Bronze Age DBA Part 6 - Like A Wolf On The Fold

Alright, so these guys are a few centuries earlier than the army in Lord Byron's poem, but they are Assyrians nonetheless. More specifically, this is DBA army I/25a Middle Assyrians, as opponents for my various other Late Bronze Age armies. This was a much simpler matter than my previous army, as the Assyrians don't really have any options to build out.

Assyrians arrayed for battle

Leading the army is a Light Chariot general, backed up by three more Light Chariots. Long-time readers might recognize some of these chariots, as they were painted in a previous age, but the general is a new addition, and all four have been rebased on larger bases with supporting infantry. The chariots themselves are the trusty Caesar Mitannian Mariyannu type, but the crews and the horses are taken from the Caesar Assyrian Chariot set. (Why not just use those chariots? Well, they're a four-horse type not really suitable for this period.) The designs on the chariots are based on Assyrian seal designs from that period, and the runners are HaT Assyrian Allied Infantry. 

The general and his retinue

The rest of the chariot corps

The infantry portion of the I/25a list has two units of fast Blades, four Auxilia that can be either solid or fast, and two Psiloi. The figures are mostly taken from the Assyrian Allied Infantry set as well, though there are a few Robin Hood men hidden among the spearmen. As with the chariots, I decided to use these rather than the actual Assyrian infantry that are available from a couple of manufacturers, as the armor and shields of those date to a later period. To help differentiate the different troop types, since I was working with a limited number of poses, I gave the Blades red tunics, patterned shields, and helmet plumes, while the Auxilia have white or pale blue tunics, plain blue shields, and no plumes. (Side note - the proportions on some of these HaT figures are a little odd - they have rather squashed heads but very long legs. The standing spearman in particular looks like he could find a career as a ballerina...)

"Ashsharittu or huradu" infantry as fast Blades

"Hupshu or sabe" infantry as Auxilia

Archers as Psiloi

The whole army again, from the commander's perspective

And there we have my sixth DBA army for the year! At this point I won't claim to be done entirely (since I had originally planned to stop after four armies) but I don't have immediate plans to build another whole army. What I may do next is rebase some more of my old chariots on the new larger bases; this might also let me piece together a Mitanni army by borrowing some troops from the Syro-Canaanites and/or Assyrians. But I think that will be a project for 2021.

A Dispatch from Proxia

One of the projects that has mostly lain dormant this year are my imaginary 19th-century countries, Occiterre and Elabrün. (For more information on them and their various neighbors, please consult this map, or reference the Encyclopedia of Proxia - now available in a new and updated edition!) However, a recent hitch in my supply chain caused me to dredge up a couple of units that had sat on my desk since the end of last year, and get them finished off:

The fellows on the left are more Occiterran infantry (from Emhar's French Infantry set), but the origins of the Elabrüner cavalry on the right are a little more complex. For my Elabrüner infantry, I've been using Waterloo 1815's Austrian Infantry, but for some reason that set is oversupplied with officers - each box comes with both four officers on foot and four mounted officers. I decided to press some of the latter into service as cavalry instead. Unfortunately, the horses they come with are in a dramatic rearing pose, and I didn't particularly want a whole unit of these, so I scrounged up some spares to remount them: 

Cavalry conversion in progress

Their uniforms are loosely based on this and similar images of Austrian hussars from the era (though I did not bother trying to add a pelisse):

Doing these up in a more "classic toy soldier" style made for a nice change from the Bronze Age figures I've been working on, but I do have one more army I'd like to complete for that project before the end of the year. After that, we'll see - I do owe Elabrün a second artillery piece at some point...