"pre-islamic arab nomad camelmen" Topic

Hi, looking for some pics or guide for colours for ancient nomad camelmen. Not sure how colourful to make them; I envisaged lots of basically off-white robes but not sure. Any links appreciated.

cheers

Gripping Beast has some desert nomad types painted in the gallery for their Sassanid range; might be helpful.

I thought this era of Arab style nomads were the dual mounted Minnite (sp). Regardless I would expect their clothing to be similar. Though I have seen some players use Ansar riders from the Sudan range who have swords or spears. They are in Turbans and trousers.

Midinite Camels riders.

In 15mm Old Glory 15mm has pre-islamic camel riders (one per camel) in their macedonian Successor range (SS).

You probably can't go wrong by painting them off-white, but other colors like black, brown, or blue are probably reasonable.

One trick is to paint the nobles and leaders with very white or colored clothes, and the rank and file in off-white or brown camel wool or unbleached linen.

In reality you can pretty much do as you please since there are few surviving images of pre-Islamic Arabs

Thanks guys. Very helpful

Mi-di-an-ite, from the land of Midian. Without them, Max Baer's "Beverly Hillbillies" character would probably not have been named Jethro.

Wargame figure interpretations of Midianites are probably not awfully close to the appearance of Nabataean, Sabaean, Minaean, or further afield, Yemeni warriors during classical times.

There are numerous surviving images from Roman, Byzantine, and Sassanian sources, as well as from Arab sources. Unfortunately, no-one has pulled them together well. The best reference I have I got from a quite fundamentalist, Afghani-run Islamic bookshop in London--on 9/11/01.

Until people are willing to cross cultural borders in the interest of research, wargamers will probably remain locked into using anachronistic "biblical" figures for these.

We need not discuss what Assyrian reliefs were actually depicting (the ancient equivalent of Schreyvogel's "My Bunkie") as it has nothing to do with battlefield practice.

Allen