This month was our first Anabasis on our new site – unfortunately, due to weather and some other considerations it was less Roman than I’d hoped.

The weather forecast for Saturday was for thunderstorms, so I delayed the actual weather call until Saturday morning, hoping that the weather would clear or the chance of storms would abate enough for us to kit out. Unfortunately, at the time of our departure for the castra, the weather was looking very overcast and I had a great deal of doubt about our ability to kit out and not get soaked. At any rate, the four of us decided to deploy: myself, Jared Fleury, Chip Lewis, and Alex Kyrychenko all ventured south, and in addition to Roman weapons also carried quite an arsenal of modern weapons.

Once we arrived, the weather was looking better but the forecast was for storms overnight – not something any of us looked forward to experiencing again (we all remember that Castra Romana at Givhans). So, we put up some awnings, set out our targets, and then proceeded to enjoy ourselves with various calibers of rifles, shotguns, and pistols – I’d estimate that between the four of us we probably put 2000 rounds downrange. Following the shooting, we had some lunch and then decided to walk it off by patrolling the property, learning our way around all of the many foot trails it contains.

While the morning and afternoon were, thankfully, dry, we were still looking at a forecast calling for overnight thunderstorms, so we made the reluctant decision to redeploy via the “Big Chick” restaurant where we all enjoyed some good, southern fried chicken.

I feel bad that we didn’t kit out and do more Roman activities as we have in past iterations of Anabasis, but I think we all enjoyed ourselves and, just as importantly, learned that the new site offers a number of great opportunities for Roman patrols, a drill area, bivouac site, and even a potential site for a new, full-time structure devoted to the hobby.

My thanks to all who attended – it was especially nice to see Jared again – and I look forward to seeing you all at Junior Classical League Convention in April.

Workshop Report:

It was great to see Alex Matras join us at the workshop along with myself, Alex Kyrychenko and Chip Lewis. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot for him to work on but I hope that the fellowship was worth the trip – we sure enjoy spending time with him.

This was a different workshop in that we combined work on Roman projects with some modern efforts as well. Prior to anyone’s arrival, I started fooling around with my progressive ammunition reloading press, trying to make it work and teach myself how to re-load ammunition. Chip arrived while I was experimenting, and one thing led to another. After a great deal of trial and effort, we definitely taught ourselves the basics and overcame this cranky piece of machinery to end up with about one hundred 9mm pistol rounds that are now ready to fire – along with about 50 rejects that didn’t come out so well. Definitely a learning experience.

Once our comrades joined us, we gradually moved on to some real, Roman fabrication. Chip and I continued work on his scutum cutting the brass strips for the rim and shaping both of the long sides, which are now ready for annealing and forming. The remaining sides will be shaped next workshop and then I’m confident they’ll be ready for final forming at that time as well.

Alex Kyrychenko continued to form what will be the magnificent apron terminals for his new balteus – he has pretty much finished shaping all of the parts except for maybe some minor trimming/polishing (assuming my last two re-do solder blobs hold up).

As always, the workshops are what keep us together as a unit and it was great to combine efforts once again.

Member News:

Great to see Jared Fleury again – he has quite an arsenal and it was a (literal) blast getting to shoot some of it!

Next Project:

As soon as we can get some plans, we intend to start on the artillery piece. I know we’re all looking forward to this one.