Assyrian Tent

Scratchbuilt Assyrian Tent for my Sargonid Army

Andrew at my club offered to scratch build a special baggage piece as a think you for some help I had given him over a private matter. Little did I think when I gave him the drawings that the final piece would look so nice. I have been looking for a suitable building for an Assyrian Army to use as a BUA for a while. I found this drawing of a tent. I had to base, paint and decorate the model but I am very pleased with the finished article. It sits on a 120mm x 80mm base so can double as a special baggage piece or a BUA as desired. I put some paper print outs on the base to represent carpets and trimmed the building with a line of paper to represent decorative detailing on the tent walls.

Final Figures For My Sargonid Army

Sargon the Great is ready for World Domination

With this blog entry I have officially completed all the figures I need to field my Sargonid Army in any format I want to try. The last 24 castings are Museum Miniature Assyrian Archers AS04 and are slightly different in pose from the Bowmen elements I posted recently. I now have enough Reg Ps O for every eventuality.

I still have a small box of left over castings which I can paint up in due course to replace some of the figures I purchased off EBay but at present I have no urgent need to paint them.

Penultimate Installment For The Sargonid Army

Some of the last of the Missing Sargonid Infantry

The Sargonid Army is a bit of a Heinz with lots of different types of compulsory troops and these coming in strictly tiered units according to their status within the army.

The DBMM army list changes the troops that were formerly called Line Infantry in the DBM army list into Long Shield Spearmen and their supporting Reg Ps O become Reg Bw O instead.

This means I needed to create six elements of Reg Bw O to ensure that I had sufficient troops made up to use this list option. I used Museum Miniatures AS19 castings from their Assyrian range. The figures were very cleanly cast with minimal flash. They were quite easy to paint up as there was minimal hidden areas that were otherwise difficult to get to with a paintbrush.

I was very pleased with the end result for these 24 castings rated as Reg Bw O.

The Reserves of the Battle Array are classed as Spearmen, Auxilia or Psiloi depending on which army list version you decide to use. I was missing the Auxilia elements to make up this contingent so I had a look through the unpainted metal to see what I had. I ended up using Lancashire Games AB27 Auxiliary Spearmen from their Neo-Assyrian range. Whilst labelled as Spearmen the pose is more suited for use as Light Infantry due to the minimal armour they were wearing and the round wicker shield they are carrying. 

With these two contingents done I am now left with the final twenty-four archers still to paint up with will make the final contingent of 12 elements of Reg Ps O. I am using Museum Miniatures AS04 castings for these which have a different pose to the AS19 casting. They are currently on my painting table and I am hoping they might be finished by the weekend and on my blog. I still have a lot of left over figures in the box because I ended up buying too many in my keenness to finish the army quickly. This may allow me to morph the army into another Assyrian list in due course but that idea is way down the line. Of course they might just end up on EBay?

Last Four Sargonid Baggage Elements

Because Every Army Needs Some Baggage

I have already blogged about the previous four baggage elements. After some careful thought and a helpful suggestion on Facebook I managed to come up with the last four baggage elements I need for my Sargonid army. Theres two generic catering type elements using bits from the spares box along with special purchases. A loaded baggage train of military supplies bought off EBay unpainted for next to nothing and finally the Shrine of Ashur. Its a portable shrine consisting of two bronze coloured oxen supporting a bronze statue of Ashur on a plinth on their backs. With this blog entry I now have only another 80 infantry left to paint and the army is complete.

Last of the Sargonid Mounted Arm Completed.

Final instalment for the Sargonid Mounted Contingent

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry on the Sargonid army I still had a few elements left to finish to ensure that I had all of the potential options.

First up are the Arab Levies - camel mounted troops. There's only two elements of these but they come in two options, Irr Cm O or Irr LH I. The annoying thing is they are cut from the DBMM version of the army list. All of the elements are Magister Militum Arab Camels castings code ASS21 from their Assyrian Sargonid range.

I painted the camels without the crews on them, painted the riders separately and then glued them together. I found this much quicker than trying to paint into areas I could see but not fit a brush into.

Next up is the Gimmiryra, Cimmerian Regiment of two Irr LH F elements. I had purchased a dirt cheap batch of six Irr LH F Scythian elements off EBay earlier this year, only twelve castings which would need retouching and rebasing. I then realised I had another twelve unpainted castings to match. Before anyone comments these are in fact very old Minifigs ZC107 Sakae Cavalry Horse Archer castings on their first generation horses. I would not normally use them but I hate waste and to be honest they don't look too bad once retouched on their new bases. I also had four elements of Scythian cavalry which I had been given along with the big batch of Assyrian infantry so my mind went into research mode and I worked out I had enough castings to make a ten element Scythian allied command. So after cleaning up the old castings, making sure they were retouched and placed on new bases I match painted were possible to create some more useful elements. The Sargonid list elements were given blue coloured horse head crests to ensure I didn't mix them up on the table during a game. The allied contingent all have purple horse head tufts.

As part of my figure review I saw that I had six painted Scythian cavalrymen as part of the original donation from my friend. I had left them to one side as I didn't need them but upon reflection if I ever used these as an allied contingent there are some options where the General and their Noble escorts require me to take them as either Irr Cv O, Irr Cv S or Irr Kn F. Whilst the painted figures were very old and needed retouching once this was done and they were put on new bases to match the rest of the Scythians they look just fine. So this is an additional change to my original post for the 29th December 2017. I have no idea of the maker and I had to repair two of the figures with new lances.

Generals element on the right

Lastly I was missing two more Assyrian cavalry elements from the sixteen that the list is allowed and since I had sufficient spare castings left over I just needed to paint these up to complete the mounted arm for the Sargonid army. I am unsure of the make of the castings.

Just three batches of infantry left to do now totalling 80 figures plus the last three baggage elements.