A Few More Persians

I'm aiming to have a playable army of Late Achaemenid Persians ready for the summer and am more-or-less on track despite the odd distraction. I've just completed a couple of new units and thought I'd take a few photos of the paint schemes before lathering the whole lot in gloss varnish! This blog was always intended to be - in part - a record that I could use as a future painting reference. I'm making this post in that spirit and I hope it's not too dull! 

First up - here's an old friend - the Minfigs Mercenary Hoplite PB8. I had to grit my teeth at this point as I've previously described this as the worst hoplite model ever made - with some justification I feel - and I already have lots of these in original 70s livery. But for this project I wanted everything done anew to a consistent standard, so at some point I knew I'd have to paint at least a unit of these. I do have some re-done, and much nicer, Hinchliffe Hoplites, and at a pinch I will be fielding these as well as some newly painted Garrison figures alongside my Minifigs. 

Note our man is one of the early production castings and consequently armed with a telegraph pole. The main issue with this beast is that the models are hard to rank up convincingly, and enemies have a job getting into base contact. The whole point of the weapon I suppose. 

When it came to painting this fellow I went for a simple tunic rather than trying to paint on the leather/canvas 'spolas' jerkin depicted on the illustration upon which this model is based (illustration 8 in Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars). It came together surprisingly well, and the result was far better than I was expecting. The shields on these early castings are usually more regular than on the late castings (thin spears), which are often quite badly distorted. I took advantage of that to paint a rim - which the aspis should have of course - and planted one of the Warlord Games hoplite transfers in the middle. 

Next up is an Armenian archer PB23 once again taken from the illustration in Armies Of the Macedonian and Punic Wars. I had a few goes at the paint scheme for this one before deciding to try the pattern from the Alexander Mosaic, which is commonly used as the basis for more modern representations of Persian troops - e.g. Osprey's book on Persian Armies as well as the 2nd edition of AMPWs by Duncan Head. 

Typical Minifigs bowman - has the arrow on the wrong side of the bow stave - but for all that a nice solid pose that suffers only slightly from not quite shooting to the front. That means I've had to 'skew' the rectangle metal bases slightly on the card base... which is making me a bit jittery! The alternative - cutting down the bases - would surely be an afront to nature. Oddly enough, where I've bought models that have been previously cut down to allow them to be based facing forward this is hasn't bothered me. I wonder if it should?

It takes a bit of time to put the red trim over the blue but I think I've cracked it. The eye does half the work, although photgraphed close up like this you do see the mistakes. I try not to look. 

The strange headgear is something of a misinterpreation of the the actual style, which was associated with people from Cappadocia as far as I know - I guess 'Armenia' is next door so perhaps the fashion was more wide-spread. As I understand it - and I'm no expert - this should be a three lappet cap as worn by other Persians, but with the two front pieces tied back over the head. The three peaks at the front were distinctive of the local style. I didn't much fancy remodelling the head piece though, and let's face it, if I wanted historical fidelity I wouldn't start here. 

Last one - Persian Infantryman of the Cardaces PB20 - I'd been after a unit of these for a while and was pleased to get hold of two batches recently. That gave me enough for a twenty man unit, although it's a mix of old-style thick spears and new-style thin spears... which once more makes me a bit jittery. Deep breathes... and calm. 

Once again I used the fairly plain tunic as the basis for a bordered design, following the kind of colours on the Alexander Mosaic and listed in the 2nd edition of AMPW. 

I tried a bronze-faced shield - didn't work at all - and resorted to a tried-and-tested dark red which I think is much better overall. If I can find a suitable transfer I will probably add one later, but nothing falls to hand at the moment. 

Quite what the Cardaces were I'm not too sure. The usual story is that they were a corps of Persian youth drawn from the gentry and trained to fight something after the manner of Greek hoplites... i.e. 'heavily armed' or possibly peltasts, i.e.'lightly armed'... so not much help there. The Persians suffered from a lack of good quality infantry and relied upon Greek mercenaries, not the most trust-worthy bunch. I've based these as close-order troops - as I have most of the archers - as I see these as front-line units rather than skirmishers. Traditionally - going back to the contemporary wargames rules of the time - these would have been classified as 'light mediums' and based onto 20mm frontages rather than the close order 15mm - so I've gone off piste a bit with all these. 

Right - time to get the varnish out and then maybe venture a photograph of the army so far.