Kushite/Saitic Heavy Cavalry

Simple conversion of the PB Indian cavalry figure to make something that looks Egyptian.

Conversion simply consists of cutting of the rolled piece of cloth at the front of the headband and painting it as just a tied headband.

Again, figures mounted on Garrison horses.

Being Kushites armour should be painted as copper rather than iron - didn't have any copper paint so... the armour is not very satisfactory, I usually do better!

I have enough figures to do another unit, but don't know yet whether to do light or heavy cavalry.  If heavy, I'll paint the skin tones as Kushite, if light I'll use flesh coloured tones to represent native Egyptians. Another option for the lights would be to use the Numidian cavalry from the Garrison Roman range.

The Saitic/Kushite battle

For the next battle I went for a Saitic/Kushte shoot out, with the Kushites including 2 native Egyptian elements. In other words it was DBA army 1/53 versus army 1/46! Again some of the photos weren't very good due to the lighting situation.

The start of  Move 1. The Kushites are on the right, like the Assyrians still putting cavalry and chariots on the right flank with the native Egyptians holding the left. Kushite Spears and Egyptian Blades standard Garrison figures, Cavalry Minifigs as I never got round to doing the Garrison versions.

The armies at the end of Sequence 1 - as it was really the first 3 moves getting into position. Same Saitic army as before but I thought I would swap the positions of the Bow and Light Archer elements this time.

'Move 2' and the Kushite right is starting to draw ahead  as the Saitic left holds back a bit. The Light Archers are not quite as capable of holding Cavalry as Bows are!

Contact. The Saitic General has decided that the light archers facing the Kushite cavalry will be needing help more than the bows do... or perhaps, didn't like his chances where he was...  In retrospect I should have refused the Kushite right flank a bit.

As the Saitic light horse are pushed back and one unit of outnumbered Bows is destroyed, could be right. Meanwhile the Saitic Spears destroyed the Kushite light chariot and light archers managed to push back one of the Kushite cavalry elements.

At the start of Move 4 the Saitic right is not looking very happy! Meanwhile the Saitic General has managed to hit the Kushite cavalry in the flank but as the Kushites made contact with the light archers first it meant the chariot just counts as a flank support.

Sadly, this move the cavalry managed to destroy both light archer elements while on the left the Kushite blades took out the Saitic bows and the light horse - well, they should probably have followed the General instead of charging back in.

So end of Move 4 the Saitic right and left flanks had both been destroyed plus they reached that 4 elements lost/battle lost moment. Swapping the Bows and Light Archers round proved a bad choice.
Again, a shortish but fun game where I thought I'd try a couple of things that didn't quite come off.

The random palm trees again did their job well as Move Markers - it's proving to be a a simple but effective way of visually keeping me straight for sorting the photos!

Back to basics - Saitic Egyptians v Neo-Assyrians, Saitic v Kushites Part the First.

Haven't played a DBA game in ages and feeling withdrawal symptoms, so got down to getting the figures out. So, decided on a couple of games. Normally I tend to use Minifigs for Egyptian and Assyrian armies, for these I decided to give the others a chance.

Rather than putting this lot in  with the battle descriptions I thought I 'd just put the army descriptions in a separate post with links to the armies/figures from previous posts.

Neo-Assyrian Empire 1/45

So sorted out my (mainly) Lamming Neo-Assyrians - basically the ones that appear at the top of my blog - plus my Garrison Saitic Egyptians and Kushites. However, I also used the tin plate chariot as the general. Likewise, the army itself dates back to the 70s - pre-DBA, pre-Hordes. So for them I used some of the S Range javelin men that I put on Hordes bases.

Saitic Army 1/53

One that was completely off the shelf with no need for substitutions.   One nice thing about this army - from my point of view anyway - is that every figure is one of my conversions. 

Kushite Egyptian 1/46

Another army of conversions (mostly) - though in this case I still haven't sorted the Cv element out yet (?) and had to use one from my Minifigs Kushite army...

Garrison Saitic Egyptians DBA I/53 finished

Short digression from the Persians, normal service being resumed.

General, 1xHCh

1x2LH - my anticipated major use for this figure in future (sans plume) will be as Parthians

6x4Sp - Greek GC3 on base and with head swap

2x4Bw using my 'Universal Archer)

 2x2Ps - the spearman is simply the Nubian auxiliary PEA6 with a new left arm and quiver.

And just to show I'm back on target, GC5 on bases and serving as Late Achaemenid mercenary Greeks

Hoping the spam issue is sorted I'm taking out the moderation requirement - but in future I will automatically delete ANY anonymous post - though to be fair this lot were by someone known to me and wasn't an attempt to fool me - he has used his name in the 200+ emails we have exchanged since November!

Garrison Saitic Egyptian DBA

Slight distraction, very minor!
 
Short hiatus with the Persians - sorting out a chariot for the general plus a scythed chariot for the late army.  Meanwhile, quickly painted up 24 converted Garrison Saitic Egyptian spearmen, got 12 converted Garrison Egyptian Saitic archers to paint, will actually add a couple of surplus already painted Garrison Saitic light horse archers...

 

  General's chariot I already have. It's an old conversion... let's see, Airfix Roman horses, Airfix Ancient Brit body built up with card, wheels from a pencil sharpener, crew 3 converted Garrison Greek archers, including Minifigs standard and Lamming shield... Charioteer originally had a whip but I don't think I'll replace it.

 

 
 Hide shield pattern has worked better than it did with the Persian levies. The head swap is a bit crude but looks OK at a distance! The figure is based on the Greek medium cavalry figure with feet turned forward and put on a base. The cavalry figure unaltered apart from a base will be used as the Greek component of my late Achaemenid army. Only thing left with this unit is to paint the spear tips.

 

When setting these out I thought the army has 2 2LH - it only has 1! Base needs to be repainted and I think I'll redo the ostrich plume white.

So most of it already done. I'm doing this army with a green base to match the Persians, etc,  but with 6 elements of 4Sp now done, got the General's chariot and LH, only need a dozen archers to complete it! Should be finished in a couple of days.

Further, it's an unusual and rather pleasing army in that every figure is a conversion.