Sassanians

[DalyDR]

I have finally finished my Sassanian army!

This project started over 15 years ago (!) when I acquired the core of the current army to be used in fantasy games (men of Far Harad from LoTR) and gave them a lousy black-and-red paint scheme.  I started playing WAB and fielded them at a nearby event using the Cataphract list from Armies of Antiquity.  I later decided to repaint them as something slightly more based in reality, and took them to a couple of WAB events in 2009 with the Sassanian list after the BtGG supplement came out.  After that they went back in their box, and sat there until last year when I got back into the painting thing after a long hiatus.  I decided I’d double the army’s size, so now it stands at a solid 4k points as tallied using WAB 1.0/1.5.

So here’s some pictures, with others to follow as I have the time to post.  All of the miniatures are from Gripping Beast.

First, my general, Shahanshah Peranis Gur, best known for not being known at all (I made him up).

[DalyDR]

The battle standard bearer.  The flag design is based on a piece of Sassanian metalwork featuring a simurgh, the bird-thingy from Persian myth.  I like hand-painting my flags and shields, even though I’m not particularly skilled at it.

[DalyDR]

The royal clibanarii unit, all mounted on black Nisaean chargers.  These are some of the most recent additions to the army that have the newer Gripping Beast barded horses, which I quite like.  Their banner is also based on a piece of Sassanid artwork, and is the only one I sort of cheated on, having printed out the basic design and then painted over it.





A solo shot of one of the clibanarii with a shield that I thought turned out well.





More to come later . . .

[Arche Seleukeia]

Lovely stuff so far, always nice seeing free-hand painting 

[FierceKitty]

Good work. And they're an earth-shaking army on the table.

[Blackwolf]

Nicely done,love the standards

[duivelindoosje]

great paint job, classy

[DalyDR]

My biggest unit of spearmen, the city militia/levy of Ctesiphon.  And yes, globe hats - this army has more globe-hatted fellows than you can shake a lancea at.  I happen to like the hats, though they may no longer be in fashion, so to speak.  I love the Gripping Beast spearmen miniatures, and the fact that there are something like 24 variants, none of which are in stupid poses like "vaulting over a fence", "tripping over a rock", or holding their weapons so far out to the side that ranking them up is a pain.  I am also a fan of cast-on shields, they just make life easier.

This unit has 50 guys in it, and has performed admirably on the tabletop, most notably defeating the late, esteemed D. Macfarlane's vintage Hinchliffe royal clibanarii unit in a game at Historicon many years ago (his dice were unkind to him).

[DalyDR]

Elephant #1.  My elephants are gray, because I like the way it looks . . .  I like how my attempt at a palm-tree shield design turned out, saw it in a Osprey Men-at-Arms on Sassanians, but I do think it looks a bit Afrika Korps-ish.

[DalyDR]

The foot archers.  I used thumbtacks with the shafts removed to add shields to these guys.  Shield straps were made out of paper.  I enjoyed painting the shields, but attaching them was a real pain.  Even ensuring bare metal-to-metal surfaces were used for gluing, they still fall off easily.  Next time I do this I'm considering leaving the thumbtack shafts on, and drilling a hole in the minis' arms/backs/whatever to secure them in addition to gluing.





A few of the shields that came out nicely.

[Bowman]

I have a 28mm Sassanid army myself so I can appreciate a well painted one such as your own. My figures are almost exclusively Gripping Beast too, which are lovely figures.

One small niggle is having your commander the Shahanshah. I realize this is an affectation from the WAB books, which is the ruleset I also played. In fact, the Shahanshah would never lead an army. Too dangerous. Of course, he would have input as supreme commander of everything. The strategic commander in chief was the Eran Spahbed, while individual armies were commanded by the Spahbed. There were usually 4 Spahbeds, one for each geographic direction. That seems to suggest only four armies in the entire empire, which seems a bit low, but who knows.

Of course this makes no difference on the table top.

Oh ya, nothing says Sassanid flunky like the globe hats. I love them too.

I later switched to Hail Caesar as my ancient massed battle ruleset of choice. I played my buddy’s Late Roman army when we met up at an HMGS convention (he is from Virginia and I’m from Canada). I got trounced. My best Cataphracts would bounce off the front of his legions. Turns out I needed more light marauding archer cavalry. These troops can disorder the Romans without engaging them and then the heavy cavalry can do their magic.

At least that’s my plan the next time we meet.

[Bowman]

Small world.

I also played against Duncan MacFarlane’s old Sassanid army. I think he kept them in storage in the US somewhere and would pick them up when flying in from England. I could be wrong but I think Duncan got them from Peter Gilder, who was a sculptor for Hinchcliff among other things. Duncan was a joy to play against and an utter gentleman. RIP.

[sgzleada71]

lovely guys !

[DalyDR]

In fact, the Shahanshah would never lead an army. Too dangerous.

Yeah, I was thinking of that poor chap Peroz though, who seems to have gone missing with his entire army vs. the Hephthalites.  Based on my own past record in WAB, that seems like a likely end for my guys as well . . . 

[DalyDR]

More globe hats!  This time it's the royal guard infantry.  Just spearmen with some armor on, really.  This is the only unit in the army that has all its members painted with the same color scheme. 

I know, their standard came out super-cartoony, I'm not much of an artist.    Maybe I'll go back and change it out to something more abstract and less laughable . . .