Cilician Armenian Redux (Again)

Pardon the tautology in the title but I have finally finished the battle groups I need to field a full Armenian ally for my Ilkhanid FOG army.  In March last year I posted the background to this ally; I’m just disappointed it’s taken me so long to finish all the options.

First up is a battle group of protected heavy foot:



The figures are all from Essex and I used a lot of artistic license to paint red spears but I based the banners on those provided by Chris Brantley to provide a coherent colour scheme:



I think it really helps tie everything together:



I must also pay my respects to Neldoreth at “An Hour of Wolves & Shattered Shields” whose tutorial on painting shields inspired me to try his techniques on the shields and banners.

Although it’s been a year and a half since I last posted I have been busy.  I’ve also completed all the light and medium foot options.  There’s some protected medium foot as an alternative to the heavy foot:



I used the same technique on the shields this time on a brown base (click on the above for a larger image). Then there’s a selection of light foot archers:



These figures are interesting as they are a mix of the Essex Armenian bow and Essex Viking archers!  All that was required with the later was a paint job on the helmet (with nasal) to turn it into a soft hat (and nose) everything else was perfect:



As I discovered in 2001 the Essex MER 32 (Celtic Isleman) makes an excellent Armenian archer:



As a consequence of all this experimenting with light foot I have 18 elements when I only need 8! Typical wargamer.

Finally, I will be “borrowing” some Arab bow from my planned Timurid army until I can get some more Byzantine inspired bow painted: