Sunday 19 June 2011

25mm Parthian Cataphracts

Just finished these for Willie at the club.  They are Navigator Miniatures, which you can get from Magister Militum.  They are very neat figures and well detailed, although with the occasional annoying bit of flashing.  Nothing that can't be solved with the craft knife, though.
I've tried to make the command figures stand out by using slightly brighter metallics.
I also put extra work into the borders for the command figures.
Not too much detail, though, because there isn't really all that much space.
Having said that, the cloaks help.
Front shot of the command.  I painted the standard to represent the sun, moon and stars against the backdrop of night.
It's my attempt at something Zoroastrian - the triumph of life and light over the darkness.  Or something like that...
I varied the cloaks a little.
I also mixed up the metallic colours to make them a bit more interesting.  There's a lot of armour on these figures!
This is how they will look in battle.  I used pliers to shift the arms on the guys with vertical spears.  They came as one-handed on the horizontal, so with the very long spears Willie wanted there would be issues with snapping off once they start to be handled.  The guys thrusting two-handed are safer, so I left those alone.  Willie wanted them to be left slightly shiny because he likes the look.
Life in July is going to be very busy, so I probably won't be able to hand this unit over before Claymore in August.  I think I'll give it pride of place at the forefront of the right wing Cataphracts in the Seleucid army - may it perform well!  I'm kind of assuming that Willie will want to reprise his role as Antiochus after the drubbing the Romans dished out when we played the battle just before the New Year.  There's also a general figure wearing a lion pelt, so once he's done he can join in as the great man himself.

10 comments:

  1. excellent work - I'm very impressed

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  2. That's some nice painted Parthian cavalry!

    Greetings
    Peter

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  3. Thanks, both, that was quick - you must have passing through.

    Cheers
    Paul

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  4. Amazing, I especially liked the work you did on the three guys of the command.

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  5. I'm almost feeling the ground shaking from their charge. GReat work!

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  6. Very nice looking cavalry. Rightfully pride of place at the front.

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  7. Like. Looking at these for a Partian army myself - what size are they? it seems unclear from the website whether they're 25 or 28mm - what do they measure compared to (say) Warlord Romans?

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  8. Greater looking unit - very colourful indeed. Now you going to have start on all those horse archers!

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  9. Thanks, folks. These guys are 25mm, Mike, but they might fit in well killing Warlord Games Romans. My Warlord Romans are all being used as casualty markers, so it's difficult to compare. However, one of the regulars on The Miniatures Page says he was able to stick the riders onto A&A Miniatures horses, so they aren't especially small 25s. Don't know if this helps! Maybe order a single personality for comparison?

    Cyrus is right about the horse archers - I have a couple of dozen of those to do as well. The thing is, I'm kind of doing this as a favour, so I'm slotting them in between painting my own units...

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  10. I was considering comparing one against an A&A, and seeing what they look like - thanks for the info.

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