Late Achaemenid Persians for Impetus - The Beginning

As I mentioned in the last post, Stu and I have been pondering where to go next with Impetus. We've both painted full 500 point armies (Romans and Parthians) and have a few games under our belts. Now that we are veteran (*snicker*) generals, we decided it was time to branch out into a new ancients project.

There was much discussion for a couple of weeks. We pondered different eras, as well as different model scales. We each have interest in 6mm, 28mm, and everything in between. I had considered doing Numidians, Gauls, Scythians, Classical Indians... you get the picture. In the end, we decided to stay with the 6mm scale. We would be able to integrate the new armies with the first two, and we both enjoyed painting and prepping the Romans and Parthians.

As for historical period, I was leaning towards "more ancient" than the Roman era. In the end, we decided on Greeks and Persians. My lovely wife gave me the book Persian Fire by Tom Holland for Christmas. I've been working my way through (between "Doc Savage" novels; another story-J) and have found the book very inspiring. Inspiring enough to settle on a Late Achaemenid army using the list in the main Impetus rulebook. Furthermore, if I get my army painted before Stu paints the Greeks, I can attempt to put the Parthians in their place.

Once the decision was made, Stu dipped into his vast collection of 6mm Baccus models and we started the sorting process. The bulk of the models I'll be using were taken from a Baccus Late Achaemenid Persian army pack. I'll be aiming for the following 500-point list, or something very similar:

• Average CS - 12 pts
• Expert CIC & Fair General x 2 - 70 pts
• Re-rolls x 2 - 10 pts
  
• Elite Cavalry x 1 (CM) - 23 pts
• Line Cavalry x 1 (CM) - 19 pts
• Colonist Cavalry x 4 (CM) - 44 pts
• Arachosian Cavalry x 3 (CL) - 54 pts
• Scythian Horse Archers x 4 (CL) - 96 pts
• Takabara x 4 (FL) - 92 pts
• Persian Archers x 4 (S) - 56 pts
• Persian Slingers x 2 (S) - 24 pts

That's a grand total of 500 points on the nose. Of course, as with the Romans, the line-up will change as I paint, but I like having a definite goal as I start out.

I primed the first units last night; two units of archers and a unit of colonist cavalry.


I'm hoping to make this a very colourful army. My plan is to avoid uniformity wherever possible, and to try and capture the very diverse nature of the Persian forces of the time. Whatever the final product turns out to be, it will be a fun project, and will provide me with a very different gaming experience than the Romans. I'll keep you posted as the project progresses.

Thanks for reading,
JET