New 28mm Project: The Palmyrene Armies of Odaenathus and Zenobia (260–272 AD)

 Hi guys,

After finishing several armies over the years, I’ve decided to start a new 28mm project,  one that bridges my love for Roman history and the dramatic story of Palmyra’s rise and fall.

This time, I’m building a mixed Roman–Palmyrene army from the mid–3rd century, representing the forces of Odaenathus of Palmyra in his campaigns against the Sassanid Persians, and later, those of Queen Zenobia and General Zabdas during their rebellion against Aurelian’s Roman Empire (circa 260–272 AD).

It’s a fascinating period: the Roman East in turmoil, after the capture of Valerian...  legions mixing with desert cavalry, cataphracts, Camels and archers from the great caravan city of Palmyra. The project lets me explore both sides of this conflict, since I already have a painted Sassanid army and a half–finished Roman force from the 3rd century, perfect opponents for the new troops.

The miniatures come mainly from A&A miniatures, Wargames Atlantic, both in plastic (Romans) and 3D resin, with some excellent additions from Blitzkrieg Miniatures. I plan to base them for Hail Caesar and Impetus, two of my favorite rulesets for large ancient battles.

The plan is to build the Palmyrene army in stages , starting with the Romanized core under Odaenathus, then expanding into the later “Empire of the East” phase under Zenobia, with more Eastern cavalry, archers, and cataphracts.

I hope to see both armies clashing on the tabletop soon.

III century Romans: Legio II Parthica

 Hello guys,

After a looooooooooong stop, I painted another unit for my 3rd century Roman army.

Middle Imperial Romans are one of my favorite armies, they have a mixture of early and late antiquity features, chainmail (lorica hamata) and segmented armor (lorica segmentata),  spears and pilum,  gladius substituted by spathae... Old style Gallic helmets with newer designs like Niederbieber helmet, oval shields and rectangular shields/scutum. So very interesting and funny to convert!

It is also an era with lots of wars and even more enemies, being the most famous the Sassanians, Palmyrans, Goths (well, barbarians in general) and frecuently, Romans vs. Romans. 

It is an army that can play conflicts from Marcus Aurelius to Diocletian, roughly 100 years, If you are not a "button counter" of course. So lots of flexibility in my humble opinion.

Here is the first post about III century Roman miniatures in the blog:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2022/02/3rd-century-romans-project.html

Now my second unit fully painted and based: Legio Secunda Parthica:

                                   

Miniatures are a mixture of A & A miniatures with plastic Wargames Atlantic miniatures, which are very easy to paint and well sculpted. 

The most boring part was  hand painting all the shields, following the design of Legio II Parthica, at least in all the illustrations I have seen, you can see some in the previous post about 3rd century Romans here in the blog.

I added some 3d printed bits like some helmets , like the officer in the front rank, and a miniature in the back row.

I hope you like these little legionaries!

28mm Lakhmid Arab cavalry (Sassanid allies) PART II END

 Hello guys!

Finally , since 2020, I managed to finish my Lakhmid cavalry for my Sassanid army.

Here you have the first post with the history and conversion process:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2020/05/28mm-conversions-lakhmid-arab-cavalry.html

The miniatures are a mixture of Gripping beast plastic Arab heavy cavalry,  Armorum & Aquila Sassanids horse archers in armor. I painted them mostly in Vallejo and Foundry paints in triads.

I started the painting process in early March, but an eyes operation prevented me to finish the unit until May!  I tried to use earthy and warm tones, like the illustration above, I also painted a couple of horse saddle with leopard skin like the noble warrior of the illustration.

The shields are A&A with Little big men studios decals from their Sassanid range.

The plastic horses are nice and pleasant to paint, also the plastic rider, which , in my opinion, is a good miniature compared with other plastic kits from Gripping Beast.

The unit is based for Impetus or Basic Impetus, like the rest of my late antiquity armies.

I hope you like them!

Cheers

3rd Century Romans project

 Hello guys,

I have a semi abandoned project since 2015 or so...  The III Century Crisis / Middle Imperial Romans. But now, I got some inspiration and started again the project. 

