Syrians

I’ve started to get some Syrians (IV/6) painted for DBA. I got them at the beginning of the year, but then things got busy, and I’ve only recently started to work on them. Here is the first finished elements – the baggage and an element of archers.

The Syrian camp.

Another angle.

Syrian archers.

Another angle.

The foot are from the Khurasan range, but as that range is not complete, I went for Legio Heroica for the mounted. this took a fair bit of preparation. Some of which was mixing up the shields with the Khurasan ones (which are little bucklers). I also used LBMS transfers for this army, which proved a lot easier than I’d first thought. The figures did not look too exciting until I got the undercoat on. I use a wash to pick out the detail; with that they really came to life.

The command element: ghulams and a drummer.

The ghulams.

Syrian or Kurdish cavalry.

I have one too many elements of ghulams, which do look very nice, and one too few of the Syrians; as they both fight as Cv I doubt this is too major. I wanted to avoid a hike in postage.

Bedouin horsemen.

Turkoman horse archers.

With all these figures primed and with banners and shields done, I’m keen to get them painted. The banners were a little tricky; I’d thought they’d slide to line up, but the PVA didn’t do that; perhaps I should have used a varnish on the back of the paper.

There are more elements of foot that I’ve prepped – 3Ax javelinmen, 3Wb ghazis and some 7Hd Ahdath militia. The army is not especially formidable. It does look nice, and provides a historical opponent to Crusader armies. I’m not sure what a single horde adds to a cavalry army, and I’m tempted to use an ally to avoid them; either Cilician Armenians or Crusaders are possible.