Slitherine

Hi,

I have an army for most periods:
biblical
hellenistic
dark age
feudal
medieval

And for most army types

LH/lancer (parthian skythian)
wall o steel (latin greek)
wall o bronze (spartan)
mixed arms (middle byzantine)
mixed arms (later hungarian)
chariot (middle & later assyrian)

For my next army I want to fill the shooty cav niche which I cannot field at this point.

The normal default is some sort of islamic outfit so I am loath to go that way so am looking for suggestions.

Needs:

good painting and modelling opportunity
morphing into a few different armies
potential for something different in the army via odd elements or allies
drilled and undrilled
armour and non armoured

I was thinking about getting some sort of pseudo mongol/central asian outfit and lookign for suggestions:

Whats a reasonably playing army that fills this?
Khazar? Timurid? Ilkhanid? CACS?

Anthony

expendablecinc wrote: For my next army I want to fill the shooty cav niche which I cannot field at this point.

The normal default is some sort of islamic outfit so I am loath to go that way so am looking for suggestions.

Needs:

good painting and modelling opportunity
morphing into a few different armies
potential for something different in the army via odd elements or allies
drilled and undrilled
armour and non armoured

I was thinking about getting some sort of pseudo mongol/central asian outfit and lookign for suggestions:

Whats a reasonably playing army that fills this?
Khazar? Timurid? Ilkhanid? CACS?

Anthony

Khazar are Jewish but have a significant Muslim element if you use the Arsiyah, Timurid are Muslim and Ilkhanids were Muslim (although I cannot recall when from).

CACS can be OK, and the Early and Late Horse Nomads would fit the bill nicely and can be used as Northern Dynasties Chinese as well through the Xienbei and Xiongnu. In fact the mounted can be morphed into lots of those northern Chinese types through the Liao and Jin.

nikgaukroger wrote:

expendablecinc wrote: For my next army I want to fill the shooty cav niche which I cannot field at this point.

The normal default is some sort of islamic outfit so I am loath to go that way so am looking for suggestions.

Needs:

good painting and modelling opportunity
morphing into a few different armies
potential for something different in the army via odd elements or allies
drilled and undrilled
armour and non armoured

I was thinking about getting some sort of pseudo mongol/central asian outfit and lookign for suggestions:

Whats a reasonably playing army that fills this?
Khazar? Timurid? Ilkhanid? CACS?

Anthony

Khazar are Jewish but have a significant Muslim element if you use the Arsiyah, Timurid are Muslim and Ilkhanids were Muslim (although I cannot recall when from).

CACS can be OK, and the Early and Late Horse Nomads would fit the bill nicely and can be used as Northern Dynasties Chinese as well through the Xienbei and Xiongnu. In fact the mounted can be morphed into lots of those northern Chinese types through the Liao and Jin.

Thanks,
I'm not too fussed with the muslim. probably more accurate to say 'arab' but then lots of the armies I want to avoid are turkish (Mameluke, Khurasian). what I am thinking of is the guys with lamellar horse armour or soem other source of colour without being a textbook seljuk or fatimid style of list.

expendablecinc wrote: what I am thinking of is the guys with lamellar horse armour or soem other source of colour without being a textbook seljuk or fatimid style of list.

Lamellar armour for man and horse was pretty universally used across the steppe.

Sassanid Persian. For your requirements

Needs:

good painting and modelling opportunity
morphing into a few different armies
potential for something different in the army via odd elements or allies
drilled and undrilled
armour and non armoured

khurasan make those 2 bit mounted so you can swivel the archers.
Early morphs to parthian and all time periods can morph into the many other Lancer/Bow type cavalry armys near by.
Elephants, cataphracts, Dailami, Levy (chained to the floor no matter what Briggs thinks). The Golden Throne for the CinC base.
Mounted can be either at different time periods
There isn't much of a mix in the armour by individual troop type line tho.

philqw78 wrote:Sassanid Persian. For your requirements

Needs:

good painting and modelling opportunity
morphing into a few different armies
potential for something different in the army via odd elements or allies
drilled and undrilled
armour and non armoured

khurasan make those 2 bit mounted so you can swivel the archers.
Early morphs to parthian and the many other Lancer/Bow type cavalry armys near by.
Elephants, cataphracts, Dailami, Levy (chained to the floor no matter what Briggs thinks). The Golden Throne for the CinC base.
Mounted can be either at different time periods
There isn't much of a mix in the armour by individual troop type line tho.

I have come to the conclusion that Sassanid Persian is an army that is (for reasons I have not been able to identify) "less than the sum of its parts". So get it if you love it (I do), but not otherwise.

rbodleyscott wrote:I have come to the conclusion that Sassanid Persian is an army that is (for reasons I have not been able to identify) "less than the sum of its parts". So get it if you love it (I do), but not otherwise.

