Corps VII Bactrians - and IX, X, XI and XII...

Bactrians are, of course, one of the 'normal' peoples used in Persian armies in the sense that the troop type appears as Bactrians in most army lists. However, there are other similar types such as Corps IX, Arians, Corps X Parthians and Chorasmians, Corps XI Sogdians and Corps XII Gandarians and Daicae. So 5 Corps with similar troop types. Having said that, the Bactrian Corps already has the Sakae representing it.

The Bactrians were quite early conversions so this unit has been around for a time (possibly about 2011!). Two different figures are both converted from PE4, 'Infantryman with spear and shield and bow in case, unarmoured'. PE4 provides the basis for quite a number of Persian conversions.

The partial black outlining shows they were done a while back quite well!

However, needing four more units it's worth looking at units including the original PE4...

Adding those gives me 4 units to choose from - OK, 2 of those are basically 1 unit with 2 command groups. Don't ask me why they have such weird numbers of elements... that knowledge is way, way lost in the past...

So how could I justify using shielded figures? Cue my major authority on the invasion... 'Macon argues that in spite of his silence some of the peoples of Inner Asia, particularly the Bactrians, must have been armed with a light shield or target' - page 42. In theory that would change them from 3Bw to 3Ax. In theory.

So those '4' units would leave 1 more to find - but as previously stated, VII is already covered by the Saka. Or I could recruit these - 40 figures acquired from Harry... was/will base these as MI rather than LMI - except just found out I'm running short of bases so there will be a short delay! The intention is to use these as 4Sp in later armies as Cardace infantry (which really shouldn't have bows but...)

Incidentally those 2 Persian/Bactrian figures made it into the Garrison catalogue before I closed shop. The figure firing the bow was 20PE9, the shieldless infantryman with spear and bow in case, unarmoured, was 20PE10 - the 20 was put in front of the code in the catalogue to distinguish them from the 25mm range, thus the base PE4 figure was actually coded as 20PE4.