Sumerians, the special troops

To round off this journey, I have selected the sumerian special troops. They consist of two distinct troop types. There is the elite, the royal guard, and then there are the sets surprising troops, the archers. Why do I call the archers surprise troops? Well, there is no evidence in archeology to support the fact that the sumerians had bows. So archers are a somewhat speculative troop type for this army. Yet here they are.

The middle unit was painted when i still had no real idea about how the whole army should look. So it is not as drab as the rest of the army. Each of these archer units, that they call Mari Archers on the HaT website, consists of 8 archers. I like the bottom unit the most, and the one in the middle the least... Here are a few close-ups of the pose.

As can be seen very clearly on the pictures, i forgot to paint the studs on the leather shoulderpiece on the middle pose. This is however easily correctible, and probably will be corrected sooner, rather than later.

Then there is the royal guard. One would think they would be very colorful and well equiped. So it is alittle surprising that they are only clad in fur, and have just a spear, and an axe to fight with. In retrospect, I could have painted the fur drabbed across their shoulders a different color, but i didn´t.

These guys will just have to prove how elite they are on the field of battle, and thus teach others not to judge a unit by it´s looks. Here are some close-ups of the pose.

Well, that was our journey into the most ancient army that i have: the sumerians. When I once again get the craving to paint sumerians, I will present the sumerian chariots. Right now I am painting up some Iberians, from Orion, to supplement my already large Iberian Army.

~Claus

Sumerians, the heavy troops, part 2

Well, a little delayed, only by a few hours, (The paint had to dry) I am now ready to present my Sumerian Heavies.

These are what on the HaT website are called Lagash Spearmen. The units consists of a front row of shield bearers, a 2nd row of spearmen pointing their spears between the shields, and a third and fourth row of spearmen, ready to jump into action should the need arise.

The shields are very big, in fact, probably ahistorical. Recently a new theory has arisen, that each shield (as shown on the reliefs where these figures are based on) are supposed to represent 6 shields, each with a seperate shield boss. The sumerians did not know how to draw in perspective, so it is quite a plausible theory.. Then again, we will never know i guess.

Here are the 6 units of Lagash Spearmen (total of 16 in each unit, and 1 officer) that I have made.

I honestly tried to make each unit different, but somewhere along the line, a 2nd pair of almost identical shields slipped in. They are not really the exact same color, but are very close in color. It might not be visible on the photographs.

For anyone that has been registering what colors I have been using, they will notice that I have omitted using blue. I tried to research if the sumerians had blue colors available, and it is highly unlikely they did not. So colors are limited to reds, yellows, browns, black, white, and the occasional greens, though not many.

Here are some pictures of a shield bearer from each unit.

Again, one of the helmets, is not the same color as the others. This time one of them is in brass, while the others are in bronze.

To finish off here are some pictures of the 3rd and 4th row poses, one from each unit. I am not completely satisfied with the colors I have used, and may at some later point repaint the clothing.

I have chosen not to take any close-ups of the last pose. The pose that stands with a spear pointing forward. I thought that this post would be long enough without them, and there really is not too much to see on these figures.

Tomorrow the sumerian journey ends, for now, with the specialist troops of the sumerian army.

~Claus

Sumerians, the heavy troops, part 1

As promised, here are the heavy troops of the Sumerian Army. These figures are described on the HaT website as being Ur Spearmen. That is Spearmen from the citystate of Ur. They are dressed in heavy leather capes, studded with bronze, and carry a spear. According to various sites and sources, they fought in a phalanx, so that is how I have set them up before taking each photo.

Here are the units that I have made. They range in size from 12 figures (and an officer) up to 18 figures (and officers).

As can be seen, i´ve chosen colors that range from white to black, with a tendancy towards darker colors, rather than lighter ones. The ones in dark red cloaks probably have the least historical look, and the ones in brown cloaks the most. I find that they all are however within reason. I really like the ones in white cloaks. I guess you can call those my favorites.I placed each officer on the right of each formation, not sure if this is correct.

Here are some pictures of each type of figure that make up the various units. I take these close-up pictures, in case someone wants to see the individual figures, and use them as templates for painting their own. Here are the spearmen:

The very observant, and i do mean really very observant, reader might have noticed a slight difference in colors of the helmets. Some I have painted brass, and then drybrushed them to a golden color, while others are bronze (most of them) and some are brass, without golden color. I´ll leave it to you to find out which are which.

Tomorrow, heavies, part 2. The Lagash Spearmen.

~Claus

Sumerians, the light troops

I am nearly done painting up the last figures for my Sumerian Army. The army consists of 3 boxes of HaT Sumerian Infantry and 2 boxes of HaT Sumerian Chariots. That is 276 foot figures, and 6 chariots. So painting all these figures has been somewhat of a project, and I have restarted it a couple of times.

I decided that I would present you with the army in stages, and then, hopefully make a picture of the whole army, when it´s complete. That may take some time though. The reason is that my wargames table doubles as a painting table, and at the moment it is a painting table. The 2nd reason is that I hate painting chariots. I don´t know why, and before I get completely burnt out on painting Sumerians, I have decided to allow myself a short break, painting some Iberians, before returning to the chariots.

All that said and done, here are the light troops of my Sumerian Army. First the slingers:

I have previously sent in a HaT contribution where these guys also appear. So if they seem familiar that is why. Not sure the green clothing is appropriate, but never the less, that is how i painted them. Here is a single figure in close-up.

Actually, this is two different figures, with the same paintjob. I got lazy and did not want to fiddle to much with my picture editing software today.

Then come the Nim skirmishers. According to one of my sources Nim means flies in Sumerian, and they are named Nim because they are like flies: everywhere and many of them. I mixed them with the Gutians that also came in the box. To me they both look like skirmishers, and they are equiped much the same, so I thought, why not.

Here are the pictures of the 4 different units that make up these skirmishers (48 figures in total).

The top and bottom pictures show the units I think have the most speculative clothing of them. I tried to keep the rest of the army in neutral, earth-like colors, but with the skirmishers I for some reason did not follow this pattern. I think it had to do with the fact that I got bored with doing those same color patterns, with only small variation, and needed to see some colors. Perhaps in the future, I should just paint up units that need to be colorful, when I get bored with painting the same type colors, instead of painting up units in ahistorical colors.

Here are a few close-ups of what on the HaT website are called the Nim skirmishers.

And finally, a few close-ups of the Gutians.

The clothing they have across their shoulder is supposed to be animal skins. Most likely sheepskin. That is why i painted the 2 of them a very whitish grey, to simulate this. On the two others I painted it a more generic fur color. As I assumed that these light infantry types really are hunters, and might have used other skin types.

Tomorrow I hope to show off some more Sumerians. I think they will be the more heavily armed ones, or maybe the specialist troops.

~Claus