Hi all

I'm planning an order of Marian Romans and Gauls for DBA / Hail Caesar.  I was planning to get a unit of Illyrian infantry as an auxiliary option (in addition to some Spanish aux infantry).  Anyone have suggestions on a proxy unit for Illyrians?

Thanks

If you can give me an idea on what Illyrians should look like and be armed with, then I will see what I can do!

That's an excellent question.  The name caught my eye as another way to get some different aux troops than Spanish, and I just read an interesting section in Polybius about Roman involvement in Illyria pre Second Punic War, but I didn't see an Osprey book for them.  I did see an interesting book about them but my queue of interesting books is already dangerously tall -- at any rate, not sure on what they would look like.

So may pursue some research for down the line but in the interest of not delaying an order too much longer, may swap for another aux people group.

Some useful info in the old 'Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars.'  All Illyrians wore an unbelted sleeveless tunic to about mid-thigh. Northern Illyrians preferred the oval shield. Southerners preferred a small, round convex shield. Sword scabbard carried on a baldric slung over the right shoulder. Other weapons were a spear and a couple of javelins. A wide variety of helmets were worn, including Negau, with and without crest, the old-style Illyrian helmet (a one-piece rounded helmet with long cheek pieces and curved neck guard) and the Thracian. The Illyrian style was to be clean-shaven and barefoot. There were a very small number of cavalry, whio were unarmoured and unshielded, otherwise looking like the infantry. They were light skirmishers. There were also a small numbers of foot skirmishers, again javelin armed. 

I looked over some of the infantry types. I believe these are all in the classical range.

• moorish infantry, African infantry, Italian hoplites, Gothic infantry, lanciarii, sassanid regular infantry, Hadendowah Infantry (from the colonial range...this may be a bit of a stretch).

Some of these may not meet your tastes.  When I look for proxies in 6mm ancients I try to match the shield, headgear and weapon.  I also try to sum up the image a particular type of soldier using the above guidelines.  You would want your guys (in my opinion) to not have armor, javelinesqe spear things, and round or oval shields.  I am going to guess that these guys were irregular troops and did not have a uniform appearance.  It might work to mix in different guys with different types if head gear or even no headgear.  Try mixing in a few shirtless guys or a rare armored soldier (perhaps a looted prize or a wealthier noble).  There is no exact procedure to picking the proxies you want.  IT really comes down to what you want to do.  You can really tell a story with each base of miniatures.  The madists in the colonial range look great.  They are based in such a way that they look like a mad horde descending on some poor British soldiers. 

The advantage of 6mm is that you can fudge details and have it get the effect you desire.  As a example I want to do troopers from the ever victorious army who fought in the Taiping rebellion with Egyptian soldiers in campaign dress.  They both have turbans and rifles and similar webbing.  They may not be perfect but they get thr job done.  I hope that my rambling helps you.