Shooty cavalry. Once it has started to evade its very difficult to stop doing so as it can't shoot backwards.
LH with no teeth. LH are the kings of the game*. But they need to be able to help the melees, getting in behind or to flank is good if they have swords. Bad if they do not.
What do you want, cataphracts or elephants? There is not enough of either for a big effect. And elephants are too fragile.

But don't let that put anyone off owning a pretty army.


*But knights rule

Later Horse Nomad in various flavours will look good and are very morphable - just don't look very closely at RBS's record with them... :)

Early Tang Dynasty Chinese.

Plenty of Drilled shooty cav.

Mixed MF

Some LH

Very colorful and interesting history (tl;dr - Li Shi Min is one bad muthaf**k*r)

Outpost did a nice range of figures for them. I think Khurasan has a line of Tang now.

rbodleyscott wrote: I have come to the conclusion that Sassanid Persian is an army that is (for reasons I have not been able to identify) "less than the sum of its parts". So get it if you love it (I do), but not otherwise.

Surely the main issue with Sassanid is the "too many toys" aspect - it has a lot of pricey troops, and not much filler. I vaguely remember fighting a Sassanid who had only 9 BG's at 900pts (it sounds unlikely, so maybe it was 11 but the point is pretty much the same). Whilst it is tough and manoevreable enough to avoid getting trashed all the time, it isn't going to find it easy to get flank charges of it's own.

Original question - CACS is of course a 2for1 as it can be shooty or lancers. Equally a mongol core gives you about half a dozen armies - conquest, invasion, ilkhanid, yuan, etc. Each with a bit of variety.

Given your criteria it would seem that steppes or chinese would be the way to go. Has anyone tried one of the all mounted versions of the Han chinese? Should be pretty too.

footslogger wrote:Given your criteria it would seem that steppes or chinese would be the way to go. Has anyone tried one of the all mounted versions of the Han chinese? Should be pretty too.

Thanks Gents:

I think I'll start off with:
- 3 BG of outpost central asians
- 2 BG of mongol type armoured cavlary (no idea what range to use)
- 2 Bg of outpost Central asian LH bow
- 2 Bg of mongol LH bow
- 2 timurid elephants (outpost or donnington)
- Some junk

How does that sound for a core to branch out to the range to steppe with drilled armies?

expendablecinc wrote:

footslogger wrote:Given your criteria it would seem that steppes or chinese would be the way to go. Has anyone tried one of the all mounted versions of the Han chinese? Should be pretty too.

Thanks Gents:

I think I'll start off with:
- 3 BG of outpost central asians
- 2 BG of mongol type armoured cavlary (no idea what range to use)
- 2 Bg of outpost Central asian LH bow
- 2 Bg of mongol LH bow
- 2 timurid elephants (outpost or donnington)
- Some junk

How does that sound for a core to branch out to the range to steppe with drilled armies?

As others have said before Elephants are like crystal glass, beautiful but easily broken. (I have loads of them)
Even more so in a predominately mounted army, as they disorder your own troops so will end up with no support, unless this is in the 'Junk' where the description says all.

bertalucci wrote:

expendablecinc wrote:

footslogger wrote:Given your criteria it would seem that steppes or chinese would be the way to go. Has anyone tried one of the all mounted versions of the Han chinese? Should be pretty too.

As others have said before Elephants are like crystal glass, beautiful but easily broken. (I have loads of them)
Even more so in a predominately mounted army, as they disorder your own troops so will end up with no support, unless this is in the 'Junk' where the description says all.

I find 2 work ok alongside my seleucid cataphracts and cavalry but regardless they are necessary for coolness. If only the list had stampeding bullocks adn chained horde i ablative from prior interpretations of the timurids (i think thats the one)

For mongols the nicest ranges are
http://www.legio-heroica.com/Mongoli.html
http://www.atoufigs.com/PBSCCatalog.asp?CatID=248805

frederic wrote:For mongols the nicest ranges are
http://www.legio-heroica.com/Mongoli.html
http://www.atoufigs.com/PBSCCatalog.asp?CatID=248805

Pity about all the shields, are they detachable?

tadamson wrote: Pity about all the shields, are they detachable?

I'm sorry to say I don't know

tadamson wrote:

frederic wrote:For mongols the nicest ranges are
http://www.legio-heroica.com/Mongoli.html
http://www.atoufigs.com/PBSCCatalog.asp?CatID=248805

Pity about all the shields, are they detachable?

Legio Heroica almost certainly are, all the cavalry figures I have from them come with seperate shields (and lances as appropriate).