Corps XV, the Pactyans, XVI Utians and Mycians and XVII Paricanians...

Another unit done as per the nominal Caspians...

To a certain extent it's more a matter of how many units I want to cast and paint - do I try and do separate figures to represent all 30 infantry, 10 marine and 9 cavalry Corps/units? Or do I settle for a uniform/unit type and say one unit represents four different Corps which share a common dress? Also, how close do I stick to the book? - some units such as the Libyans and Phrygians are already 'Garrison' based uniforms rather than Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars.

For this unit I've added decorations to both tunic and cloaks. I think it does look good.

With one unit of Ps and one of 3Bw so far it leaves a possible 2 units left to do. To keep diversity going I'll probably do another unit of each but leave them plain. At least, that's the current plan - by the time I get to doing it, things could be very different.

Figures on the current batch of moulds are proving very difficult to cast - so my painting output is being reduced at the moment simply due to spending more time casting. By now I should have had all the figures I needed from this mould - barely started!

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'.

Corps VI Assyrians and Chaldaeans

In this case represented by a couple of units of PEA2, the Assyrian in full mail, spear, shield and bow in case..

This unit is one of my original 1970 units - back then 16 man units were pretty standard in my armies.

Another of Harry's units. I assume the figure in blue has been painted that way to represent an officer.

Originally a 40 strong unit, a couple of figures are missing part of the spear and one is missing - so I put these three figures together.

Corps IXM Aeolian Greeks - ex Charles Grant

Aeolia is an area in Northern Greece. Tribes in that area were not noted for hoplites and the later Aetolian League in Northern Greece fielded and army consisting of mainly light infantry and peltasts with very few hoplites or cavalry. Thinking about it, I decided to bring some of the Grant figures back into active serve - so I'm going to use a lot of the Grant Greek lights as Aetolian League army, but also to provide the Aeolian contingent of Xerxes army.

Quite a few of the Charles Grant figures I have are in 'The Ancient Wargame'

Not sure whether the figures in this picture are the same as the ones I'm putting in today - but could be and the Aetolian army almost certainly will include some or all of these!

I've put them as Ax rather than Ps but of course have enough to decide that on the day of any battles anyway.

Neat command group - think that's meant to be a trumpet!

Like the paintwork on the shields.

Corps XXII Armenians and Phrygians

No Armenians and the Garrison Phrygians may not look like the Greek and Persian Wars versions but I've got the figures so...

Also, the Garrison/Funcken costumes look better.

Javelins and axes - what's not to like?

I think this is one of the nicer figures in the original range in terms of the costume.

These are 3Ax but I've got others based as 4Sp - useful as pre hoplite spearmen, possibly serving as Lydians or similar? For the Aeolian (Aetolian?)  Greeks of Corps IX I'm thinking of using the unarmoured Greek peltast G11 - got hundreds of the things... (as in... 110 from the  Grant collection, 70 from Harry's, plus ? I did myself!). Aetolians always appear as psiloi or peltasts in army lists and fought that way in battles, so I think using them as hoplites would be unlikely!

The axemen are ex-Harry, part of a unit of 40. After about 6 years I've just gotten round to rebase 18 of them...

Again, nice figures but the axes (bipennes) are a bit fragile and inclined to snap off easily. The colour scheme is from Funcken though not the axeman - it's from a sword and hoplon armed figure.

Corps VIIM Carians

One thing I'm trying to do is set up a load of photos in 'named' folders on my hard drive linked to blog entries. Quite a few of the various Corps already have figures 'allocated' to them under other headings or in other posts - the Carians are one such. Most of the Marine units - easier to call them Corps and just stick and 'M' after it - wear Greek costume, although the Carians have a certain distinction... Anyway, these are 'old' photos given new prominence. Besides, it's 5 years ago since they appeared.

Hollywood Greeks - black leather armour and helmets! Have to admit I really like these figures.

One thing places these as Carians and no other. Carians are specifically mentioned as being in Artaxrxes army at Cunaxa and it was noted they were nicknamed 'Cocks' because of the red plumes on their helmets. So, to make it a true Carian unit I gave these a cockerel standard from the 25mm Gallic Range - you can almost see it on the front rank!

There are six contingents in the invasion army that wear Greek dress. I have four hoplite units to cover at the moment - the Carians plus three others based on PEA8, the Ionian hoplite. Another contingent, Cilicia, is supposed to wear the costume depicted by illustration 20 in Greek and Persian Wars - 20 is the picture of a shield... but Cilicia is in the hoplite region so probably means an extra unit in Greek dress. Another alternative is to use some of my Phrygians for some of these - Greek dress, Lydians for example as 'pre hoplite spearmen'. I'm also thinking of Aeolian Greeks (IXM) and, possibly, Pontus (XM) as peltasts.

Depending on how I do this, blog entries in the near future could be appearing in rapid succession as I give various units their (brief) place in the limelight. I'm also going through previous posts and the label Corps to these to make it easier to put them together on the blog.

Corps 1M the Phoenicians

This was just a matter of basing. Carthaginians were some of the first figures I sold to Harry - then came home when I bought his collection. His Carthaginian army was mainly Minifigs so I had always intended using the minority Garrison Carthaginians as Phoenicians.

The unit didn't have a standard bearer or drummer so they've been 'borrowed' from a pike unit.

I really like the wash effect on the armour - looks good.

They're based on 30mm deep bases as the DBM army lists list them as Reg Ax (O).