Recently I bought Wargames Atlantic new "Late Romans" plastic miniatures, but they are indeed Mid to Late Romans, so I decided to use the box for my now resurrected project, and also for my other Roman army (Late/Patrician).

I had already a bunch of excellent A&A Armorum & Aquila miniatures, almost the whole army, although unpainted. My idea is to use them for Impetus or Hail Caesar, and I have a lead pile that consists of 4 legionaries unit, 2 Lanciarii or Auxiliares, 1 Unit of armoured archers, 1 unit of equites and some extras.

It is not my top priority project, but I will slowly be building up this army to fight against my Sassanids or even fight between themselves, as III century Romans often did !

I show you here the first unit I painted a while ago,  A&A Miniatures, with Littlebigmen transfers, based on the design of scutum/shield found at Dura Europos.

And now some test models of Wargames Atlantic and A&A miniatures with other design of scutum with Littlebigmen transfer, and with a hand painted shield of Legio II Parthica.

Here you have some artwork by several painters of the shield design I have used for this new legion :)

28mm Heruls / Heruli cavalry for my Early Byzantine army

 Hello guys!

After a year without any posts about my late antiquity collection, now is the turn of a little update, a couple of bases of Herul cavalry, for my Belisarius army, based for Impetus.

My plan is to complete my Early Byzantine army of Belisarius at the battle of Dara, 530 d.c. and there was a Herul contingent commanded by Pharas "the Herulian", one of the commanders of Belisarius.

These horsemen were painted a long time ago (2014!), but never placed them on bases. Also my painting style have changed a little bit since I painted them.

Appart from being my Herul foederati, they also can be almost any generic germanic cavalry from III d.c.-VI d.c. in my opinion.

The miniatures are a mixture of Gripping Beast metals, some Crusader and Westwind.

The Heruli were often mentioned during the times of Justinian, who used them in his extensive military campaigns in many countries including Italy, Syria, and North Africa. The afordmentioned Pharas was a notable Herulian commander during this period. Several thousand Heruli served in the personal guard of Belisarius throughout the campaigns, and Narses also recruited from them. They were a participant in the Byzantine-Sasanian wars, such as the Battles of Dara or Anglon.

I used this miniatures because all the illustrations and reconstructions, like the previous one, I have seen so far, depict Heruls as (mostly) unarmored horse lancers.

In further post I will show here the complete Early Byzantine army I have so far for the battle of Dara 530 dc.

28mm Sassanid Savaran cavalry

Hi guys,

This time I come with a heavy post, in all senses (bad joke), Sassanid heavy Savaran “knights”. The Sassanid Clibanarii armed with bows and hand weapons like maces or swords, I also have Cataphracts/Clibanarii with Kontos (very long spear) and bows but they will come in a future post, as they are not all painted.

The Aswārān (singular aswār), also spelled Asbārān and Savaran, was a cavalry force that formed the backbone of the army of the Sasanian Empire. They were provided by the aristocracy, were heavily armored, and ranged from archers to cataphracts.

I bought this miniatures second hand, unpainted, from a member of Lead Adventure Forum, some years ago. They are a mix of Armorum & Aquila miniatures with some Gripping Beast miniatures. In my opinion they are not as nice as most recent Aventine miniatures Sassanids, they are nice enough for me, and they are historically accurate, more suitable for Early Sassanid armies.

I chose bright colours, as I see this type of colours and patterns in several artworks from books and magazines, I also got inspirations from pics of painted armies like the one depicted in Warhammer "Beyond the Golden Gate" or Dr. Phil Hendry's own army.

I have 3 units or 3 bases in total,  based initially for Basic Impetus, but I also play Hail Caesar. I painted one of them in the last few days, but the other two units were painted some years ago. I took pictures of all of them yesterday.

The first one, painted in late May, 4 miniatures: 3 A&A miniatures, 1 Foundry horse, 1 Gripping beast rider and horse. By the way, the standard is Aventine Miniatures!

The second unit, painted some time ago, 3 A&A miniatures with a Gripping Beast

The Third unit, painted also some time ago, 3 A&A miniatures with a Gripping Beast

Family photo: Persian Panzers!