"Early Achaemenid Persian 15mm peek" Topic

Sparabara line infantry will be our first release:

picture

Immortals will follow, then cavalry. We intend the line to cover the Haumavarga Saka as well.

any plans for the subject peoples?

I's expect to see a wide variety of slightly different looking foot units, not just the usual
sparbara, immortals, and egyptian marines.

and also with the cav – lots of different nationalities, all broadly similar, but not quite.

Or is that too broad a scope to expect?

Great stuff.

Early Achaemenids don't get enough attention. It's fun to play Persians when they are more than an unlucky speed-bump for Alexander.

Very very nice.

Keraunos, blame the listwriters!

If you can have only 12 of a certain troop type, it becomes very hard to justify the investment. At least two poses, so that's around $250 USD sculpting fee, plus about $70 USD for mastercasting and production mould.

Ok. That's $320. USD If each piece costs .20 to get cast, and I charge .60 for each one, I make .40 to put against the initial investment. People are only buying a dozen, so that's $4.80 USD per customer (tops). That means that almost seventy unique owners of Persian armies have to buy the dozen subjects allowed before I even break even.

HTH

I have a quite large Essex Early Persian army. I too would like to see some subject peoples. Lycian Hoplites, Aethiopians, etc.

The figures are nice, but whats with the concrete block shields?

They had large wicker shields. Remember the models are not actually this size, they are 15mm tall. Shrink the image down to actual size and the overscale thickness virtually disappears. They had to be made a bit overscale thick or they would not be castable.

Are the wicker shields cast onto the figures or separately? It may be possible to paint them differently so they will not look as thick at any rate.

Chris

I think I'll post an image of them scaled down. That's the dilemma with posting hugely blown up pics like this.

Yes, the shields are separate.

Very nice. When will these be available?

Will you also make the Dipylon shield available?

Ok, here we go:

picture

At this scale, the thicker shields, besides casting properly with the wicker pattern on front and back (slightly different on each side to make them more varied), are really necessary to represent the big wicker spara.

Cyrus, I decided not to because after reading Head's book on the Persians it appeared to me that the spara was the overwhelming type, and the Dipylon-like shield may have been limited to court duty for the Immortals.

Libraryninja, probably a week or so. I have not yet received the Immortals, so they are some ways off, as they still have to be cast, another very long process.

Very nice! Khurasan is releasing some excellent 15mm miniatures!!

Not a deal breaker, I can have someone I know make them for me in plastic.

Khurasan,

Never mind list writers, feel the Herodotus !

You must be planning on some subject peoples, even a token one.

There is no need for more Egyptian marines, Indian (always a bit iffy in a Persian army) or Kapadocian – Xyston have got them covered from their later Achaemenid list.

Can you at least promise one additional type – something unexpected like East Iranian foot, Saka foot, Egyptian (non marines), Lykian, non biblical Babalonians, Syrians, Phoenician?

I've been putting off this army for years because of the paucity of a decent range – everyone has a start, no one bothers with the finish – they just jump straight to cardaces and Alexander. (and my units are in 16 figures, so that is a 25% increase already !).

I trust you will have the Immortals in two types with both head dress types – one for each of the figures on the palace walls.

Thanks for the explanation Khurasan, I can see why you would do shields that way now. You are right, when viewed in scale, it isnt that big a deal. I'm halfway through replacing my old 15mm ancients collection and coincidentaly, Early and Late Achaemenid Persians are next on my list of armies to create. Personally I would prefer the Dipylon shields on the infantry if possible.

Here is my buying list:

Late Achaemenids
CinC King of Kings with driver in 2 horse light chariot
Sacred standard with two priests and driver in 4 horse chariot
1 Persian CinC on horse + mtd standard bearer
2 Persian Sub gens on horse
12 Persian guard heavy cavalry (1 unit)
12 Persian rebel guard cavalry EHC (1 unit)
60 Persian HC (5 units of 12 figures each)
18 Kappadocian EHC (2 units of 9 figures each)
30 Persian LC (3 units of 10 figures each)
6 Bactrian EHC (1 unit)
30 Bactrian LC horse archers (3 units of 10 figures each)
12 Scythian EHC (1 unit)
20 Scythian LC horse archers (2 units of 10 figures each)
16 Persian Royal guard HI
102 Kardake LMI
42 Bactrian LMI
10 Persian archers
10 Persian javelinmen
10 Persian slingers
12 Persian artillery crew

Expansion for Early Achaemenid
104 Immortal HI
104 Persian MI
Cyrus towers
Cyrus camelry

As to subject peoples, when I had Achaemenid armies before, I did them to the full WRG old lists and had all the subject units (made by Minifigs) – but not once in ten years of gaming did anyone who used the army ever use the subject units on table : ) This time, i'm not bothering.

Keraunos – sorry, your post above mine wasnt there when I posted – it looks like i'm arguing with you, which isnt the case or the intention.

no problem, You are using Kardakes anyway – imitation hoplites, i.e. Later Achaemenids. I am interested in Early Achaemenids – for conquering Asia Minor and Egypt, and invading Greece, rather than resisting Alexander.

we are also clearly using different rules.

