Armoured camels with howdah

 

Second unit finished, this time on armoured camels.

 

The camels are a mix of original '20mm' camels and the later 25mm ones. Basically the same camel, only the 25mm one has a bigger head and plume...

 Meanwhile I have managed to do a bit of casting and am currently painting up some of the robed Persian cavalry.

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...

DBA I/60(b) The army of Cyrus the Great

An unexpected 'free' day meant being able to finish the warwagon. So, seemed churlish to hold back on the army photos.

For the photos I've just used units from my main Persian rather than painted 'new' units. The only new ones are the scythed chariot and warwagon, though 3 of the sparabara elements are from the 'base' I/60 army.

Finished warwagon. Think I'll do 2 others.

In theory the camels should be 3Cm but I could only get 2 on a base... and somehow this figure seems to fit the army better than my standard 3Cm units.

Camels again

As a follow on to my last post the camels are finished. I did 6 and they don't have a driver (?) - probably should have done a couple more, but...

Anyway, turned out better than I possibly expected. Usually I would have these 3 to a base but I thought that would be a bit too congested. Might add shields all round to all of the figures as well.

Next ones to consider in this line would be fake elephants. These were supposed to have been used by the mythical Queen Semiramis of Assyria as part of an army invading India - the idea being that Assyrians didn't have any elephants and didn't want to feel disadvantaged. So perhaps I'll look at this possibility when I next look at the Garrison Assyrians.

Actually, thinking about it, the next camel unit will probably be one using the other Garrison camel rider.

Garrison Camel Corps

Not many posts in April because I'm busy building up the Garrison Persian cavalry. One part of the cavalry that has been sadly neglected over the years has been the Camel Corps. I've now started to address that issue, so here is the first squadron finished.

Meanwhile, the some of the 'normal' cavalry are out as well. Still quite a way to go with these, - several more heavy cavalry units needed and I haven't really started on the lights yet.