"5th Century BC Egyptians - What figures?" Topic
12 Posts
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xpalpatinex | 14 Apr 2015 4:14 p.m. PST |
Howdy, Trying to game some more battles in the 5th Century BC and was wondering what Egyptians would have looked like during that time (and if there are any 28mm figures that could work). There are some interesting conflicts with the Persians I'm hoping to get going…and anything I build and paint can slot into my Persian army as subjects as well. Any thoughts/ideas? Thanks, Brinton |
French Wargame Holidays | 14 Apr 2015 6:00 p.m. PST |
Brinton, not a lot of information on the 5th century Egyptians. Psammeticus III of the Saite Dynasty deployed a lot of Mercenaries, predominantly Greek, the rest of the army would a mix of client kingdoms and Egyptian troops. Tough ask on what the Egyptian or client troops looked like though. Perhaps Nubian troops may of been serving in the army also, as his heritage was Nubian, just for a bit of difference, limited light cavalry use also. I would tend towards a more Persian style clothing for the allied nations with multi coloured stripes and mixed sheilds, mostly longer type block white or natural colour tunics for the Egyptians without trousers with spears, maybe a unit of axemen for your guard, wicker shields or tower shields with archer support. Perhaps the allied Nubian troops could be more native light infantry type, also some mountain tribes in furs and the like may work also, along with unarmoured greeks, skirmishers and celt figs in trousers and bare chests even. For the Egyptians, I would probably use a selected range of the Foundry Hurrian, Syrian, hyskos, some hititte and Egyptians, Eureka Egyptians perhaps, old glory Egyptian light infantry. For the allies, the mercenary Rhodian, Ionian greeks, I would use the 5th century plastic greeks. For the remainder, foundry, old glory, warlord plastic celts, cutting edge range, and the wargames factory numidians, celts and persians also perhaps, you will need to pick and choose I a lot think. cheers Matt |
IGWARG1 | 14 Apr 2015 7:39 p.m. PST |
1st Corps makes Ptolemaic Egyptian Hellenistic period pikemen that can be easily converted to 5th c. Egyptians. They have characteristic armor. Also, Bloody day/Sg. Major miiatures make Egyptian Marines for Persians. 1st Corps and St. major are not compatible, large 25mm vs large 30mm. |
Twilight Samurai | 14 Apr 2015 8:26 p.m. PST |
For the Egyptians, Armies of the Ancient Near East by the Nigels has them looking something like this. link There are also a couple of figures that look to be carrying Hoplons, one of them being, in what looks like, a linen corslet. |
Calculon | 15 Apr 2015 2:14 a.m. PST |
Essex seem to have Saite Egyptians depicted at the following website: link I've no idea how accurate this representation is though. |
GurKhan | 15 Apr 2015 2:31 a.m. PST |
You can find descriptions of 5th century Egyptians in Herodotos, in Xenophon's Kyropaidia, and a brief reference to their big wooden shields in his Anabasis. The Persepolis royal tombs have an Egyptian tributary in a long robe with a sword, but there seems to be little identified native Egyptian art from the period. There are reconstructions in my Montvert Persian book and in Richard Nelson's old WRG Greek and Persian book. Long spears, big wooden shields, linen armour. The black African troops in Persian trousers and Greek shields found on some Athenian white-ground aryballoi are identified by some as "Ethiopian" marines in the Persian-Egyptian fleet, and Sekunda illustrates one in his Osprey on the Persians; personally I don't believe that, there's an article somewhere pointing out that they have the same strange mix of equipment as Amazons on similar vases, so they're probably fiction. I don't know of any 28mm figures, though there's a couple of old 25mm Minifigs –
is the ranker GP48, and there's a GP49 officer. The quilted helmet is because Herodotos describes it as something like "reticulated", and it's not clear quite what sort of construction he means. |
Khusrau | 15 Apr 2015 5:32 a.m. PST |
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Royston Papworth | 15 Apr 2015 10:24 p.m. PST |
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xpalpatinex | 16 Apr 2015 2:23 p.m. PST |
Thanks for the help. Looks like there is not an easy answer (where would the fun be in that) but there are a few ranges that can be pieced together to make something workable. I just need the Egyptians to look right enough. Hoping to game their revolt and the Athenian expedition to help. Another way to get use out of my hoplites and Persians. Also…not sure what the BC vs BCE debate is in this thread. I tend to use BC but I figured it's pretty clear and not sure why I would "mean" BCE. |
hillbilly hetman | 21 Apr 2015 3:17 p.m. PST |
Both BC and BCE are equally dodgy given that they both insist on the centrality of the birth of Christ as the fulcrum of time. |
cytaylor | 21 Apr 2015 5:38 p.m. PST |
The whole world knows what BC means, so it at least has a definition. How is it dodgy? The term BCE was started to avoid reference to Christ. BCE is commonly referred to as "before the common era" or "before the current era", both of which are so nebulous as to be meaningless. We could use the Muslim calendar, which relates everything to 622AD. In the Muslim world it is already 1436 AH (year of the Haj), because their calendar only has 354 days. That's dodgy. |
xpalpatinex | 22 Apr 2015 7:03 p.m. PST |
Its the best bad system of measuring years we have right? I don't necessarily believe the birth of Christ should be the center of the fulcrum of time but because it has been used for so long, its the easiest in this particular system. And I prefer BC to BCE because it is at least foregrounding the bias…where BCE tries to hide the source while still using the system. |
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