What did the Romans ever do for us?

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to see a small packet  from Garrison after Rob's comment about sample Romans. Thank you Rob!

When I got my Sassinids and Medievals, my first thoughts were a tumble of "I want more/I want to paint them". With the Romans, my thoughts were. Hmmm. Maybe.

LtoR: Garrison S&S, Romans, painted Sassinid. PA Barbarian, Garrison 20mm Phyrgian.

I love the officer and standard bearer.Classic Garrison. The officer probably won't wait for a Roman army and I can see getting more for whatever Romans I end up with..

I like rather than love the legionnaire. He is noticeably taller and sturdier than all my other figures.  Not impossibly so and I don't mind the officer being a little smaller. If he was a Barbarian, I'd have no qualms but some how, I expect the barbarians to be bigger than the Romans, even if the latter are from a Legion recruited from the Gallic fringe. To make matters worse, I was thinking of recruiting some barbarians from my Prince August molds. These go nicely with my few remaining Garrison Saxons which I want more of (we're edging back into fantasy here)   and even better with my few Garrison 20mm figures but  are a definite mismatch with the big Roman. 

The figures actually look better side by side in the photo than in person (maybe angles or the fact that the Sassinid has some basing remnants under his stand) and in any case, in separate units on the table they would probably be ok.  If I had an alternate source of Romans in mind it might be easier but there aren't that many  old 25mm Romans about. What I'd really like is a few dozen of the Minifig AR Range Roman throwing Pila that I once had  but that's not likely to happen and I was never that fond of the PB replacements. I've never seen the Warrior or Tradition 25mm Romans up close so eventually samples may be in order. 25mm can mean a lot of different things to different people.  Looking at the PA barbarian, Garriosn 20mm Romans might work but I really don't want to get started on Romans this year so the matter is not pressing. Time to paint them up and check if the "attacking figure" is the same bulk.

Rob also included some of the 28mm Late Roman cavalry. Keeping my mother's teaching in mind, I'll just show a shot of them next to one of the exquisite Sassinid  Cataphracts that I want more of:

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