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| PE4 is another useful Persian as far as conversions go. The original Sp/Bw/Sh armed figure is at the front. |
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| The shieldless ones throwing javelins or firing bows make good Bactrians when in mixed units. |
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| Remove the bowcase and give the figure a sparabara make up useful Hd units for either Achaemenids or Sassanians. |
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| Three more shield variations give a useful range of light infantry or allied troops. |
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| One of the reasons I like older Old School figures is that they are generally easier to convert into other figures. If the original Garrison range had been super detailed there's no way I would have converted as many figures as I have. |
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| The front figure is the original PEC4 with spear, shield and bow in case. My initial wish was for shieldless cavalry. Firstly, javelin armed, secondly bow armed. Useful for later Persian cavalry. Strangely, I did do a shieldless javelin/bow armed figure to act as Bactrians; for some reason never made it into a production mould. For Bactrians, I simply use a mix of the javelin armed and bow armed cavalry. |
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| Give the bow armed figure a cloak and it became a Caspian or Paricanian. With these four figures I can effectively field/represent any combination of Persian light cavalry. |
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| Of course, bend the left foot forward and stick it on a base... Front figure I use as Kardaka - don't know why I didn't do a version without the bowcase, for my purposes not worried. |
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| Meanwhile the cloaked figure acts as a Caspian, both have other uses though - gives me a couple of decent variations. |
So that's 6 simple conversions of the basic PEC4 with others possible. All of them are more useful than the original figure!
Last time I did a Persian army Review in 2020 I had about 300 sparabara. The current count is 484...
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| I've included some odd Persians and Scythians as a 'skirmish line' which takes the count to 534 figures. |
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| It should also be pointed out that the Review in 2020 totalled 984 infantry. The two infantry posts so far have passed the 1000 figure mark. |
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| Centre... Note the Scythians are 6 figures per element, all the othersare 8 figures per element. There are a total of 63 sparabara elements. If you work on the original 20 men per figure that would be just under 10,000 men...of course, if you go by the DBX ratio, roughly 250 x 534 = 133,500... |
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| Left flank... |
My Garrison Persian army is quite big - quite a bit bigger that my Minifigs one...
One for Anthony! Limited Review of some of the Persian infantry - I'll look at others later on as well.
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| Having to split it, I've started with mainly LMI based on three figures, these figures would probably form the main infantry constituent of most of my Persian armies. |
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| To start, these ones are all based on the light cavalry figure PEC4 - though some are pretty heavily modified. Total 144 figures. |
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| The archer conversions include both cloaked and uncloaked variations - useful for most Persian armies! |
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| This conversion is likewise useful as a classic 'old school' figure - especially useful as bow armed Cardace infantry (I'll use Kardaka for the late hoplite-painted-as-Persians figure) |
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| These are all straight unconverted PE3 armoured spearmen. Total 84 figures. |
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| Well, apart from the back row of the Bw(X) element. The figure at the back was a Charles Grant figure. |
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| This lot are all based on PE4, the unarmoured Sp/Bw/Sh figure. Total 275 figures. |
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| These are the original PE4. The unit on the left with the blue shields are ones I got from Harry. |
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| This conversion is potentially very useful for Sassanids as well as Achaemenids. The spara/shield is actually from the SKT Sumerian range. |
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| A spearman carryig the archaic violin shaped shield. |
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| Two figures here I use as Bactrians, etc. One simply had the shield removed, the other is firing a bow. I tend to use them in mixed units. |
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| Spear/javelinman with spear and large round shield. Useful as several of the Xerxes levies. I would have used this as a Kardaka figure but it's a pain to cast! |
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| Like the last figure but witha smaller shield and the same general uses - though not as line Kardaka! |
So that little group totals 503 infantry figures...
The last major Persian Review was in 2020 Since then I've done quite a lot with the Persians including Xerxes army (including cavalry), the early robed cavalry, and of course the Late National army. With all that, I thought it might be an idea to do a Review of my Garrison Persian cavalry...
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| This is the cavalry, chariots, camels, war wagons and elephants... |
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| In 2020 the mounted forces included 314 cavalry, 18 camels and 14 chariots/war wagons. |
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| Today it's 501 cavalry (174 light, 321 heavy/medium), 17 chariots (two of them are general's chariots), 3 war wagons, 36 camels and 3 war wagons! |
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| War wagons, elephants and later cavalry. I've included the Sassanid elephants here for two reasons - firstly, the crew are Garrison 25mm Persians anyway, and it's unlikely that there will be a Sassanid army Review any time soon. |
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| Up to strength with robed early cavalry - one guard, three line units. I keep thinking of painting up Assyrian cavalry as early Persians mounted on unarmoured horses - already done that with some Minifigs 'S' Range Assyrians and it works quite well. |
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| Persian camel corps - Cyrus the Great's with towers, some Arab conversions for Xerxes, plus a unit of 'normal' Garrison camels. Which means I still need to do a unit with the other Garrison camel figure! There are another 6 Arab camels lying around somewhere... |
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| A view of the right flank. Scythed chariots, various light and heavy cavalry including some I got from Harry. The chariots are the 'new' ones made since 2020. |
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| Part of a back row consisting of about 200 cavalry - 150 heavies and 50 lights. Looks quite impressive on the table! |
So that's pretty much where the Garrison cavalry force is at at the moment. Still a way to go but I'm getting there.
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| Mostly finished, probably do at least one, possibly two more Kardaka units. Figures have been cast for one of them. |
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| View down the line - it's looking to be quite a reasonable army. |
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| Right flank cavalry plus a couple of scythed chariots. Horse archers and javelin cavalry are conversions of PEC4, heavy cavalry are simply Greeks painted as Persians. Might do another heavy cavalry unit or two. |
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The centre. The general in the chariot is more of a stand in as I don't have a Garrison version of Darius - this one is generally used as Xerxes. The unit behind him is the one I use to represent Cyrus the Younger.I have included some Greek hoplites at the back from my Late Greek army because they are such an important part of many late armies, plus the fantasy Persian elephant I made because I like it! |
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| Left flank cavalry - my third light light cavalry and second heavy cavalry line unit. Extreme left wing cavalry are my Scythian conversions plus the Sarmation heavy horse archers - they make good Scythian heavies! |
...that were lying around, so I painted them.
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| To be fair, I've got quite a few of these painted up already. J/Bw/Sh armed figures used to be the mainstay of my Persian armies in the 70s. |
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| Although bow armed, and should therefore be on Bw bases, I'm treating them as line spearmen and put them on Sp bases. When you play solo games it doesn't matter anyway. |
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| Very simple, quick paintwork - more of an aside rather than a fully fledged attempt! |
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| This is that late Persian light cavalry unit. By my reckoning I need one more... |
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| Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars says that late Persian light cavalry were armed with two javelins made of cornel wood - as Garrison didn't make such a figure these ones are conversions. |
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| By adding some Garrison officers and standard bearers I was able to muster another understrength regiment of Immortals. |
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| There were 12 figures with levelled spears and 6 with upright spears - most of the others were in multiples of 5. Had I given all three elements an officer and standard bearer I could have made three full strength elements! |
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| A close up of the two different figures... |
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| ...And rear view... |
