"Early Persians, how? Help please!" Topic

Hi all, new to Ancients and I could use some help.

I've decided to do a couple ancient armies. I played a couple games with my friend. One was his homebrewed game I enjoyed much and one was Field of Glory. We played Rome versus Hannibal each time.

I decided I wanted to do Greeks for Field of Glory and of course I want a historic opponent so I decided on Persians. I didn't get much interest from my friend to start a new army in a different time period but eventually he came around to the fact that he always wanted some hoplites. So he is ordering up a Greek FOG army from Old Glory15's and I decided I would start with Persians so we could have a battle sooner.

I decided on the Early Achaemenid Persian army from Immortal Fire. I was inspired by the Early Persians that Khurasan sells and want to incorporate them into the figure purchase. I've been struggling with how to put together the Immortals I wish to include in the army. FOG has them as medium foot 20mm depth base 3 or 4 figs. They are armored or protected with bows and light spears. Seems like the Khurasan Immortals are well suited.

Do I use the shield equipped guys for armored ones and sans shielded for protected?

Some other wrinkles developed. Please forgive me I have not yet purchased any books about the Persians I intend to, so my historic knowledge is rather thin.

1st issue: Looking at this necro thread I was wondering if the rectangular shield was appropriate for Early (BC492) period.

2nd issue: I got disheartened by how long it would take me to do this army so I picked up DBA 2.2 thinking I would have a waypoint as I build the FOG army.

I'm selecting the Early Persian army 1st option and it has 4x8Bow which I think would represent the Immortals. I'm thinking this indicates 8 guys on a 40mm deep base. Does that sound about right? If that is true, then do I have the front row with shields and the 2nd row without shields? I was thinking I could have one base 20mm deep with shields and one 20mm deep without shields and put them together for DBA or have them seperate as desired for FOG.This fellow has done something like that but I think he mixed the Immortals and Sparabarra on a bases less than 40mm deep.

In addition I was wondering if anyone could recommend some figures to use for the DBA Aux, 4Spear, and Psi along with how they might fit in with the required infantry for FOG (1/2 bow and 1/2 Spear/Bow)?

I don't know what to use for Guard Cavalry either. I am very reticent to use OG15 because of the lack of pictures, Chariot because the riders heads are as big as the horse heads, and Essex because of poor presentation/painting (they may be nice). I'm thinking Xyston has a number of very nice sculpts I would use but I don't know what would be best for the early period (bows and swords for FOG).

Any help is appreciated, I'm pretty lost on most aspects.

One last side note. I thought it was curious that DBA did not list the Spartans as an enemy of the Early Persians. Was the whole 300 thing just an anomaly or too small to matter? Apologies again, I have not done my history homework.

Hi there

Welcome to the Mazda mafia.

You've got a lot of questions there. Yes DBA 8Bw are based up as you suggest, in DBA the weapons / equipment is not important, but can be used as a clue to troop type, so your idea of having front ranks with shield / spara / pavise and back rank without is fine.

The 4 x 8Bw in the list probably means both Immortals and other 'line' sparabara, so make up some of both, I differentiate mine by the Immortals in uniforms and neat rows, the others are more mixed and scruffy.

A number of people have done as you say and mount the 8Bw as two x 20mm-deep elements, perhaps with magnetic bases to keep company on an iron sheet.

The Ax, Sp and Ps could be almost anything, Ax as Thracian, Sp as Greek, Lydian, Egyptian, Ps as Ethiopian etc, take your inspiration form Herodotus. I don't know FOG well enough to give further advice on what that system requires but I'd guess that you should be able to use them all, albeit FOG as a unit-based system will need more figs.

Were the Greeks at Plateae headed by Sparta or Athens, discuss with reference to political, military and DBA concepts, 2000 words, due next Thursday.

Regards

David F Brown

I quite enjoy the Essex Persians and have a large army of them. Not sure if the Xyston ones are their earlier figures which mix with Essex well or the later larger figures. Khurasan are nice figures, but from what I've seen tend to be large figures.

I have both Chariot and Essex figures for Persians (as well as Minifigs, Tabletop, Tin Soldier, etc).

And a few Xyston. I find both to be well sculpted, although I have yet to get them painted. Don't have any OG Persians, but the other eras are quite reasonably done – they are a bit larger than Essex or Chariot as are the Xyston.

Don't know of anyone at the Denver club with Persians that you might drop down to see, but you might do a bit more websearching to find some galleries.

One advantage to the Essex and Chariot lines is that Greathall Games has some good prices on those lines at this time. Imagine they will go up when Greathall has to restock.

link

"Not sure if the Xyston ones are their earlier figures which mix with Essex well or the later larger figures. Khurasan are nice figures, but from what I've seen tend to be large figures."

On the whole, the Xyston figures are a bit bigger than Essex. The Khurasan Persians are actually fairly small compared to Xyston.

If you can wait, the Forged in Battle chaps are creating an Early Persian range. Probably available to the masses early 2015. link

Actually, if you want to go Xyston Brookhurst is clearing out some of their codes including some Persians.

link

$2.37 USD a pack is hard to beat for any minis, let alone Xyston.

