20mm Persian Infantry

 I have finally finished my 20mm Persian project, so here is a look at some of the toys.

First up, the infantry (and some leaders). The number of elements correspond to the minimums needed for various DBA Armies and in particular, scenarios for Command and Colours. As several people have  wisely observed, you do need quite a lot of Persians, this is about the minimum I could get away with.

First up, standard Light Infantry (or Psiloi) armed with Javelins. It doesn't matter in DBA, but it does matter in CnC, if they are armed with javelins, slings or bows. Six elements each of 2 figures on 30x60 bases. The figures are mainly Zvezda plus some spear waving Caesar figures. Generally with the light infantry I went with a more subdued palette assuming they would be poorer than their better equipped pals.

They have a range of shields too, from plain wicker to coloured and patterned, which adds to their rather irregular look I feel. The hats are all a bit random, but a mix of yellow, white and tan and a think a couple of the figures are wearing small bronze helmets. 

Next up are the archers (Bw and Ps in DBA terms). The early Achaemeneid Persians had loads of archers, and transitioned away from them as the centuries progressed. The Sassanids still had archers, but they were more skirmishers than massed bows.

These are the more 'regular' archers, based as 4BW on 30x60 bases. They are arrayed in depth and at a pinch will do for light archer units in CnC. These guys are a bit more uniform, with two units in orange and two units in red tops, plus two lots of white hats and two lots of yellow hats, although their trousers and decorations are all different. They are designed to pair with some of the medium infantry elements to produce combined Sapabra infantry elements (8BW in DBA terms), so the hats and jackets match.

A pair of more irregular 4BW elements. This guys are wearing tones and colour mix similar to javelinmen and their poses and clothes are more varied than the 'regular' archers.

And a couple of bow armed Psiloi elements. These are Caeser figures and originally I thought they were Babylonians, but once I'd got them undercoated and noticed the flowers on their robes, I realised they were supposed to be bow armed Immortals. I did them in dull robes anyway, but then edged them brightly and picked out the flowers with paint pens. They also have little bronze skull caps, which make a change.

Next up are the 'medium infantry' required for various CnC scenarios. The guys on the right are from the Zvezda Immortals set, and the guys on the left are a dozen spear armed figures from the Caeser set. They are all based as DBA Spear elements on 20x60 bases, although the guys on the left only have three figures per base.

These are the old Persian front line infantry with big oblong shields. 16 figures, all Zvezda. Some from from an old bag of Zvezda figures missing all their shields and spears, so I had to make some extra shields. I did those for the kneeling figures so I could stick the replacement shields to the bases as well as the hands.

Like the 'regular' archers, each element has either red or orange jackets and white or yellow hats. They also have matching shield patterns: stripes, chevrons or vertical oblongs and similar poses as far as possible.

They pair up with the corresponding regular Bows like this, to form an 8BW element. The very hardest thing with these was getting the shields and spears to overlap properly on the bases so four figures would fit. I ended up deploying the figures in two staggered lines with the spears of the rear rank resting on the shoulders or shields of the front rank. It looks good but is a right pain to put in the figure box.

Like the 'Babylonian' bowmen, I realised these Caeser figures are actually supposed to be classic Immortals, with a mix of spear and bow. I painted them up as Apple Bearers (from Duncan Heads book), but gave them a few Immortal type clothing flourishes and their palette was mainly red, orange and purple as per the Shah of Irans re-enactors.

Fortunately the Caeser figures come with an excess of separate shield types, so I did all six shielded figures with the 8 style shield, just painted plain, as per Duncan Head. All the spear shafts had nice 'apples' moulded on, so I painted them all gold. Like the Zvezda spears, I did these in two groups with identical poses if possible plus similar coloured jackets and hats so they look a bit more regular. 

Finally we have the great mass of Persian infantry. These appear in both DBA and CnC as Auxilia, so I based them three to base, but only warband depth (20x60) to save space and because it looks better. These may or may not be Kardakes at Issus too, as no-one can agree what they were wearing or were armed with, except possibly crescent shaped shields.

These guys got a richer colour palette than the light troops and irregular archers, but didn't have colour groups by element like the 'Immortals'. Where there were optional shield types, they got crescent shields, but there were still some with moulded 8 type shields or wicker shields. I tried to vary the poses across the bases as much as possible and they have a range of weapons including the spears, swords, axes and some figures have moulded bows too. 

And finally a motley collection of leaders. The mounted guy is from the Zvezda cavalry set, the two foot figures on the right are Zvezda and the guy on the left is a heavily armoured Caeser figure.

The standard bearer and foot General are particularly nice figures, and because it turned out I had two boxes of Zvezda infantry, I had two of each of those. The other standard bearer ended up on one of the infantry stands and the last General became Darius.

You probably can't see it here, but the foot General is wearing a leopardskin under his Kandys. Along with these leader figures, I did various elements as command elements too, with an obvious 'General' figure on them.