Sumerians, the special troops

To round off this journey, I have selected the sumerian special troops. They consist of two distinct troop types. There is the elite, the royal guard, and then there are the sets surprising troops, the archers. Why do I call the archers surprise troops? Well, there is no evidence in archeology to support the fact that the sumerians had bows. So archers are a somewhat speculative troop type for this army. Yet here they are.

The middle unit was painted when i still had no real idea about how the whole army should look. So it is not as drab as the rest of the army. Each of these archer units, that they call Mari Archers on the HaT website, consists of 8 archers. I like the bottom unit the most, and the one in the middle the least... Here are a few close-ups of the pose.

As can be seen very clearly on the pictures, i forgot to paint the studs on the leather shoulderpiece on the middle pose. This is however easily correctible, and probably will be corrected sooner, rather than later.

Then there is the royal guard. One would think they would be very colorful and well equiped. So it is alittle surprising that they are only clad in fur, and have just a spear, and an axe to fight with. In retrospect, I could have painted the fur drabbed across their shoulders a different color, but i didn´t.

These guys will just have to prove how elite they are on the field of battle, and thus teach others not to judge a unit by it´s looks. Here are some close-ups of the pose.

Well, that was our journey into the most ancient army that i have: the sumerians. When I once again get the craving to paint sumerians, I will present the sumerian chariots. Right now I am painting up some Iberians, from Orion, to supplement my already large Iberian Army.

~Claus