"15mm Sassanid armoured horse archers?" Topic

Hi gang,

I've recently checked Stu's impressive Sassanid
gallery but couldn't find any armoured horse archers.

So, what do you use? I've not heard of any 15mm
Sassanid armoured horse archers in any known (to
me) manufacturer… Kurashan miniatures might do
a Sassanid range one day…

Unless i'm missing something, i'll probably have
to use proxy for those guys. Amongst the existing
figs, what would be the closest range? I'd like to
do several units of those guys, so multiple poses
(yeah i'm dreaming…) would be a plus…

Any bright idea? Right now, i'm stuck with the (very nice)
Khurasanian/Ghilman/Ghaznavid heavy cavalry archers
from Kurashan miniatures ( as suggested) but, something
closer to the real thing would be nice too…

i meant kHurasan….

AB/Eureka Clibanarii shooting and loading:

link

From David Kuijt's review page:

picture

picture

…and the outboard pair here:

picture

Donnington also do SDC06 and SDC10 clibinarii without lances (if you prefer helmets):

link

Here, from the Hoplon site, SBC6 is in the front row, just this side of the command figures, and SBC10 is on the near end of the second row--mixed with AB and (I think) Old Glory:

picture

Allen

Aaahh thanks a lot Alen, there's a wider choice than i
thought, excellent!!

It looks like, from the last link (nice mass effect,
Old glory, AB and Donnington mix reasonanly well,
am i wrong?

The first link, is probably not the one you wanted to
link, any chance to get the one you intended?

Oopps sorry for my bad spelling, Allen.

That first link is an interesting one Allen, obscure connection obviously but too deep for me to fathom. Others look great, spectacular army the Sassanids.

Hmmm. The Scientologists must have inserted that first link (assuming Travolta's at his vacation place in Islesboro this weekend). It should have been:

link

Allen

Thanks Allen :)

I am planning a workbench article about simple conversions of the lovely AB and Irregular charging lance armed cilbanarii (or asvari or suvarian or whatever) into bowmen. I know what I am going to do and am 100% sure that it will look good but, given than I am going to become a daddy again on Tuesday, I am not sure when I will be able to do it do it…..

I would say, remember they are swordsmen as well, so OG15 with their separate spears are a simple job, and as Allen says Donnington do some sword armed chaps as well. Lets face it, replacing spears with swords held aloft is like shooting fish in a barrel…..

Also if you don't fancy swords then wooden maces where also very popular i believe.

I will get this done as soon as I can, I am also going to chat with the irregular chaps and see if they might be up for doing this conversion or letting me do it and they can just have them for free to cast (assuming I can do a good enough job to warrant that).

Springsnow
It looks like, from the last link (nice mass effect,
Old glory, AB and Donnington mix reasonanly well,
am i wrong?

I have found that most mix well. I have reservations about the Essex (super short horse) and lancashire games (one piece castings in very soft metal with extremely spindly legs) though the latter do horse archers and i may have just got a poor batch. Donnington also do several other horses which i have used for cloth barding. I love the AB and Irregular ones best btw, with the donningtons coming a close 3rd.

Aaahh the Sassanid master himself is online :)
I'm curious, do you already know which fig you would
use from the Irregular and AB for your conversions?

I was planning to use some Old glory figs too, apart
from the cataphracts (i have already plenty), would
you recommend any to bring variety into the armoured
horse archers/swordmen units?

I quite like the idea of wooden maces too!! Anyone aware
of a manufacturer offering something close?

Hey Springsnow,

I intend to use the ones with levelled lances charging. All will become obvious when I get it done but I promise it is simple and will look right. Once I have done this I am going to look at the guys proudly holding their lances aloft but that will involve some more major surgery and bending so starting with the simple ones seemed a better idea.

For wooden maces you just need a short piece of spear wire and some green stuff, shape it to a taper and a couple of bands around it, done!!! You might want to use the Vallejo acrylic medium to build up the bands or green stuff, your choice.

Maybe I will do this in the workbench as well as it is so easy….

Both OG packs fit the bill, but the later ones only if you do not have a problem with shielded cavalry. I don't think any are going to be super obvious choices as archers but deffo candidates for swordsmen/mace men.

As a pedant, my only reservations with the lovely AB minis (light and heavy horse archers) are the globe hats and that they have their arrow on the back side of the bow, where as I believe that the Sasanids fired from the front side of the bow using the Persian grip (hand flat against the arrow with thumb pulling the string). They are both simple to fix if you are bothered by this sot if thing (I have not decided if I am yet). With the hats you may think that these are actually correct, I am not 100% sure either way but i think Spagenhelms would be more appropriate.

