Quick question regarding Scythians

[glenning]

Alright - I've been thinking about starting an ancient Scythian project. I've ordered the Victrix horse archers and I've been thinking about infantry - I'd like to stay within the Victrix look of things so would the Persian infantry sets work for Scythians? If so - what would have to be altered etc. Or are there any other plastic kits out there that would better suit my needs?

Thanks in advance!

Ps. I'm a complete noob when it comes to the Scythians so please bear with me.  Ds.

[Rick]

I'd have to go and look it up as well - not as familiar with the Scythians as other armies. Off the top of my head, though, I'd say unarmoured persians with bows, axes and spears should be ok, although no Spara pavises and the hats changed slightly in style to a more conical hat or a more erect form of the persian 'tiara' hat with side flaps rather than covering the whole head. Short of looking at another range of figures (do Foundry do Scythians?) that's about all I can offer I'm afraid.

[NickNascati]

If you put any faith in DBA army lists, they show the Scythians as all mounted.

[Pattus Magnus]

Nick mentions the same thing, but quicker than me, there weren’t many infantry in Scythian armies anyway. Rick’s advice seems solid to me, just keep in mind that any infantry would be subject peoples, rather than the Scythians themselves. Some of the people in areas near Greek colonies that were within Scythian territory might have maintained an infantry tradition, so some scruffy guys with hoplite shields might be a way to represent those. They would still have been local militia fielded by subjects, though, what Herodotus referred to as “ploughmen”. To a Scythian, if he ever had to fight on foot, something was horribly wrong. Seriously, their strategies relied on strategic and tactical mobility, infantry weren’t seen as an asset.

[glenning]

Thanks a lot guys! I actually love painting horses (guess I'm a rare breed, huh? No pun intended ) and been wanting to do do an all-cavalry army for quite a while so this is actually pretty good news!

[Rick]

As others have said - the Scythian noble cavalry and commoner horse archers were the effective troops but there were Scythian infantry, they just weren't very good - groups of untrained peasant levy or slaves on the whole.

[SJWi]

I'm away at the moment so no access to my library of books and lists. I think you can have some Scythian infantry but don't have to. From momory they might be light infantry skirmishers with bow or javelin? I guess the rulesets that allow "allies" might also have Greek allies from the Greek colonies on the north coast of the Black Sea.

[sgzleada71]

1st Corps do some cool looking Scythians.   I've been wanting them for a while.  A bit smaller than Victrix though.   

https://1stcorps.co.uk/product-tag/28mm-scythian-miniatures/

[vodkafan]

Tin Soldier makes great Scythians too don't be put off by the poor photos they match well with the 1st Corps ones

[bvandewalker]

Well, its a little late given RGD closed its doors and the current mold holder is not interested in making them but  RGD had made some relatively historically accurate  32mm Scythian infantry/warband boxes with fantasy gaming also in mind (they were made to match up with the average Reaper mini height wise), you can likely still find them on ebay or your local store if they carried RGD.

That said while I like them quite a bit they are love or hate sculpts and at 32mm a bit tall next typical 28mm for the period which may be an issue for some though I personally think they work great given meat & milk heavy steppe nomads  Scythians likely had, then again I backed that KS for a full army and am not trying to match them up with Victrix so...  (basically they are a look before you buy).

Given you already have Victrix's horse archers, the Persian idea is good if you want infantry for urban raiding scenarios, you could mix them up with some Greeks or other sets to give them more of looting raider vibe . You could also try making a straight Thracian or Persian army that can either be opposed or combined with with your Scythians. 

[Easy E]

I think the sources have a hard time differentiating between horse nomads, foot nomads, and the many combinations that were probably common on the steppe, and often lump large, disparate groups together. 

The Scythians are often portrayed as being an all cavalry raiding force.  However, is that also how they defended their own villages and settlements?  Would they dismount as raiders?  Who knows?

Meanwhile the most common enemy of the Persians seems to be Sogdians, who definitely had cities and such and appear to have used a combined arms force of cavalry and infantry, perhaps in a manner similar to the Persians themselves in make-up.   

Therefore, this is a long way of saying.  Do what you think would be fun to play.

[Rick]

We do sometimes forget just how big the Persian Empire had become by the time Alexander took over - stretching from modern Ukraine and the Black Sea (Scythians) right through to modern Afghanistan and India. The Hill tribes of the areas stretching up to the Hindu Kush were always a problem - sometimes enemies, sometimes allies, sometimes conquered and then deciding they weren't soon after - we use names such as the Sogdians, Saka and Bactrians to differentiate between groups that probably weren't all that different from each other and were split into hundreds of rival clans.

[glenning]

Great answers and inpunt all around - LAF at its finest!

I'f I'd like to build and paint my horsemen as let's say Parthians during Nero's war - what heads should I use? Would it be authentic to mix and match the ones in Victrix set? I want them to be as "generic" as possible.

Thanks in advance!

[Pattus Magnus]

No expert but my understanding is that the heads with the headbands are for Parthians. Earlier on, the tribal peoples the Greeks called Scythians were described and depicted in variations of the hats. The Persians also noted the hats when they described steppe nomads - the name for one group translated roughly as “tall-hat Scythians”, presumably to distinguish them from lower hat wearing neighbours?

[Rick]

If I were doing it, and I wanted horse archers that would be as generic as possible, then I would leave them bare-headed. Hat styles changed every so often from the Achaemenids to the Romans so it might be really difficult to try to match styles with periods, but bare-headed guys can pass in most periods.
If you want to be a bit more period-specific, then have a small number of command/warlords made up as early Parthians and the same for later Parthians so you can have your 'characters' looking the part but the others as generic horse archers.
Parthians also wore the hats, which are all variants of the Persian 'tiara' style hat btw, so to try to distinguish one group from another by hat styles alone can be tricky. Many of the tribal/clan groups around the edges of the Persian Empire could be fairly similar in styles with very little to distinguish between them.