Bactrian or Saka foot in EAP or Saka army

Polkovnik · Post by **Polkovnik** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 9:07 am

Who makes figures for the front rank MF U/P Bow light spear ? I've seen spearmen without bows and archers, but I've not seen any figures with spears and bows but no shields (which is presumably what thesewould look like ?)/

batesmotel · Post by **batesmotel** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:11 pm

Small shields would be ok for the front rankers. I believe a large shield is required to be counted as protected. In general I would probably look for figures listed as Bactrian foot. What scale figures are you looking for?

Chris

Delbruck · Post by **Delbruck** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:52 pm

Xyston makes East Iranian (Bactrian) spearmen and archers. The shields come seperate and about 1/3 of the spearmen have bowcases.

caliban66 · Post by **caliban66** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 8:25 am

Chariot´s sparabara have spear and bows. But they represent persians in their very early times, before adopting the median tunic. They wear the achaemenid robe, a long tunic down to their knees, rather than trousers. Thus, may not fit as saka or bactrian foot.
Their takabara also have bows, with crecent shaped shields. It´s easy to cut those shields and fix a spara, with chariot supplies separately. I´ve done it to make a front rank of kardakes, using spare hoplite shields, but big spara for them fits even better.

Polkovnik · Post by **Polkovnik** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:55 pm

But surely they shouldn't have Spara, as this would make them protected. The Bactrian & Saka foot are unprotected.

Polkovnik · Post by **Polkovnik** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 7:01 pm

Delbruck wrote:Xyston makes East Iranian (Bactrian) spearmen and archers. The shields come seperate and about 1/3 of the spearmen have bowcases.

Xyston are out due to cost and compatability. Also, I would want all of the front rankers to have bows, to fit the FOG classification. However, I would like to see these figures to see what they look like, but I can't find them on the website. What nationality are they listed under ?

Delbruck · Post by **Delbruck** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:26 am

Persian Levies in Eastern dress (ANC 20058)

The 3rd figure from the right has a bowcase.

Elymaian Archers (Macedonian ANC 20123)

bobm · Post by **bobm** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:34 am

Minifigs;
Z113 Bactrian Spearmen, Spear, Bow

Caliver Books have just bought the range.

caliban66 · Post by **caliban66** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:50 am

Polkovnik wrote:But surely they shouldn't have Spara, as this would make them protected. The Bactrian & Saka foot are unprotected.

No. Persian troops (and I mean core troops, non just Immortals) are described by Herodotus as wearing scale armours additionally to spara. Aviability for every archers is not confirmed, so the mix of protection ends in Protected rating for persian sparabara. Since Immortals are regular and state-paid troops, scale armours are supposed to be aviable for all of them, and so the rating of "Armoured".
Spara itself doesn´t give the protected rating, but Light Spear one. At least is what the author explained in a post I wrote about persians, a long time ago.
So takabara models, after removing the taka and adding the spara may work as bactrian foot.

Delbruck · Post by **Delbruck** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 1:14 pm

No. Persian troops (and I mean core troops, non just Immortals) are described by Herodotus as wearing scale armours additionally to spara. Aviability for every archers is not confirmed, so the mix of protection ends in Protected rating for persian sparabara. Since Immortals are regular and state-paid troops, scale armours are supposed to be aviable for all of them, and so the rating of "Armoured".
Spara itself doesn´t give the protected rating, but Light Spear one. At least is what the author explained in a post I wrote about persians, a long time ago.
So takabara models, after removing the taka and adding the spara may work as bactrian foot.

Surely it must be:

Armored = spara plus majority of BG with scale arrmor (Immortals)
Protected = spara plus padded or no armor (Iranian line troops)
Unprotected = no spara or armor

Herodotus' description of the Persians: The Persians, who wore on their heads the soft hat called the tiara, and about their bodies, tunics with sleeves of divers colours, having iron scales upon them like the scales of a fish. Their legs were protected by trousers; and they bore wicker shields for bucklers; their quivers hanging at their backs, and their arms being a short spear, a bow of uncommon size, and arrows of reed. They had likewise daggers suspended from their girdles along their right thighs.

Herodotus' description of the Bactrians: The Bactrians went to the war wearing a head-dress very like the Median, but armed with bows of cane, after the custom of their country, and with short spears.

Herodotus doesn't mention shields/spara for the Eastern Iranian troops. This may be an oversight. If one beleives all Iranian troops used the spara, then use the MF protected classification. If one thinks that some or all the East Iranians didn't carry shields simply make them unprotected, as allowed in the lists.

BTW, Herodotus says the Bactrians wore a head dress similiar to the Persians. The Bactrians on Persopolis reliefs are pictued bare headed. In which case one can either use normal Persians as Bactrians, or the hatless figures pictured above.