Irregular do a 100 piece bargain pack btw, this is a great starter/bulk out for a Sasanid army, and if you ask they will mix early and late cilbanarii. The ones I am intending to convert are the early ones, the late ones are on half armoured horses with shields, so whatever tickles your fancy. They are both very nice figures, as are the rest of the Sasanid range. They are the best irregular minis I have seen by a mile.

Finding bow armed Sasanid light cavalry is also a chew, I recommend the Miniature Wars ones from here link and the AB ones, almost all the rest that are available are armed with bow, shield and javelins. I am going to use these as Sarmatians/Alans with a bit of headgear fiddling. I also think the minifigs Parthian horse archer works well as a Sasanid one btw.

Bryan fron 50 paces is the nicest bloke, you should also consider link and link as potential options for armoured horse archers (maybe with a little fiddling).

Btw, i think that the Khurasanian/Ghilman/Ghaznavid heavy cavalry archers from Mr Khurasan are pretty darned close as well.

Thanks for all the informations, god this project is
really turning into something exciting with all those
otpions!!

I'm not the king of conversions but, inded, the maces
shouldn't be too hard to make. i hope we'll have a chance
to see your conversions once done :).

Sassanid and Middle East in general aren't my domain of
expertise, so i doubt i'm going to be too picky with the
figs :). I'm very pleased to hear that you find the
Khurasanian… figs not too far away from something
useable as i was trying to find any reason to incorporate
them in my shopping list.

So it'll be AB, Irregular, Khurasan, Miniatures Wars
and maybe some Donnington and Old glory.
First time i used so many different manufacturers to build
an army :).

Any chance to get a scan/picture of those two AB
references? :

Clibanarius, shooting (AB-SAS07)
Clibanarius, loading (AB-SAS08)

Those are the ones in David Kuijt's review pic; pic links above, but they're from this page:

link

As he indicates, there are two poses in each code. Between the various pics, I believe all four shooting and loading variants are illustrated. The SAS09 code, with lance, is mixed in on some of the stands.

Allen

oops sorry for the confusion , i thought they
were Donnington…(even though he doesn't mention
any Donnington miniatures in his review…).

Thanks Allen.

Not that this is much comfort to people building armies now, but once "clibinarium" is finished putting together all the troop types for the late romans, we will turn to the Sassanians. That's definite.

Thing is, there are lots of LIR troop types. We still have to get heavy and LC javelins, horse archers, the very heavy roman lancer cavalry, slingers and mounted command done.

But before we do men in spangenhelm and squamata, for instance, we will do some sassanids. Probably armoured and heavily armoured horse archers, and very heavily armoured heroes with lance and bow. Then light cavalry bows and foot with spear or bow, quite definitely not in the salad bowl hat!

Elephant? Hmm, did someone say elephant? :o

All the best,
link

Now that Khurasan's Late Romans are just about complete, I wonder if they have given up on their plan of doing Sassanids?

Not that this is much comfort to people building armies now, but once "clibinarium" is finished putting together all the troop types for the late romans, we will turn to the Sassanians. That's definite.

Or perhaps a little less than definite.

Does anyone have a clue of the state of the Donnington Sassanid molds? They have some nice figures in their old range.

No idea, but Giuseppe at Legio Heroica recently said he was working on a Sassanid range. So, some good news on this front!

Lurkio – really excellent and available now.

LURKIO: I picked up some figures when they were first released. In all honesty I do not like their cavalry. Strange, but I think they were deigned by Mike Lovejoy who also did Xyston's Scythian heavy cavalry – and these might be my favorite 18mm figures.

LEGIO HEROICA: I don't see news on their website, but that could be a very welcome development. They have some very nice ranges.

Well, I kind of see where you are coming from – my understanding is that they were designed by Mr. Lovejoy, and when I got my first samples the upper rider looked like it was 10 or 12mm and the bottom/horse looked 15/18mm.

However, once assembled and painted they look great, in my opinion obviously ;-)

This guy did an incredible job with AB's Sassanids:

tagmata.it/sassanidbis.htm

With an update from the designer (or a little TLC) this could be a great range.

My main gripe now with the AB's is that I find it impossible to replace the lances with wire spears. The cast on lances are limp noodles.