Been busy getting another battlegroup painted and others flocked as Round 2 of Broken Rays of the Sun gets ready to begin. One whole group shot and then I will give details for each BG below.
The Bulls of Babylon have now been added to the Parthian/Early Sassanid host. It just so happens you can have 24 Cataphracts in this list. These are a mix of Old Glory 15 Cataphract models (Parthian Cataphracts, Sassanid Cataphracts, Palmyran Cataphracts, Sarmatian Cavalry). Sometimes there is a mix when you order ready made FOG BGs from Old Glory but I also had these laying around and wanted to use a mix as kind of representative of the transitional period of the end of the Parthian Empire. I painted all of these and made the flag using a bull's head I found online somewhere and then filling in the blue color using Pantina on my Mac.
Next up there are three battlegroups of Scythian/Saka Cataphracts that will form the strike force of the Early Central Asia Steppe Nations (such as the Dahae and the more settled Chorosmia) in the Broken Rays of the Sun campaign. See the Extra Lists Addendum for the campaign found here for more details on the lists. These figures are all from the Forged In Battle WE-SK01 Skythian Armored Cavalry set. Mark Kernan of The One Tree Miniatures (but his website is FieldofGlory.net) painted all three battlegroups. Their armour is really too early for this period but Old Glory 15s does not make a suitable figure for this time period and the Khurasan Miniatures figures I am just not sold on and they do not match up with other figures in my collection.
The last two battlegroups are part of the foot contingents for the Early Central Asian Steppe Nations. Chorosmia is required to field the minimum foot in the Broken Rays of the Sun Campaign if more than 300 points are fielded. I have three more foot battlegroup of these but they are not ready for photographing yet. The majority of the figures are Forged in Battle WE-SK05 Skythian Skirmishers, WE-SK04 Skythian Light Infantry and some of the axe wielders from WE-SA06 Alan Infantry. Mark Kernan painted most of these and I painted about a quarter.
I have a nice Forged in Battle leader figure that I hope to add soon so the Chorosmia horde can have their own dedicated leader. He is straight out of the Osprey on the Skythians but he is way too cool to let languish in the box.