Some Sparabara units.

 It occurred to me that I've lots of sparabara units but they're not well represented as unit photos. So I thought I'd put some of them together. One disclaimer - I like the violin shaped shield rather than the actual spara - put it down to artistic licence. 

The original Garrison Immortal fronts this unit. Not a figure I really like because the spear is very weak and tends to snap where it leaves the shelter of the shield.

Most of my spara units are 3 three bases though some are 6. I've also got a few single element units.

A unit of Persians. I should probably do a couple more of these...

And the first of the 2 robed Mede units.

A six element unit of the original Persian archer. I should do more 6 element units.

 

I'm not sure about this unit - it's a lot brighter than the others and looks a little out of place.

My universal archer figure - probably the most useful conversion I ever made! 

Side on view to show off some of the tunic coloours. These are a right mix - like the red/white spara unit the design of some are a bit anachronistic, the frontal stripe design more suited to an Alexandrian based tunic. Still, they look good and help with the irregular look.

Review of the sparabara units.

 Last time I did a Persian army Review in 2020 I had about 300 sparabara. The current count is 484...

I've included some odd Persians and Scythians as a 'skirmish line' which takes the count to 534 figures.

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.

Right flank...

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... 

Left flank... 

My Garrison Persian army is quite big - quite a bit bigger that my Minifigs one...

Finally, finished latest sparabara unit

 To be fair, timewise it's about two weeks for 48 figures and I usually work on a 24 figure unit a week. So even with a few days 'off' from painting I did still hit the average painting time!

The filler used for bases is starting to get a bit past it's shelf life - lumpy, hard to work even when thinned.

I've gone for a very simplified painting style - the base red is about 3 coats of spray paint and I haven't put any patterns/edging on the robes.

Likewise the shields have been left plain with no designs apart from the bronze edging and boss.

The only figure with any real pattern is the officer with a leopard print cloak.

So this is what could really be called a 'mass produced' line regiment. Quite rough and ready, designed purely for gaming in a large army with very little effort being made towards 'quality'. Very much a T34 equivalent!

A Sparabara levy unit.

Last of the units prepped before Christmas.

Nice simple uniform pattern...

And painted scarlet. Which is not red. I mean, it might look a bit like red. But it's scarlet.

Not sure if this late style of costume is 'correct' for a spara unit, but looks good so....

 

Corps XXX The Exiles

Listed as the same as the various Persian Corps so I've used another of my Sparabara units.

Apart from the officer and standard bearer these are all conversions of PE4.

The spara was actually a shield from the 25mm SKT Sumerian range.

The archer figure is simply PE4 with spear removed and shield arm replaced by a bow.

 

Corps I-V - The Immortals and Sparabara

The bread and butter units of Persian armies from the beginning to about 410-420BCE.

Nothing needed to add to these as they've been around for quite a while already. In some cases they just exist as rump/test units - though of course they are also useful for DBA armies anyway.

200 plus sparabara is pretty impressive - but when it comes to a final Review of Xerxes army would be a bit overpowering.

So will almost certainly finish up as representative elements - here from front to back Corps I to V.

There is one full Immortal regiment plus three single element rump units. These are Corps I

I normally use these as Medes to conform to the Minifigs S Range figures. However, here they are conforming to the Armies book (and Persian sources) so they are correctly acting as Persians in Corps II.

Which means that Corps III has two full regiments of Medes to choose from.

Each regiment has  three elements totalling 24 figures each.  Originally I had intended to make every regiment up to 48 figures.

Corps IV the Kashshites (Cissians) is the odd one out. Apart from officers and standard bearers, all of the other Corps use converted figures. This one is based on PE5, archer firing, unarmoured. On the other hand, the sparas themselves are conversions... This is a 48 strong regiment.

Corps V, the Hyrkanians, is represented by my 'Universal Archer' figure. 48 of them.

Note these are only 6 figures to a double base - Irregular figures rather than Regular. Some of the others should probably been 6 to a base as well.

In reality I would have expected this lot to represent over half the infantry in invasion army - assuming that many of the others would probably be token Corps whereas these would probably be full strength. I know I've got more than enough Spara units (including Minifigs...) but don't think I've finished with them yet.

'How can you have too many of something you didn't need in the first place'.