Caesar called it a war. His enemies called it a conquest. Eight campaigns across eight years, from the banks of the Rhône to the chalk cliffs of southern Britain, the Gallic Wars of 58–50 BC remade the Western world more completely than any conflict before or since. Half of Gaul's population was killed or enslaved. A dozen nations were erased as political entities. And at the end of it, Julius Caesar returned to Rome with the wealth, the prestige, and the battle-hardened legions that would tip the Republic into civil war and birth the empire that defined European civilisation for five centuries.
What makes the Gallic Wars endlessly fascinating, for historians and wargamers alike, is the fundamental mismatch at their heart. This was not a clash between equals or even between comparable military traditions. It was the collision of two philosophies that were almost perfectly opposed. The Gallic tribes excelled at exactly the kind of warfare the Roman legion was designed to survive, the terrifying, momentum-driven warband charge, delivered with ferocity and noise and an almost complete disregard for personal safety. And the Roman legion excelled at exactly the kind of warfare the Gallic tribes could not sustain, grinding, disciplined, close-quarters attrition that turned every engagement into an endurance contest, and every endurance contest into a Roman victory.
For eight years, Gaul threw its best at Caesar's legions. It produced great commanders, Ambiorix, Dumnorix, and above all Vercingetorix, the Arverni chieftain who came closer than anyone to stopping Rome. It achieved genuine tactical victories and inflicted genuine Roman defeats. But it could not overcome the structural reality that the legion was a system and the warband was a charge, and systems, in the end, outlast charges.
WoFun Games captures that structural mismatch in miniature with their 10mm Gallic Wars collection, illustrated by Peter Dennis, one of the finest artists working in historical miniatures today. Four distinct factions, 23 products, and over four thousand figurines available in a single Full Pack. If you've ever wanted to put the War for Gaul on a table and watch the drama play out in front of you, this is your collection. Welcome to WoFun Games.
Two armies, two philosophies
By the time Caesar crossed the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul in 58 BC, the Roman legion was in the middle of a quiet revolution. The old manipular system, the triple line of Hastati, Principes, and Triarii that had served Rome since the Samnite Wars, was being consolidated into the more flexible cohort structure that would define the Imperial legion. But the fighting principles remained the same: advance under discipline, unleash the pilum volley at close range to disrupt the enemy charge, then close with the gladius in tight formation where Roman armour and Roman training would tell.
Against a disciplined enemy, this was effective. Against the Gallic warband, it was devastating, because the warband's entire tactical logic depended on the shock of the first impact, and the pilum volley was designed specifically to absorb and neutralise exactly that shock. A pilum that struck an enemy shield would often lodge in it and bend at the iron neck, making the shield impossible to use and impossible to discard before Roman infantry were upon the bearer. An enemy charge that met a wall of half-armoured men who neither flinched nor broke, but simply absorbed the impact and began to grind back, was an enemy charge in serious trouble.
The collection's backbone is its Roman infantry. The Late Republican Roman Infantry sequence, six variants across 258 figurines per sprue, represents the legionary cohorts in their late-Republican configuration. Distinctively illustrated by Peter Dennis with the characteristic large oval scutum, lorica hamata chainmail, and bronze Montefortino helmet, these are the men who built and held Caesar's battle lines across a decade of continuous campaigning. A companion sequence, the Late Republican Roman Infantry Second Shields, four further variants, again 258 figurines each, extends the Roman infantry depth further, reflecting the visual variety of allied Italian troops and legions with differing equipment standards that made up a real Caesarian force.
Against them, the Gallic Germanic Infantry represent the heavy warband core, 102 figurines of charging tribal warriors whose battlefield role was entirely different from anything in the Roman playbook. Where Roman infantry won by staying together and grinding, Gallic infantry won by arriving so fast and so terrifyingly that the enemy line broke before contact was properly established. The warband was an assault weapon in its purest form. Its weakness was that it had only one speed and only one tactic, and a Roman general who could survive the first five minutes knew he was most of the way to winning.
The skirmish screen: slingers, archers, and light cavalry
Caesar's battles were never simply heavy infantry contests decided by the clash of main lines. Both armies entered the field preceded by a screen of light troops, skirmishers whose job was to harass, delay, and disorder the enemy before the heavy fighting began, and it was at the skirmish level that the quality of Caesar's auxiliary forces gave him one of his most consistent advantages.
