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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Byzantine Archers

My natural progression from Vikings to Byzantines continues, this time with some Crusader Byzantine Archers.







I have never been less than impressed with the quality of Crusader's miniatures, but the detailing on these may be best suited to a more advanced painter than myself.  Scale armor along with multiple overlapping straps and belts is not forgiving to a novice painter.  I plan to get better results with some of the unarmored bowmen and spear men soon.  



As a rare Medieval example of a standing professional army, the Byzantine forces maintained manuals on training, strategy and equipment.  Like the Roman army they progressed from, the Byzantines divided their soldiers into units ranging in size of 8 up to 9000.  And while the Byzantine army stressed uniformity in equipment, my use of red tunics and pale leather boots is more of a concession to more modern expectations and depictions. My units of psiloi will show less homogeneity.  

Dawson, Timothy. Byzantine Infantryman: Eastern Roman Empire c. 900-1204. Illustrated by Angus McBride. Osprey Publishing, 2007.




1 comment:

  1. Good start, about time those vikings got a taste of some proper disipline! :p
    Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete