Palmyran |
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| From WRG's "Armies & Enemies
of Imperial Rome" by Phil Barker: "Palmyra was a client state of Rome that controlled the rich trade routes to Arabia, Persia, India and China. When the Sassanid Persians, under Shapur, invaded Syria in 256 AD and captured the unlucky Emperor Valerian ........Odenathus, Prince of Palmyra, took over the defence of the Roman East." The majority of the figures in this army come from the excellent range designed by Tony Barton and originally sold by Battle Honours. Tony is mostly known for his work on Napoleonics, originally for Battle Honours and latterly for A B Miniatures. Regretably, his forays into the Ancient period have been all too brief. These figures are actually from the Sassanid Persian range. I had already built a Sassanid army, but liked the figures so much I decided to do more of them. The Palmyrans were an army that I could do without having to hack the figures about too much. Battle Honours are still available in the UK from Kintney & Co, but a word of warning — their moulds are very old and worn and the casting quality suffers as a consequence. I was fortunate to have some "old stock" (most of us usually do) for the bulk of the army, but the extra figures I had to buy required a lot of cleaning up. Their are alternate sources outside of the UK. I know Eureka Miniatures in Australia produce them under licence under the A B banner and it is my understanding (although I have no direct experience) that they are very good to deal with. Click on the thumbnails to view larger versions. |
 Palmyran general with cataphracts. All Battle Honours figures,
although the general and standard bearer have been hacked
about a bit from the original Sassanid Royal Party set. |
 Regular archers. Their uniforms are based
on wall paintings from Dura Europos. BH figures again,
with some figures having their Persian globe hats
"lowered". |
 Irregular archers. B H figures, with some
figures having their Persian globe hats
"lowered". Irregular Bw(I) in DBM speak —
great filler with the occasional noble exploit to their
name! |
 Irregular light cavalry volunteers. These are
actually Essex Parthians from my Parthian army. I haven't
figured out how to quite get the Parthians to work yet,
but the figures are so pretty I like to use them whenever
I can. |
 Hmm,
part of my Arab ally. Historically the Arabs have a bit
of a reputation. They've also been unreliable in my last
two games.......must be a moral in there somewhere!
Figures are from the Essex Midianite range. The chaps with the
bedsheet over their shoulder have had them added with
some acrylic goop that is painted on and built up. Nobody
currently does a range of Pre-Islamic arabs, so anyone
wanting to do anything like an accurate rendition of them
needs must go in for a certain amount of conversion work.
I am quite pleased with the variety I've managed to suggest with these figures. There's actually only one camel and two figure variants here. Judicious bending of heads and careful positioning have combined to give a pretty good illusion of irregularity. |
 These
"Arab" cavalry are actually Numidians! As noted above, no-one
does Arabs of the period. These Numidians from Old Glory
do a good job as substitutes until I can find figures I
am happy with. If they ever decide to be reliable in a
game..... |