Well, I am still waiting to move into a two bedroom apartment (one bedroom being converted into my study/library/wargame room). The lady who was selling it to me died just before we were about to Exchange Contracts, so her relatives have got to get Probate before they can sell it to me,

Meanwhile I have made some Testudos for my Paperboys XIV Legion. These were used in sieges, but also in battles in open countryside, such as the illustration below (from the Osprey “British Celtic Warrior vs Roman Soldier”) of a Testudo being used to attack rough ramparts at Caractacus’ last stand in mid-Wales in AD 50.

There are components to make Testudos in the Paperboys book “Roman Invasion”, which are essentially simple boxes.

I do have one issue with them, in that the scutum shields are shown overlapping from front to back.

Part of Trajan’s Column shows a Testudo and the scutum shields overlap from back to front.

Interestingly they are shown at an angle and there are descriptions in Livy and Cassius Dio of such a sloping Testudo being formed by the men in the rear ranks progressively crouching, then Roman soldiers running up the sloping Testudo to scale a wall.

Having the Scutum shields overlapping from the back to front facilitates this by the top edges of the shields providing stepping footholds, which would not be so if they were formed from front to back.

There is an illustration in the Osprey “Roman Shields” showing a Testudo being formed in this way with the shields overlapping from back to front, which is a more natural way to do this, protecting the front of the unit as the Testudo is formed.

Here are the components of a Testudo from the Paperboys Roman Invasion book. The top can simply be turned around to face in the correct back to front orientation.

The folds just need scoring and Peter Dennis (the creator of Paperboys) recommends scoring the vertical lines between the top shields then slightly curving them to give them a more realistic shape. For as long as I can remember I have always scored paper and card using the back blade of a craft knife.

I have added some additional components to my Testudos. Rather than then just being an empty hollow paper cube, I have wrapped the Testudo model sides around a piece of Polystyrene (spare packing material, which comes with many purchases, and which I always retain for modelling scenery etc). Before wrapping the Testudo model around the polystyrene, I have glued a square of paper onto the top and bottom of the polystyrene, using Pritt stick, since that does not melt polystyrene. I can then use UHU spirit based glue to add the shield top and ground base (UHU and similar spirit based glues do melt polystyrene). The base is a piece of card with some strips of magnetic tape (the latter to give it weight).

Here is a base with the heavy tape stuck to it and four strips of base paper to wrap around the sides.

Here is the top and bottom of two completed bases. I normally write the name of the unit on the white underside.

Here is a finished Testudo, I have made six of these for my XIV Legion. It actually has 24 shields, so that is exactly the same number as my standard Cohort, which is what I will assume it is.

I did use copy and paste to create one larger Testudo which I will assume is that formed by the larger I Cohort. Here it is in comparison to a standard one.

Andy Callan has produced a set of simple rules in the Paperboys Roman Invasion book and also produced a free supplement on Peter Dennis’ Paperboys website. This gives Roman Legionaries in Testudo the same additional +1 on Saving Throws as they would get when in a fortification. There are however no movement rules for Testudos. I will create a local amendment to those rules to say that forming or unforming a Testudo takes half a move (just swap a normal Cohort for a Testudo), and a Testudo then moves at half speed (8cm as opposed to 16cm).