Slitherine

just getting painting on may sassanid army. And wondering about paint scheme for the cataphracts.
Before this i was expecting to paint just metal however some reading has shown leather and felt bard were more common.
What colours would you recomend (as a side note if you can suggest a paint name and description it will help as i am colour blind so may need to rely on manufacturers paint names)
ben

This is the best known representation of Sassanid felt/leather barding:



No colors are known that I am aware of. Most people do a plain color with metal (gold) badges. Most colors were used by Persians: red, blue, yellow, purple, brown, and green.

I don't believe the bronze and iron scale horse barding found at Dura Europos had any traces of paint.

Hal

BTW, what figues are you using?

benos wrote:just getting painting on may sassanid army. And wondering about paint scheme for the cataphracts.
Before this i was expecting to paint just metal however some reading has shown leather and felt bard were more common.
What colours would you recomend (as a side note if you can suggest a paint name and description it will help as i am colour blind so may need to rely on manufacturers paint names)
ben

If you have to buy figures, my advice is to buy AB ones (they are wonderfull). Unfortunately in the past I bought Essex ones and they are not very good, in particularly CT and Cv. Besides AB Cv figures are with bow and not with lance.
Sergio

i have essex miniatures though i have not used the armoured horse archers from an army deal (looked too much like mamluks)
the clibinarii will be on half barded horses and the cats on full bard to help show the difference.
though they are not as nice as some of the 28mm ones i've seen sadly.
The full bard horses look like they could be metal or leather. The part bard could be any.

Cheers
Ben

Benos

Yes, the Essex eastern armored horse archers are really ghilman, although they may be a reasonable representation of Sassanids 600-650 AD. [There are some who believe late Sassanids may have used stirrups.] The advantage of using these armored horse archers as Sassanids c. Khosrau II is you don't have to worry about hores barding. In addition, if doing Late Sassanids you could base the Essex clibanarii 3 per and use them as either cataphracts or armored horse archers. The leg armor for these catapracts would be under their long robe. Most people paint 1/2 armored horses as metallic.

Personally, I usually paint catphracts with metallic bard. If you do this, you could paint the 1/2 bard of the clibanarii (if using them as armored horse archers) non-metallic.

If I was to recommend colors, the clibanarii/horse archers would predominately be in red, blue, brown, cream, and grey. The cataphracts in green, yellow, and purple.

Hal

cheers again
excellent info. Will do half bard guys in coloured felt. Cataphracts on full bard horses will probably get metal but thinking about leather and horn(read some used horn baarding)
i assumue brown and bone respectively?

Ben

benos wrote:cheers again
excellent info. Will do half bard guys in coloured felt. Cataphracts on full bard horses will probably get metal but thinking about leather and horn(read some used horn baarding)
i assumue brown and bone respectively?

Ben

If you had the money to buy your own main battle tank, about the equivalent cost for cataphract equipment in todays money, you could have leather and metal any colour you wanted. Personal preference.

A cataphract during the reign of Khosrau I:



Horse armor appears to be uncovered. Of course, the possibility remains that it was painted. Later Persians used about every imaginable color.

Hal

benos wrote:cheers again
excellent info. Will do half bard guys in coloured felt. Cataphracts on full bard horses will probably get metal but thinking about leather and horn(read some used horn baarding)
i assumue brown and bone respectively?

Ben

The one, and only, illustration of a Sassanid half barded horse, is lamella. As he is the Shahshah, highly polished and decorated metallic armour is the most likely. Every instance of felt armour that I can think of is a full bard.

The Khosrau II relief at Taqi Bustan is something of an enigma. The warrior holds his spear one handed in conjunction with a shield. The helmet is not the usual tall "parthian cap" style. The robe he wears is usually only seen in a non-military context, and the barding only covers the front half of the horse. The horse armor is usually assumed to be metal, but it is possible that it was painted to reduce heat. In addition, lamallae armor could be made from leather. I doubt if this figure represents a typical armored horse archer at the end of the empire, although assuming some additional armor under his robes he may better be thought of as a late "cataphract".

A better late cataphract would be based on the bullae of the four generals (illustrated just above). The only 15mm figures close to this is the Khurasan Late Roman clibanarii.

And an early cataphract probably should be based around the Firuzabad relief (illustrated 1st) supplemented by Dura Europus. Essex has a nice "Dura Europos" cataphract in the Late Roman/Palmyran range, although the helmet should be taller.

The Firuzabad "cataphract" has not been well represented by figure mfg because of P. Barker interepretation of the sassanid clibanarii as wearing trousers instead of armor. Many cataphracts are based on Barker's Sassanids cataphact in his Armies & Enemies of Rome book. Unfortunately, the figure is speculative, and is not based on any know example. The mail leg and foot armor is extremely unlikely. One of the better representions may be the discontinued Essex Parthian cataphract, which is based on a parthian from Firuzabad.

Hal