"Persian Kardakes" Topic

Apart from a few minor details (no Greek style sword and round butt spike on the spear) these turned out OK:

link

They look way more than "OK" to me. Pretty damn nice, I'd say.

More like Very Nice indeed!

Best I've seen so far of the Victrix. Really sells them as kardakes. Love the colors.

They seem a bit overanimated to me- but that's because I'm trained to like old static figures and the dynamism of plastic bits allows lots of variations. Plus as you state this opens them up for all sorts of other uses.

I do like how these have the doubled tunics and follow the Richard Scollins reconstruction from Duncan Head's classic The Achaemenid Persian Army. Few figures go that far.

Between these and the Wargames Atlantic Persians (which offer other head gear than tiaras there is a lot of possibilities for Persians now). Still the fringe troops get neglected and one must search high and low to find suitable models of the myriads of nations to join the Persian hosts.

I have grievance about the size of the Macedonian cavalry sets, they are so much bigger- horse and rider than even Victrix's jumbo scaled figures. But I reckon that will be less noticeable with both sides having large mounts. I thought my Casting Room Persian cavalry were big until the Victrix rolled into town.

I wont begrudge the spear apples- all I need to do is touch these plastic spears and they snap, so filing them down to points probably will cause breakage, so it is risky business.

I also applaud the basing system, seems like you have taken an approach that solves multiple game use options.

Nice!!

Thanks gents, they're great figures.

JJ I really liked the Wargames Atlantic Persians you painted on your site, there are a lot of options for early Persians, I've done one unit as Median Guardsmen. It is tricky finding suitable models for a lot of the troops.

You could fix the spear butts and missing swords with spares from the Greek hoplites sets but it would be very fiddly and time consuming.

Flexible basing with movement trays is the way to go for multiple rule sets.

There are some great 15mm Persian ranges too, with Xyston and the new Museum Miniatures Z range.

"JJ I really liked the Wargames Atlantic Persians you painted on your site, there are a lot of options for early Persians, I've done one unit as Median Guardsmen. It is tricky finding suitable models for a lot of the troops."

Thanks back. I haven't decided exactly how I am going to make a unit out my Wargames Atlantic figures. I was thinking of making them Mardian archers since then I could use the Median round hats and make them combined armored and unarmored. Not that I have any firm reference, but I think they will look cool in warm tones like this old Osprey reference- or I may just go with red :). Sorry to steal your Victrix thread- but we rarely get to talk Persians do we?

Mardian archer (3) from the Osprey The Greek and Persian Wars 500–323 BC art by Jack Cassin-Scott:

Mardians were in north Media, located next the Hyrcania on the Caspian sea mountains.

This guy is a template:

Thanks Jeff, those Mardian archers would look great. Here are links to Median
Guardsmen and East Iranian infantry units I've done:

link

link

I'm planning on further early Persian units of Immortals, Kissians, Iranians and Persians/Medes. I like talking Persians!

Back in the day Minifigs released an entire 25mm range based on the illustrations of the Richard Nelson WRG book Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars. I have some of these figures (Saka Tigrakuda), they're still available and have stood the test of time surprisingly well.

Back in the day Minifigs released an entire 25mm range based on the illustrations of the Richard Nelson WRG book Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars. I have some of these figures (Saka Tigrakuda), they're still available and have stood the test of time surprisingly well.

-----Yes… I put the minifigs 25's on taller movement trays. They run away anyway so no need to invest in modern expensive models although some would be welcome. The Crusader kardaka models are suitably static and make good levies too.

Nice job on both the Median archers and the Newline Arachosians. Too bad Newline only offered one pose of that figure. I hate the gerrha big shields because they cover all your work! I always separate the spara wall from the models if I can.. showing deployed and knocked over. But it breaks down if you have to change the frontage :)

Here are the old figures:

Excellent Persian Levies, I particularly like the Garrison and Magister Militum archers. I put a bit of card under the Minifigs bases to make them a bit taller.

Thanks, they do cover all your work, all the banding on the trousers and tunics isn't visible!

Cyrus5: Your Wargames Atlantic archers with spara seem to be on 40x40 bases?
I'm having a tough time sticking mine on 20mm bases since their cast on bases are 23mm foot to foot. I reckon mine will have to be on 25mm bases which should be ok since they are intended to be open order skirmishers. Things keep creeping out of the 20mm base size safe zone- especially now since skirmish games are all the rage.

I can't imagine spacing out the Minifigs or even the Newline to 25mm each (since they already went from 15mm frontages to 20mm from really ancient rules from the last century).

Yes the Median Guardsmen are for the front two ranks but the third rank is just double and single bases. I've found that with both Victrix and Wargames Atlantic it is better to use single bases for painting and trim the moulded plastic bases on the figures to fit 20mm or 40mm bases once painted. You have more wriggle room with the spara bearers on the 40mm bases and can stagger the second rank if needed. Ranking them up diagonally on the bases is another option but can look a bit strange…

No I can't either but some gamers and rules still stick with 15mm frontages…