There are also some Greek codes if you decide to go that way for spear.

In answer to the earlier questions
1) The use of the large rectangular pavise is a Mid Eastern tactic and likely to go back to the days of Medes and Persians against Babylonians.
2) The make up of the infantry block. Years ago Matt Bennett wrote one of the first articles to show how Persians really worked in Slingshot, the journall of the Society of Ancients. His illustration was a front rank of pavise carriers with bows, then a man or two with bow and spear, then bowmen without shields and maybe a rank or two of chaps with crescent gerrhon shields with javelins or slings who could filter through to act as skirmishers. In most rules these skirmishers would be separate bases of Psiloi or SI or whatever.
The whole formation would likely be 10 deep as the Persians used a decimal system of organisation, so files of 10 fronted by a pavisier, units of 100 , that is ten files, then bigger units of 1000 and 'brigades' of 10,000
Best book on the subject is Duncan Head's Montvert book on the Achaemenid Persian Army.

LG & EG are on track. Duncan Head suggests a front rank of spearman with pavise and 9 ranks of bowmen (or the 10th with bow and spear)for all Persian and Mede infantry. He suggests the same arrangement for Immortals excepting all as bow and spear armed. At least some were armoured. Perhaps, other nationalities were similarly armed (e.g. Saka at Marathon). Greeks were both variously subjects and allies. I assume your 4Sp are Greeks. Also at Platea, Bactrians (dual armed Sp/bow), Saka and Indians (bow), Thracians + others(Jls). Interesting to postulate that the Persians maximised their firepower to discomfort/disorder their opponents to soften them up for heavy cavalry. From the source material, it seems that the Greeks feared both Persian archery and cavalry. As well as the '300". The Spartans were present at Platea as part of the Greek coalition army. They also later adventured in Persian territory but at one later point were aided by Persia against Athens.

Thanks for the help everyone. Two developments and one question since my first post about this.

Khurasan released Cavalry and Greeks, awesome!
DBA 3 seems to be just about out, of course my luck would have it that way.

What's the difference between a Blade3 and Blade4 other than base size and number of figures?

I get the sense that actual model representation is not super important. I'm looking at Vikings and wondering if I'd make blades with chain mailed husky Carls or lightly protected Bondi. In DBA it seems not to matter. In a game like FOG it would, sound about right?

A Blade3 might be some berserkers or the Ulfhednar, perhaps? I'm I getting the right idea here?

Of course if you were going for more historically accurate then perhaps armies representing earlier periods would have less armor. As the Vikings wealth grew more armor would be present.

In DBA 3 there are two classes of infantry: Fast and Solid. Fast Blades are with 3 figures and Solid are with 4. I suppose it does not matter how you base them as long as you somehow note which type each stand is. I have some Solid Warband on narrow bases but with 3 figures. I put a little marker indicating they are Solid.

Fast move faster than Solid (no surprise there). Solid fight a bit better, recoiling enemy Fast troops and some mounted on ties. They both have the same combat factors.

Hi again. Still sourcing all the models needed for my FoG EAP army and I am stuck on the compulsory infantry. Actually I think I have everything else worked out.

The compulsory infantry is 1/2 Spear & Bow and 1/2 Bow. Anyone have any suggestions for models that depict a spear and a bow? I'm using Khurasan's Immortals for what else?, Immortals so I cant use them for it. They are also protected so I would think a shield would be in order or at least some quilted armor.

Should I just throw 2-3 Sparrabarras with shield and 1-2 Bows on a 20x40 and use it for the front half (rank)?

What many people do to represent Sparabara is to have the front rank with the Spara (shield) and the second rank with bows. So a basic 6 stand Sparabara unit in FoG will have the 3 spear and 3 bow stands. Simply note on the army list that it is 1/2 Spear & Bow and 1/2 Bow rather than have mixed or 'messy' looking units.
I have a Later Achaemenid Persian army in 28mm and that's how I do it.

Old Glory has Immortals with spear/add weapon pose and bow cases. That said they are probably for later Immortals, not the earlier types.

Wargames Factory has a plastic Persian pack, with a whole bunch of extra weapons, though I have heard horror stories of not receiving enough pavises to front a unit.

Edit 1: Oh is this for 15mm? disreguard the bit about Wagames Factory Persians.

Do you think this would be too messy?

I could just be fine noting it on the list but I tend to be slavish to WYSIWYG.

It looks fine and represents your needs perfectly. Just a preference thing really.
The wall of wicker shields is what I would go for but your concept is valid for what you want.

I suppose you might ask that if you changed rules in the future, is that the look you are happy with?

Khurasan doesn't sell archers and spearmen seperately. Packs are six of each.
Essex sell spearmen with bow and seperate archers.
War & Empire is suppose to open their webstore this week. I am not exactly clear what this means.

Go for a wall of shields front rank. Essex are fine for that and have archers in the back rank. Having alternate pavise bearers in rank one just does not look right. After all, it is a wall of shields!

If you like the Khurasan Immortals I would use Khurasan "sparabara" for the line troops. I don't think anyone will question the lack of bow case in the front rank.

Also in DBA3.0 the double rank Bow now get a +1 aganist foot so they have a purpose!

TomT