Also sprach Zarathustra

After another succesful campaign a bunch of warriors from Cyrus' army went to consult the ancient Oracle about the future of their country.

"Lo, thy empire will rise, and it will fall, and it will rise only to fall once more. New gods will be invented, and rivers of blood will flow in their name. And at last, twenty-five centuries from now, when things seemingly calm down for a bit, the most coveted treasure will be Earth’s own dark nectar, drawn from the deep veins beneath the soil. And because of it, the rulers shall be unseated again, then again, and new dark clouds will shroud this land under the barbaric theocracy of the ayatollahs followed by a challenge from the ignorant idiocracy of the magatollahs".

"The oracle is cranky today" said one of the warriors. He shrugged and treated himself to a salted roasted pistachio.

So here's my take at the ancient warriors of the Achaemenid Empire, loosely based on the depictions on reliefs in Susa and Persepolis. They can be used as generic "middle east" combatants as well. Get them in the repository (new link!).

• Persian warrior - pose taken directly form the reliefs believed to be depicting the "immortals"

• Persian archer

• 2 Persian spearmen with shields

• a ruined wall with the Faravahar, the famous Zoroastian symbol.

Next: going down in the trenches.