other items of Headquarters equipment. This waggon and oxen came from the Paperboys Castle Assault book.

Here is the complete XIV Legion Baggage Train, led by the Camp Prefect.

It takes up a lot of space, which of course it really did do. In his 36BC Parthian Campaign, Marc Antony made the mistake of separating his baggage train and siege train from his main force, and it was promptly attacked and destroyed by the Parthians, which was the beginning of a disaster for Antony.

Next I will make the Auxiliary Infantry attached to the XIV Legion, Cohorts I to VIII Batavorum.