Fatimid infantry

 

3 x 8bw, front rank tear drop shields borrowed from the 25mm Normans Range!

Again, more fantasy Fatimids I suppose, but they look OK and give a good basis for a DBA Fatimid army.

First of the Arab spears

 

Compared to the cavalry I've been painting recently this lot just whizzed past... started them and they were finished!

The Arab figures are a bit crude but look effective. Probably shouldn't have given everyone striped robes, just seemed right... Anyway, the next lot are being painted red as cultists with guns, so not every robed Arab type will have stripes.

I expect to be painting a lot of these figures on a wide range of bases.

Gothic, Rhoxolani and Fantasy Arab cavalry for mould...

 

Still  a bit of tidying up to do on these figures but this is generally the expected composition of the mould.

Rhoxolani Sarmatian cavalry - conversion of Sarmatian cataphract, simply cut down the kontos and add a Dacian officer's shield. Seriously wishing I had photographed these on a different coloured background - white is boring...

Gothic cavalry. Bowcase replaced by sword and figures given slight variations on shields. For standard bearers I'll just use the standard Sarmatian standard bearer but give it a shield... 

Lancers plus officer. The officer doesn't carry a bow... These figures will be mounted on a different horse.

Likewise generic Arab cavalry. The swordsman might be used as just another archer as he's got a quiver. The archer and swordsman figures are direct conversions of the 1972 Garrison Mameluke figure FNC1. 

Some of the later lance/bow/shield generic later Moslem cavalry - conversion simply consisted of giving the Sarmatian cataphract a shield. Flanked by figures on the horses I expect to use.

And this is the horse I expect to use for the lancers and horse archers.

These figures should be sent off in a couple of days. When I get the mould back the archer and swordsman  will form the basis of infantry archers, swordsmen and officers, not sure yet about the spearman element of the army.

Jacklex again. This time Arabs.

Firstly, function. Although these are from the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' part of the Arab world, I'm looking for generic Arabs. Actually, I would have preferred long flowing robes, but these will do. Likewise, they are wearing a turban rather than the desert Arab Gutrah . Yes, I did have to look up the name!

I suppose a lot of the time I would use these as separate Warband and firearms groups, Wearing the same headress seems to be the norm for different groups/nationalities so I decided all mine would wear red turbans. I very much doubt there is a real red turban tribe out there but you never know! As I'm not bothered about total accuracy I'll be getting some North West Frontier as a bit of variety. Plus I need a couple of distinct chieftains and standard bearers.

The rifle component will possibly be used as a separate 'unit' but that's not a given. I'm not sure how many I will need on single bases - possibly another 20-40 total infantry and ?? cavalry and camels? Or restrict this to very minor skirmishes and use element based for bigger battles. Plenty of combat opportunites against the British or French.

 

For rules I'll give the 'Magdala to Mafeking' rules by Andy Callan a try as they are on the Jacklex website! These don't have rules for attacking an actual fort - I'll probaby do something like roll a die th see if a particular figure is carrying a grappling iron (or ladder!) then roll again to see if it works, then he has to climb the thing and engage in melee at the top. I'll make something up!

More camels?

 Last time I did some Arab camels I only did 6. This time I went for a complete unit of 12...

Although done for the Persian army, having two units will be useful if I do any Garrison Successor battles where both sides use Arab camels.

Cheap and cheerful is probably the best way of describing this lot. As these will normally be fighting in Persian or Greek armies I've given them green rather than sand bases.

Still more camels to come - I'm currently painting the second howdah unit .  There are still two more potential camel units to do - a 25mm unit to provide my Vanha a desert patrol unit and a unit on armoured camels to supplement the 'standard' Persian unit I already have on unarmoured camels.

The intention is to spend a couple of days casting for my next batch of painting - within the next few days!

Carry on (follow that camel?)

 As in, Minifigs PB range camels...

Ex-Harry - suspect he painted them, they have that look, but not certain

16 Arab camels looks a bit of overkill to me... Well, unless I decide to do a Midianite army or something.

They look good - they're very well painted.

My own 70's army used Hinchliffe - to be honest, think I prefer these.

Corps VIIIC - the Arabian Camel Corps.

Garrison camels are a bit under represented in some ways. This comment is mainly due to the fact that Garrison made two different Persian camel riders and I've only got a unit using one of them.  My other camel unit was a specific conversion to provide a Funcken-style squadron that looks good in a Cyrus the Great v Lydia way.

This unit comes under the 'cheap and cheerful' heading.

Both camels and riders have been 'reclaimed' from past endeavours - and the riders suffer from the added issue of having come from a Tiranti mould - so started off as second rate!

The camels seem to be a mix of the 20mm and 28mm versions! - only differences are that the 28mm has a bigger head and plume and is a bit 'fatter' than the 20mm version. The 28mm camels were used with much bigger figures and, frankly, looked ridiculous!

I fully intend to expand the various camel corps in future...

More test figures

A few more quick examples to see how they look painted - Hollywood Philistine, Late Achaemenid archer and 'Arab/Turkish' archer.

The shield motif on the Philistine shield is basically a Biblical reference - Canaanites worshipping golden calf/bull. The Persian figure is the same as the Caspian, etc, currently being made into a mould, the other two will hopefully go on the next batch of moulds. I might give the Philistine a thicker spear for ease of casting.

20mm Turco-Arabic cavalry

Very much spur-of-the-moment conversions!

It started with me thinking about Arabs for the early Achaemenids, then thinking about the headgear of some of the Sea People tribes. At some point I remembered that the Napoleonics had a Mameluk figure and I thought...

Think they look pretty good. Starting with the horse archer, tunic and trousers rather than robes - hence more of a Turkish look rather than Arab.

The lancer is simply the Sarmatian cataphract with bowcase removed and shield added. Being robed, this figure or variations of it  should be able to provide most of the light lance armed Arab cavalry - both mailed and simply robed. So, even if not 100% accurate, I'm quite pleased wiyh how these turned out - and infantry should be easy as well!

OK, those worked, some don't. Remember I mentioned having a look at those East Ethiopians? First attempt looks wrong in just about every way - colour scheme doesn't work, headdress doesn't work... This one could take a while!