The Roman light arm in the collection is represented by two distinct unit types. The Roman Skirmish Archers, 178 figurines of auxiliary bowmen recruited from the eastern provinces, provided the kind of ranged precision that the legion's own velites-style troops could not match. The Roman Skirmish Slingers, 186 figurines of what were most likely Balearic or Syrian specialists, added a different ranged profile: the lead glans sling bullet was a weapon of terrifying power and penetration at medium range, capable of defeating helmets that would stop an arrow.
The Gallic tribes were not without their own skirmish assets. The Gallic Germanic Slingshot Skirmishers, 258 figurines of tribal light troops with their own ranged capability, and the Gallic Germanic Spearmen Skirmishers, 168 figurines of close-range harassing infantry, meant that the skirmish screen was genuinely contested in most engagements. But it was Caesar's Numidian auxiliaries who gave the Romans their decisive edge in this arm.
The Numidian Infantry Skirmishers, 168 figures of some of the ancient world's most celebrated light troops, represent warriors from the North African kingdoms who had served in Roman armies since the Punic Wars. Fast, lightly equipped, expert at the kind of open-order fighting in broken terrain that Roman legionaries found difficult, the Numidians were Caesar's insurance policy against being outmanoeuvred by Gallic light forces. Their mounted counterparts, the Numidian Skirmish Cavalry, 119 figurines of light horsemen, provided exactly the kind of screening, pursuit, and flank harassment that the heavier Roman cavalry could not perform with the same efficiency.
Cavalry and shock: Eques, Gallic horse, and the chariot-warriors of Britain
Caesar's early Gallic campaigns nearly foundered on one simple problem: the tribes could field more cavalry than Rome. Gallic aristocratic culture was deeply invested in the horse, a Gallic nobleman went to war mounted, served as cavalry, and measured his prestige in part by the quality of his horses and the size of his mounted retinue. In the first years of the war, Gallic cavalry consistently outflanked, outpaced, and outfought their Roman counterparts, and Caesar solved the problem in characteristically pragmatic fashion: he hired Gallic and Germanic cavalry for himself.
The Eques Roman Noble Cavalry, 170 figurines of the Roman aristocratic mounted arm, represents the traditional Roman horse that formed the flanking screens of the Caesarian battle line. Armoured, disciplined, and brave, the Eques were effective heavy cavalry against comparable opponents. Against the fast-moving Gallic horse, they were outclassed in speed and agility, which is why Caesar's real shock cavalry by mid-campaign was largely made up of Germanic horsemen whose riding style matched the Gauls' own.
The Gallic Skirmish Cavalry, two variants across 133 and 170 figurines respectively, represent this light, fast mounted arm. Whether fielded as tribal opponents or as Caesar's own auxiliary horse (reflecting the historical reality that he regularly deployed Gallic cavalry on both sides of the engagement), they bring a tactical mobility to the tabletop that the heavier Roman mounted units cannot match. These are the units that pursue broken infantry, threaten exposed flanks, and race to block enemy retreats.
And then there is the Roman Heffalumps, 70 figurines of one of Caesar's most intriguing tactical experiments. War elephants appear in the Gallic and British campaigns in the ancient sources in contexts that historians still debate: Caesar is recorded bringing a single large elephant equipped with armoured howdah and archers to the Thames crossing during his first British expedition. Whether used as shock asset or psychological weapon, and the psychological effect on British warriors who had never seen one was presumably considerable, the Heffalump represents the Roman capacity for military innovation and surprise that made Caesar's campaigns as much about shock and spectacle as attrition.
The British expeditions of 55 and 54 BC also introduced Caesar to a battlefield weapon with no direct parallel anywhere else in the ancient world: the war chariot. The British Chariots, a separately purchasable addon beyond the Full Pack, bring the chariot-warriors of southern Britain to the tabletop. Caesar wrote of them with evident respect: their drivers were skilled enough to gallop full speed down steep slopes, check their horses in an instant, and recover them in a moment. The charioteers fought in a mode entirely their own, delivering noble warriors to the fight at speed, then withdrawing to a flank from which the warriors could retreat if pressed. Against this, Rome had no ready answer and had to improvise.
