"Sumerian Battle Carts - lots of them!" Topic

Gents,

Adding to the Sumer2Sargon blog is a post detailing the construction of my Battle Cart force for my Sumerian Wars project.

Cheers

Happy Wanderer

link

That's a lot of ass…….nice work.

Nice ass

Fantastic to see such an impressive display of Battle Carts.
The reins are best effort I have ever seen and vey authentic IMHO.
Painting and photos is wonderful.

In the photo section there is a shot at ground level of Carts charging spearmen. It looks like still form a movie. Amazingly atmospheric.
It really shows how good the Cutting Edge chariots look and I am sure Pete will love this.

Wow! Wonderful blog entry. Tons of good painting and info . Well done! Makes me want t finally paint some of my horde of Perry sculpted Sumerians!

Great looking army!

Beautiful!

Fantastic!

Wow! Real dedication and wonderful paint jobs.

Thanks Gents. Glad you enjoyed.

Gotta get these guys onto the table now. I've added a some more axemen to the force as well and my offsider has all but completed his Guti army so we're close to 'full scale' battles.

So, stay tuned for some hot Sumer action!

Cheers

Happy Wanderer

Wonderful work and lots of great ideas. Thanks

Garry

IMHO you have taken Army Painter to the next level. Great tip for mass painting onagers and blending. I do the labourios act of fully basing and assembling before painting!

Those are very nice. Your detailed step by step instruction is great. Thanks!

Colin et al,

The onagers proved remarkably easy to paint. I think the animal coat coloration really lent itself to this style of painting….Sumerian are amongst the most ‘goop friendly' armies to paint in existence!

Now I'd like to create variation in my force with the use of Axemen, Archers and Tribesmen to really mix it up….lots of troop types to tinker with!

Cheers

HappyW

There was an article a few Slingshots(Society of Ancients Journal) ago that described how the Sumerian war carts could make tight turns by the crew leaning back, tipping the vehicle onto its rear wheels and thus becoming two wheeled whilst manoeuvring. For me it answered the difficult question of how a four wheeled cart does anything but go straight ahead into the opponent. They presumably, rode up and did the turn throwing javelins and then roaring away.
Ropy

Hi Ropy.

The excellent article by Patrick Waterson certainly proposed a solution to battle cart manoeuvrability, or lack thereof. In a much earlier Slingshot article a reproduced battle cart was shown in experiments to have the turning circle of a London cab ie totally manouverable on a battle field.

Both make perfect sense and debunk the ‘four wheel' unmanoeuvrable argument IMO. I think the carts were used to deliver both fire and shock. The lack of enemy foot able to deliver effective return fire enabled the carts to approach close enough to deliver a shower of javelins before closing should their enemy become shaken or vulnerable. If this was not the case they could fall back and allow follow up infantry to take advantage of the missile fire just delivered.

I suspect we don't credit the Ancient Sumerians for potentially or even possibly having ‘integrated' tactics that embodied some elements of combined arms, even if such tactics may or may not have been formalised in writing – we will never know unless/until cuneiform decipherings tell us otherwise. We do know they were highly organised people that did develop weapons and tactics, fought with large organised bodies of troops and had a structure of control for those forces. This all speaks to a fairly sophisticated army for its time.

Cheers

HappyW

I feel it is a great idea putting 3 crew into carts and will start doing this too.
I would to see how you do Amorites if adding any. Getting the white right is difficult sometimes but think a bit of drybrushing white after Army panter may be helpful??

Nice article.
I liked your spray painting method to get the upper and lower colours on the asses.

Great painting tips and photos, really looking forward to the game reports.

Great article and nice work – thank-you

I hope to get round to Sumerians some decade. Love the blog!

Thanks guys.

I've got enough for two 650pt Bloody Baron Sumerian Wars armies now. That's two armies in 3 months. Pretty fast I think. Time to give them a run!

@ Colin.
Colin, I do have Amorites. I was thinking that they would be more colourful than the plain unwashed ‘off-white' color scheme. I really want to try and find some solid info on how they were/might be dressed. Got any ideas or sources?…anyone?

I was going to use faded blues, yellows, reds, greens etc mixed in with off-white and creams coupled to the iconic Amorite shield. This would provide a stark contrast to the Guti in their goatskins

Amorite color – a topic I'd like to find out more about!

Cheers

HappyW

If you serach for images re Beni Hasasn from Middle Kingdom Egypt the Amorite have coats of many colours(like Joseph??).

Depends on if these were elites or standard infantry. In the Yadin book painting from tomb of Amenemhet XII dynasty shows Amorites in kilts: brown red with blue stripes,Deep blue only and white with red and blue stripes.

So leaving them just white is conforming to percieved expectations of "Biblicals all white and easy to paint".
I like but not keen to try some of the patterns. But mabey you can lead the way??

Top notch war-donkeys!

Also if you check Cutting Edge Amorite Gallery David May has some very nicely done(would like to more of those if you are reading David)

Top paint job and wonderful use of colour cvan be seen in same gallery by Andres Amien. He has captured Amorite clothing perfectly.

I chatted to Andres Amien about the Amorite colors and he pretty much went with what he felt looked best with whites and creams and other colors mixed in. His painting is superb but to detailed for massed armies for me to ‘churn' out….great inspiration though.

David May's troops are nice and follow the off whites, creams and light browns with mixed colors that I was thinking of. That coupled to the distinctive Amorite shield should make them stand out.

I may pick (Society of Ancients) Alastair McBeath's brain as he has been looking at this stuff for some time.

Cheers

Happy Wanderer

These are the best wargames pics I've ever seen!!!

Rolf
great evoling blog and brilliant pics as ever. Really shows off the figure range. thanks
Pete