A Sparabara levy unit

I'm not going to get round to basing figures for a while so this lot is being posted unbased.

It's a unit of I-know-everyone-else-calls-them-Medes-but-I-list them-as-Persians type. Basically, 'cos this hat style was originally listed in wargames circles as the Persian style rather than Mede.

Again, calling them Sparabara is also technically wrong as they're carrying violin shaped shields rather than Spara.

Apart from all that...

Slight issue with them - I accidentally touched the figures paint up with the wrong shade of grey. Never mind, I'll try not to worry about it.

This unit is designed to be a plain local-defence levy outfit rather than one of the fancier types.

Cyrus the Great's Medes

Continuing the build of units specifically for the Cyrus the Great army, these being the Medes.

This shot shows the current setup with one of the 'later' 8Bw elements acting as a marker for the Guard.

And this is the Mede Regiment.

I've left the bowcase plain - not sure if that's a good thing or not.

More chariots - Cyrus v Lydia

Cyrus the Great founded the Persian Empire by conquering the Medes, the Lydians and the Babylonians. During his war with the Lydians he is supposed to have mounted his cavalry on camels to beat the superior Lydian cavalry, used large mobile war wagons as stroingpoints and also had scythed chariots. I've already got Garrison camels, intend to have a go at the war wagons, and this lot are the scythed chariots.

The chariots have a Garrison 25mm Persian chariot chassis with a card cabin. To sort the 'yoke' a length of thin dowel was placed over the backs of the horses, blob of glue in the centre and chariot pole simply dropped on top of it. Chariot horses are my 20mm ones, wheels are from the Assyrian chariot.

Finished models made with different crews - one Persian, one Mede.  Figures are robed spearmen conversions from the Persian officer, the Persian also having a head swap from Persian Guard cavalry figure.

Those Chinese trees look quite good in the background.

One Persian chariot...

One Mede...  which must have picked up some of the base material on the cab - have to clean that off!

Next, the war wagon and Cyrus's chariot...

Mede General's chariot.

Slowly going through the Romans - the cavalry are part way done now - but decided to finish off something I started earlier.

I cheated a bit - this was originally going to be a Persian general for the Persian version of I/40 but I decided to simply use 'spare' painted Medes and  make a Mede general instead.

The charioteer is simply a spearman with the bottom of the spear cut of and the rest bent into a whip shape. The general is an unchanged spare figure from the 3Bw unit. The chariot is the Garrison 25mm chariot with Assyrian chariot wheels and 20mm Garrison Persian horses.

 Meanwhile... I know I said the Minifigs Egyptians were finished, but never said I would stop getting more if they came up... and some have. So I've just added 27 chariots and 90 infantry to the host. Plus 2 Philistine ox carts and about 37 Philistine spearmen.  And I continue to be amazed at how cheaply they go for.

Garrison Medes

Vanha still stalled, Romans still not started, not a lot done recently apart from more of my Mede conversions.

A unit of Mede spears to be precise - 4 x 4Sp for army I/40 (b) or (c). Another 6 x 3Ax needs to be done for I/40(a). The conversion itself is simply the officer figure with cloak and body detail carved away whilst the sword has been replaced with a spear. Perhaps I should have done a side-by-side comparison photo.

Here they are seen with a load of my 3Bw elements - only need 2 of these for I/40(c) but I like 'full' units. Which means I should have done an extra two elements of the spears of course.

And not forgetting that I still only have 1 element  of Medes for my I/60 army - need to produce more of these. I suppose that, as sparabara, they should have the large rectangular pavise sparas rather than violin shaped ones - I think this is my version of 'artistic licence'.

Of Greeks, Spartans and Medes...

Although of course Spartans are Greeks...

Normally this lot would be 3 separate posts but I seem to have been a bit laggard recently.

The 'Greeks'. That's just finishing off ones I've already mentioned. Well, OK, I added all the 'extras' I've painted when I did the other units, plus did a General's element using spare armoured figures... The end result being 9 elements plus a general's element. Enough for most generic versions of the Late Greek army.

 

 

 

 

 

I know I said that was going to be it for Greeks for now, but couldn't resist - armoured Greeks as Spartan Hippeis completed. Not wearing the Pilos helmet but can't have it all.

 

And as an 'extra' also did a unit of Mede archers.

Meanwhile, half way through finishing some Vanha archers as well - so  I have been busy.

First of the new Persians

Well, did the first test runs on the new moulds - be a while before I've got them fully sorted. I'm also continuing with the 8Bw elements of Immortals and have completed another one.

This is the current state of play, 3 Immortal 8Bw elements and 1 Mede 8Bw element.

I like the colour scheme on the new Immortal element - could be convinced to use it for a full sized unit. On the other hand, it's another 'blue' unit.

Only managed to produce 6 useable Medes on the test run so added an officer and standard bearer. The figures themselves are not quite as good as the Immortal figure - the hat and hair simply being from the officer figure is not as convincing as I would like. It's a green unit, which I'm short of, so does suffer a bit from 'green overload' with the base.

So overall a reasonable start, need to get a few more of the robed Persian archers for the next element.

Mede DBA army

Finally finished though the cavalry component will be subject to change...

I admit, the first picture is not a DBA army, but shows all the units the army has been drawn from. There are still a couple more Mede units left to rebase, plus a load of Persians who will form the , well, Persian DBA component..

This is the DBA army - I/40(c) 1xLCh, 3x3Cv, 1x2LH, 4x4Sp, 2x3Bw, 1x2Ps

As shown previously, general in his chariot.

The 3Cv are as bought, just standard bearer added, spears touched up and based.

Another 'as previously seen' -in parts - unit, the 4x4Sp.

And 2x3Bw

The LH and Ps bases are both simply rebased.

All figures except the chariot body (Garrison) and LH (Pb Range) are Minifigs 'S' Range. Chances are, the LH will be swapped for 'S' Range Scythians whereas the 3Cv will be transferred to the Persian DBA army I'll probably sort next whilst being replaced by 'upgraded' 'S' Range Assyrian horse archers.

Upgrading the Mede infantry units

Not really an accurate title - more 'upsizing'.

I'm busy trying to paint up figures to convert 40 and 20 figure Mede units to match my 48/24 strong units.

I've added a Garrison officer and 'S' Range converted standard bearer.

This is a comparison between 'my' standard bearer and the original. The original's standard had originally been glued to the hand; I preferred a direct conversion.

The original unit's spearmen had all been converted in the sense that the shield arm had been repositioned. I left mine in the original figure pose.

The archer unit got a Garrison officer and standard bearer. For the cloaks, the leopard skin is shown with the spots on the inside - read about this somewhere, not sure where, so did it to give some variety. I'll make a point of mixing and matching this in future figures.

This is a comparison between one of 'my' archers and one of the 'originals' - the match is quite good though I didn't bother with the black lining - it doesn't make a lot of difference. The blue colour also matches better on the figures than they seem to do on the photo.