Indians and Scythians

Minifigs PBC7 Dahae Horse Archers 

Some recent additions to my Minifigs Persian army include an Indian contingent and some Scythian cavalry. All the figures are from the Miniature Figurines 1972/73 catalogue. Most are from the, then brand new, 'PB' range 'The Macedonian and Punic Wars'. A few are taken from the older 'S' Range Ancients, which were in the process of being phased out at the time. All are what was commonly called '25mm' figures. They are considerably smaller than modern wargames figures as well as somewhat slighter.

I've painted up twelve of the PBC7 Dahae Horse Archers (Scythians to thee and me). Half are on these light coloured horses and half on greys. They can either be fielded as two distinct units or mixed to make a larger formation. 

The horses are the PBH65, which is the generic cavalry horse of 'other nations'. It's quite an attractive beast, although prone to filling in between the legs and reins. Quite a bit of carving required to remove chunks of metal and reshaping, Like all the PBH horses, this one has a saddle cloth, as does the rider, and the fit is a little off. Disguised with greenstuff to some extent. 

I suspect this figure was originally intended to fit either the older 'Ancient S Range' cavalry horses or the generic 'Light Cavalry Horses'. Both are slightly smaller and - more importantly - not burdened with saddlecloths. Despite this, the same rather small rider soldiered on with the even larger later-style horses introduced around 1975. Truly massive beasts in comparision!

The figure itself is in that typical Minifigs horse archer pose, shooting off to the side. It does look rather odd when the figures are lined up in a straight line. They do look good in a looser formation though.

As always, I've based these guys on plain green rectangles cut to the sizes stipulated by the contemporary WRG Ancients rules: 30mm frontage by 40mm depth. 

I've tried to give them a varied paint job whilst keeping an overall 'look'. So, all the horse furniture is the same colour throughout, as are the quiver, weapons and so on. 

I've also tried to keep the colours 'bright' without being 'too bright', as it were, and it seems to have worked reasonably well. 

Once again as always, all these chaps have been given a coat of gloss varnish, with a second coat over vulnerable spots likely to be handled. 

Minifigs Indian Elephants and PBC29 Indian Cavalryman 

A unit of cavalry and three elephants have joined the Indian contingent. Together with a couple of units of infantry, they will form part of one wing of my Persian army. Purists may well point out that Darius' Indian contingent fought in a single battle (Gaugamela). I, however, shall take liberties. Frankly, I couldn't resist the elephants. They are so cute. 

I'm not entirely sure whether the elephant and its crew were part of the 'S Range' rather than newly minted to go with the PB range. I suspect the former. The 72/73 catalogue shows the model with a quiver of javelins, which I have not got, and these three crewmen.

Minifigs elephants were never the most exciting of models. I do have a herd of Hinchliffe elephants, which are far larger and more dramatic. I saw these critters on ebay and bought them together with a batch of chariots. 

These models have been repainted using the original paint as an undercoat. The saves stripping the pieces but you do lose a little of the detail. Not that there was much to start with. 

Minifigs Inidan Elephants

The Indian cavalry figure is a typical Minifigs affair. It's a neat little figure taken from the Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars by Phil Barker. 

The horse is the Minifigs PBC Indian cavalry horse. It has this rather splendid and distinctive plume. It also has a rather less distinctive chamfron or something going on, which I've interpreted as metal. Who knows!

All the Indians stick to the same colour scheme based on red and white with some bronze detailing. 

I've based these as close-fighting cavalry - technically medium cavalry in terms of the old WRG rules. Sadly, there is but the single figure in the range and no specific light or heavy cavalry variants. The same rider mounted onto a smaller 'S Range' horse would make a passable light cavalryman.

Minifigs Indian Cavalry 

A Few Gauls

 

Minifigs PB57 South Gaulish Javelinman 

A modest contingent of Gauls has been added to my old-style Minifigs Carthaginian army. Nothing to trouble the Romans as yet, but a decent start none-the-less.

The figures are from the original PB Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars range, harking back to the early 70s. These examples first appeared in the 1972 catalogue with 'S' sppended to the serial numbers indicated they were conceived of as part of the 'S range', i.e. 25mm 'specials'. In point of fact, they were the same size as the original 'S range' Ancients, and in some cases even the same models or updated versions. As time went on the new releases would creep up a bit in size, until the original line was replaced by bigger and chunkier versions in the late 70s.

The South Gaulish Javelinman is a simple figure in a standard pose for javelin-armed models. As I've covered on many occasions, there was an early release with very thick spear and javelins (telegraph poles as they have been dubbed) and a later release with spears and javelins that were much thinner but very fragile. These come from the later batch, and - true to form - the javelins were either partially or entirely missing. All have received new weapons made form brass rod, which should last them out.  

Gallic Warband in determined mode. PB57 with PB56 and PB153 in attendance. 

The skirmishes join my Gallic warband of PB56 South Gaulish Swordsman. I've been on the look-out for these for quite a while. They don't seem to come up very often on the second-hand market, and I suspect were not a great 'troop choice' when these figures were new. I managed to get enough to field a modest unit of 16 models. They came in two separate batches, one of which has been quite vigorously animated by a previous owner. Hence, some of the chaps of waving their weapons about in an irregular fashion. Rather than trying to neaten everything up, I've just gone with the slightly irregular appearance, and it doesn't look too bad overall. 

Rather than attempt the usual highly decorated shields, not to mention stripy rugby shirts and pyjama bottoms beloved of gamers half a century ago, I've stuck to my usual plain colour palette for these chaps and given them solid red shields. As ever. I've stuck to old-fashioned WRG base sizes and mounted the models without base decor to emphasise a clean 'toy soldier' aesthetic. I was tempted into using mdf bases for the skirmishers, and the result is a little thicker than I ideally like, but does save messing around with card. 

That standard bearer lurking in the background is from the Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome range, PB153 Gallic Chieftain with Standard. He arrived with a broken standard, so I've replaced the pole with brass rod and re-affixed the boar standard, which led naturally enough into painting him up. 

These were definately not the best or cleanest of castings, with quite a bit of clag to carve out around the sword arm and behind the shield. Overall - rather hard work for such a modest result - but made up for by the rather nice hairstyles, which rather put in mind of 'Revolver' period Beatles. Tomorrow Never Knows!