The ones I am looking at do not differentiate between the minutae of most foot types – with the usual exceptions at the famous end of the market.

So, while I can just as easily have 128 Sparabara, I can also have 8 units of differing subject people as figures for the same on-table effect – they play as the same units, but they all look different.

i.e. your 104 Persian MI – which are the figures at the top of this post – I would break up into how ever many units, and then have at least half (depending on figure availability for variety, more) as different figures for each unit to represent the different nationalities.

And that is an appeailing army to use, paint and play games with.

If someone would oblige with the figure variety, of course.

(BTW, for the King, I have already done the Xyston chariot king – a 4 horse chariot, but too nice a model to pass up).

but also, I accept, not a particularly profitable one to sculpt

Great miniatures and like some others, I have been waiting for some time for someone to make a complete range for the early Persians, in the quality that your figs are..

I appreciate your statement on gamers will only buy 12, but the counter argument is if you have complete armies with lots of packs to chose from you will get more sales. I know that is the way I tend to shop; I just purchased a complete 1000pt (FOG) army from xsyton due to the quality of the figs and the fact that there are so many variations in each pack.

Which I think is the case with many gamers. Let the mass troops subsidize the less well sold. If you follow your argument on selling only twelve then you should only make Napoleonic French Old Guard and Tiger tanks as they are the bestsellers.

But I do hope you make complete ranges as your figs are really outstanding.

Thanks
William

Keraunos – interesting. In the old rules I used before the subject peoples were downgraded so much it wasnt worth using them. What rules are you using?

Under the lists I have I would be able to field extra to the list above the following for early Achaemenids:

10 Skythian infantry
20 Mysian, Mares or Colchian infantry
30 Paphlagonian, Pisidian, Cabelees, Moschi or Tibareni infantry
10 Carduchian infantry
10 Milyae infantry
10 Ethiopian infantry
10 East Ethiopian infantry
20 Arab, Caspi, Paricanii and similar infantry
10 Libyan infantry
10 Indian infantry
20 Thracian infantry
48 Lydian and Medizing-Greek hoplites
20 Egyptian marines
30 Phoenician marines
10 Lycian marines
20 Assyrian and Chaldaean infantry

I'm using Armati.

Outside of the hoplite / phalangite / legionary sort of thing, foot are just foot.
They have a fighting value and a protection value for shields/armour, but it is just a number, not a weapon type or anything like that.

(immortals have a higher value, obviously, so they are different, the basic infantry do not),

So the lists just give you a set number of these foot and a suggested troop type – Sparabara.

how dull.

But, since there is no difference in unit size or effect, I can just use the figures I want to get the army effect I want – which is, lots of subject peoples.

I think there are 8 such units (its been a while since i checked the list).

I would hope for 2-3 Sparabara, one Saka, one Syrian/phoenician, one Lykian, one Mysian / east Iranian, and one babylonian /chaldean / Assyrian.

Skirmish foot would of course include etheopians, arabs, and so forth.

same deal with the cavalry – bactrians, persians, medes, saka, etc.

it also makes the paining and figure buying a lot more interesting this way.

The lydians and the Egyptians would be two of the opponents I would expect to fight, so they are not in the list.

WKeyser, plans are to make immortals, Persian heavy cavalry, Persian command, saka light cav, saka foot, saka heavy cav, and Greek hoplites with bronze reinforced linothorax. In that order! Saka will be haumavarga saka. Oh, probably command for saka as well, so players can make saka armies.

As to making models to accomodate sales of the main guys, yup sometimes that's necessary -- often actually, like in the example of command. Problem is with the EAP that there are so very many penny packets of subjects that they would overwhelm the line. I did request that the sculptor make the models the same size as xyston, so that any allies xyston makes, but I don't, can just be used from their line.

Anyway, as said I don't even have the immortal sculpts yet! So this line will be growing pretty gradually, I think. Started with the sparabara because people often say how much they needed models for them.

saka foot is great.

fitting with Xyston is also good.

but of course, Xyston have a focus on later achaemeid – being speed bumps for Alexander, and them being callled Xyston, after all.

sigh, more waiting for someone with no busines sense, but great artistic integrity to start up…

Why don't you sink some of your money into it, Keraunos? You can make nothing but models people will only buy six of, basically spending thousands of dollars to subsidize other peoples' hobbying. Then you can display your great artistic integrity and put everyone else to shame, right?

let me think about that.

Will any of the foot work for Medes? Pre-Persian Empire Medes, that is.

"The figures are nice, but whats with the concrete block shields"?

My sentiments exactly. Very nice figures but the shields look like dominos attached to the figure.

Sorry; thumbs down!

I'm fine with the shields actually.

As separate items, they are also esay to make replacements for if they don't scrub up well in real life – being squares, afterall.

And the figures behind them look perfect.

"I did request that the sculptor make the models the same size as xyston"

And which size of Xyston would that be exactly? Xyston ranges suffer the most incredible scale creep.