Alesia: the battle that ends all battles
Fifty-two BC is the year everything changed. Vercingetorix, newly elected supreme commander of a unified Gallic coalition, abandoned the open-field strategy that had consistently favoured Rome and retreated with his main army, perhaps 80,000 strong, to the hilltop oppidum of Alesia in the territory of the Mandubii. His plan was to hold Caesar's army in siege long enough for a relief force to arrive and destroy it between hammer and anvil.
Caesar's response was to build two walls simultaneously.
The inner line of circumvallation, eighteen kilometres of ditch, rampart, towers, and obstacles, enclosed Alesia completely. The outer line of contravallation, twenty-one kilometres, facing outward, was built to receive the relief army that Caesar knew was coming. For ten days in the autumn of 52 BC, Caesar commanded an army besieging a fortress while itself being besieged by an army of relief that ancient sources put at 250,000 strong. The Roman fortifications held on both fronts. Vercingetorix rode out of Alesia and surrendered his sword.
It is the defining engagement of the Gallic Wars and one of the most studied military operations in history, studied not just for its outcome but for what it demonstrates about the Roman army's unique combination of tactical flexibility, engineering excellence, and sheer disciplined endurance. And it is the engagement that most naturally calls for the 10mm scale.
At 18mm or 28mm, Alesia is impossible on a tabletop. The distances are too great, the numbers too large, the simultaneous nature of the inner and outer battles too demanding of space. At 10mm, with the compact footprint that WoFun's miniatures provide, you can put both battle lines on a single table, the legion cohorts holding the circumvallation against Vercingetorix's sorties on one side, and the same cohorts turning on their heels to meet the relief army charging from the treeline on the other. That is what 4,470 figurines and a 10mm scale buy you: the ability to tell the whole story at once.
4,470 Figurines, One Box, the Entire War
The Gallic Wars 10mm Full Pack contains 4,470 figurines printed on 16 Plexiglass sprues and includes all 21 regiments from the collection. The full regiment listing, with figurine counts, is as follows: Eques Roman Noble Cavalry (170), Gallic Skirmish Cavalry 1 (133), Gallic Skirmish Cavalry 2 (170), Numidian Skirmish Cavalry (119), Roman Heffalumps (70), Gallic Germanic Infantry (102), Gallic Germanic Slingshot Skirmishers (258), Gallic Germanic Spearmen Skirmishers (168), Late Republican Roman Infantry 1 through 6 (258 figurines each), Late Republican Roman Infantry Second Shields 1 through 4 (258 figurines each), Numidian Infantry Skirmishers (168), Roman Skirmish Archers (178), and Roman Skirmish Slingers (186).
All figurines are printed in full colour on 1.5mm Plexiglass and arrive ready to press from the sprue and slot into bases, no painting, no assembly, no preparation. Peter Dennis's illustration style brings the Late Republican period to life with the warm ochres and reds of Roman equipment, the vivid blues and greens of Gallic warrior dress, and the distinctive North African palette of the Numidian auxiliaries, giving the finished table immediate visual variety and period atmosphere.
Two base options are available. WoFun Standard A provides 43×43mm square bases for all infantry, cavalry, and artillery units, with 15mm round bases for leaders, a solid all-purpose format suited to most ancient rule sets. WoFun Standard B uses 43×21mm rectangular bases across all units (again with 15mm round leader bases), a configuration that suits players who prefer the deeper, narrower base profile common in traditional ancient and medieval wargaming systems.
The Gallic Wars 10mm collection is compatible with a wide range of popular ancient wargaming rule sets. For players who are new to historical wargaming or looking for a starting point, WoFun's own free downloadable rules cover the broader ancient period and provide a straightforward framework for getting your first games on the table.
Individual addons from the full 10mm Gallic Wars collection are also available separately, allowing players to reinforce specific arms, additional Roman infantry cohorts for a large Alesia scenario, extra Gallic tribal cavalry for the relief-army engagement, or a unit of British Chariots for players wanting to recreate the Thames crossing on the tabletop.