The Scythians

I think it's about time to start biting the bullet and start looking at my Persians... but I think I'll go with one of the easier contingents to start with.

Various Scythian tribes served in Persian armies at different times - Dahae, Sakae, Massa-wotsis - but I just lump them together as Scythians. This lot are the ones allocated to the 'main' (ie mostly Garrison) Persian army. At the moment, one unit based as Sparabara plus a unit of light cavalry. In the invasion of Greece the Sakae were brigaded with the Bactrians as part of Corps VII.I can't remember whether it was Head or Sekunda who suggested that the infantry would have been Sparabara rather than open order lights, but I've followed that view with these.

This component was scheduled to be much bigger than this but has been overtaken by events and will have to wait for reinforcements - though 2 units of 'S' Range cavalry were acquired they have been allocated to Athens and Assyria!

Should be 12 cavalry, other base must be foraging or something.

Must try and string all of my Spara units in a line some day! This unit of 48 figures 2 deep is about 18" long.

Being an irregular unit there are only 6 figures to a base rather than 8. Means I get more bases. The basic infantry figure is a conversion from the Celtic archer. Usually. Mixed in are some unconverted Celtc archers to provide some variety.

The axeman is a Warrior figure from the long gone Warrior Greek and Persian Wars range. Behind him is a Scythian javelinman - this conversion will eventually form the basis of the native Scythian infantry together with light archers.

Although the figures are 6 to a base I've kept the shield frontage at 4 because it looks a lot better than 3!

 I made 2 basic Scythian cavalry figures. The front one is a one piece casting converted from the Sarmation horse archer and will provide my 'heavies'. The back 'standard' figure is a 2 piece casting.