20mm Parthians

 Well, having painted a load of Persians which included some horse archers, I was halfway to a Parthian army anyway. I've always wanted to do Carrhae so...

Meet the Parthians. An army almost entirely composed of cavalry. Fortunately a single box each of HaT 'Parthian Light cavalry' and 'Parthian Heavy Cavalry' provides all of what you need for a DBA Army with all the options. You'd almost think HaT had planned it that way... 

Horse archers. Very similar to the Parthayan types in with my Persian Army, with hair twists etc. Seven elements of two figures each, which when combined with the four elements I already have with the Persians, gives the 11 elements required for the CnC Carrhae scenario.

A different colour palette for these guys to the Persians, a bit more earthy but a bit more rich (from Barkers Enemies and Armies of Imperial Rome). The decorations are much simpler, just tunic edging, although the tunics have overlapped fronts. What really makes them pop are the headbands, which were a bit of a pig to paint, but look great. They really look like a bunch of savages.

The horse are moulded as small ponies, so I went for a mix of lighter browns with the odd sock etc.

I didn't really need to do a command element, but they provided this wacky flying fish banner thing as an option, so I painted one up.

Supplementing the horse archers are Cataphracts, thousands of them.... I did these guys in a far more regular fashion, with identical poses in each element. Fortunately HaT provide just enough figures in just enough poses to do five elements of Knights, including a command element, with identical figures on each element.

The figures are seemingly cast in every armour, surcoat, cloak and hat combination seen in 'Armies and Enemies of the Roman Empire', so not just Parthians, but Palmyrians etc Here, two elements of guys with lances levelled, one of which has the guys in the full face armour configuration.

I used the supplied lances but they are quite thin. They got two coats of PVA, three coats of paint and a coat of floor varnish, which seemed to stiffen them up OK. I should maybe have replaced them with brush bristles, but didn't. They are incredibly long as well, so to save storage space the soldiers are perhaps holding them a bit further back than the official grip.

These half dozen are holding the lances upright, great for base-base contact, less good for storing in a box! I did the element on the left with bronze scale horse armour, all the others are in iron scale armour. The figures on the right are in surcoats, which I did in ochre with red edging and matching helmet plumes. I made their helmets bronze too for a bit of contrast.

The command element has the General on a white horse (not that you'd know under all that armour) and the guys in red cloaks with the General in purple. These chaps are also wearing surcoats, green edged in white - a nod to a statue of St Nicholas spearing a Dragon I saw in the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem. Well, he was from the same part of the world as the Parthians....

The DBA Army Lists also call for some Parthian Auxilia and Psiloi as options, so HaT helpfully supply three archers and three spearmen. I did these as a three figure Auxilia element and a 3BW element (both could pretend to be a Psiloi element if required). If nothing else, they can always be pressed into service as Persian Satraps if required.

I've no idea what Parthian shield designs were like but quadrants were moulded on the shields, so I blocked those in. The troops went with a similar colour palette to the mounted archers, and also have scary headbands.

With all that lot done, I also have options to do Sassanid Persians, and the Cataphracts will be useful for all sorts of things, even later Imperial Romans as I'm not overly fussed about the specific clothes they are wearing.

And joy of joys, the Persians and Parthians jointly fit very neatly into two box files. There is even a bit of room for expansion, but to be honest, after doing that lot and three WW2 desert armies, I'm quite painted out at the moment. Time to play some games instead I think, and I'll just go back to painting the odd thing needed for specific scenarios instead. I've still got some desert stuff to do, but that will have to wait a while.