The Sarmatians Ride !

Just after FiB's rather chunky price increase (1/3 reduction in figures per pack, but no price change) hit the shelves, I managed to find a seller on eBay who was offering "full size" Forged in Battle Army Packs with the "old" numbers of figures per pack as well  - effectively making them 1/3 cheaper than buying from FiB direct. 

Having sold a rather old Khurasan Avar army on eBay earlier this year I had been meaning to replace such an army in my "Steppe tribes" collection anyway, so the combination of this and the FiB price hike/cheap deal ended up being the trigger moment for what has turned out to be a substantial purchase of 4-legged lance and bow armed Steppe tribesmen.

And here is the first tranche of a LOT of cavalry !! 

Having picked up a few extra packets of cavalry at Entoyment too (also at the old prices) I somehow ended up with well over 100 cavalry .. which meant I defaulted to production-line painting of the horses so I could bash through a load of them before even starting on the riders. 

These FiB sculpts are both great (in that they are pretty varied and dynamic) yet also they are starting to look a little tired, with some exhibiting casting lines, flash and occasionally twisted legs too. 

This however ended up being something I managed to turn to my advantege when painting so many horses in a batch, as it allowed me to adopt a technique that means I could be sloppy with the fiddly bits - the reins. 

Initially all the horses were undercoated in white, after which they were done in variety of GW contrasts (Aggaros Dunes, Gore Grunta Fur, Skeleton Horde, Temnplar Black Cygor Brown), with some greys in Army Painter Holy White - all whist trying to leave the (often hard to see) reins unpainted wherever I could. 

I then went back over all of them with a thin brush and standard white paint to vaguely (ie not all that accurately) pick out some more of the reins where they could be easily seen (not always easy on these castings), and then used either Army Painter Hardened Leather, or (for the "brown" horses) GW Contrast Miltarum Green to go over and pick out the now-white straps and reins, using these two paints to also "blackline" the reins and make them stand out against what was usually some variation of tan or brown horse flesh. 

This (I think) looks effective, and is pretty easy to do quickly - unlike, say, Essex horses where the straps and really well defined and stand out some way from the horses themselves, which requires more careful painting to not look messy.

 I also did a lot of variation in the saddle cloths - of course this is mostly hidden when the riders are on, but it is not hard to do and gives them that little bit extra pzazz if you do look closely at the finish figures.

 And here are some of them now:

These are "included commanders" - a mix of all sorts of packs of figures really.

 

My "system" for these has been to put at least one "armoured" horse on each base to denote "Elite Heavy Cavalry".

Pretty much  all of these riders have metal armour using ArmyPainter Enchanted Steel, which for this army I then toned down with a wash of ArmyPainter Dark Tone on the metalwork, as for some reason the Enchanted Steel was coming out more pale grey than usual (perhaps the heat of the last few weeks?) 

I've not gone for striped windsocks, mostly as I find they can easily ends up looking like a refugees from Finding Nemo. 

These are two bases of Medium Cavalry Archers - the lack of metal armour on the riders bodies, all three horses being unarmoured, and having a firing, bareheaded bowman on each base being the visual clues for myself and my opponents.

On the far set of horses the "self-blacklining" effect of the ArmyPainter Leather on the straps can clearly be seen. The fronts of the horses are where the casting of the reins seems to go most awry, but luckily most of the horses are "head down" so on the tabletop it's barely visible if at all. 

I've also tried to keep to a muted palette on these - mostly tans and khaki-greens with the occasional splashes of colour with a blue cloak or ed tunic here and there.

Many more to come !