During its heyday the Roman Empire sprawled across the better part of three continents, making it one of the greatest political bodies of its day. To maintain such an empire required an enormous military budget and huge numbers of men at arms (an approach to militarism we can, alas, observe to this day). One of the chief duties of this sprawling military was to hold the edges of this empire from incursion from without.

Osprey Publishing and author Raffaele D-Amato have put together a surprisingly exhausting study of the military units comprising Rome’s Western borders – more specifically, what would someday become England, Germany and France.

Since April of 2013 when Kodakawa games released their free browser game Kantai Collection (aka Kancolle), featuring cute anime girls each of which represent ships from the Second World War IJN, there has been an increased interest in ship modeling in Japan. Tamiya, Hasegawa and Aoshima, have long worked in harmony releasing a sizable number of 1/700 warships represented by the waterline series of kits. These three companies as well as Fujimi are capitalizing on the popularity of the game and anime series by re-releasing many of these kits, as well as creating new kits, with extra decals of the girls as well as game specific box art.

Admittedly, because of the game as well as the anime series, I too have become a bit more interested in ship modeling. After my review of Model Art Advanced 1/700 model (1), why not continue on with number 2.

Again, I was not disappointed.

Thank you to author James Lyman, and to Hill Country Hobby for the sample book. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to review a new independent, self-published book that will be a great resource for many modelers at all skill levels.

This excellent compendium of methods and techniques is produced and published using an independent (indie) publishing house, Create Space, an Amazon Company. I was unable to verify how the book is produced, but Create Space publications are often printed and bound on demand. Wholesalers often receive significant discount on bulk purchases. Modeling clubs, chapters and hobby shops may be able to take advantage of this format and discounts.