My take on some Hyrcanian infantry, inspired by you Jim

History be damned, they're utterly beautiful!

There's the ghosts of Hyracanians past hammering on the doors demanding that they be equipped like that

Great figures

Jim

Thanks Jim. I know a little whimsical, but there are few ancient troop types where one can be a little artistic and the figures did seem to lend themselves to a little conversion.
My hill tribes will definitely be a little less flamboyant!
Mark

As far as I can tell they're 'defendable' from a choice of figures point of view and stunning from the aesthetic point of view. I might just share them on another forum to get people like Duncan Head to 'cast an eye over them' but only with your permission

Jim

That's fine by me Jim.
Mark

Well if anybody quibbles about them, the great and the good have spoken

Duncan Head, who knows as much about this as anybody said

"Well, we know little about how the Hyrkanians dressed and fought, except that Herodotos back in the C5th lists them among those peoples dressed and armed in the same way as the Medes and Persians. There is no reason to assume that in later centuries they parted company from this general Iranian pattern, so for Hellenistic-era Hyrkanians these guys look fair enough. I don't think I would personally mix Argive shields with thyreoi in the same unit, but that's not a big issue. Very nice painting, as Patrick says."

The thread is at http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1716.new;topicseen#new

So not merely beautiful but as accurate as anybody could hope for

And they are stunning

Jim

Good to know that they are endorsed but such an esteemed fellow as Duncan! Also that my amateur research and thought processes were roughly along the right lines. I did think the argive shields were probably the most tenuous inclusion, but wanted to add some variety and colour bringing in a link with their ancestry with the Achaemenids. I also enjoyed painting the shields.
Mark

That's why I liked the argive shields, you'd made them so 'persian'

Well it seems that your ideas, my ideas and Duncan's ideas all come together around your units, so the rest of the world can whine as much as it wants
Those figures are as good as it gets
Jim

Great looking unit. I've got some old Hyrkanian Minifigs in my Persian army soft spot for these guys.

a beautiful paint job