DBA army I/19: Mitanni, from an Essex army pack

This is my recently completed Mitanni (I/19) DBA army.  All figures are Essex, from their prebuilt army pack.

For this army, I painted quickly instead of looking for perfect results.  The people (infantry and chariot riders) are all flat painted and washed with Army Painter Strong Tone.  When I got to the horses and chariots, I decided not to go with “the dip” and instead used Devlan Mud in some areas and painted highlights elsewhere. 

Mitanni chariotry

Mitanni have 6 light chariots, the most available in any DBA army.  These models don’t match the typical shape of Mitanni chariots available from other manufacturers, but they’re close enough for me. Mitanni was a loose coalition of a variety of different peoples, so they probably had a variety of chariots available as well.

As usual, I found building and painting the chariots to be fiddly and annoying, but I like the way they turned out once I finished.  The horses are a bit bright for this time period, and the colors are based on guessing and assumption more than actual evidence. 

I paint the crew, assembled chariot, and horses separately, and then do final assembly.  I stick the chariots to nail heads to hold them during painting.  This time I was careful to angle the chariots when I mounted them, so they can all line up front-to-back without bumping each other.  The general gets blue on his horses, and points at things instead of shooting them. 

Mitanni infantry

As you can see here, the slingers in the back row are my “stumpy brigade.”  Two of them lost a hand, most likely by being run over by a chariot: I don’t think they had threshing machines in the 14th century BCE.  I was surprised to see that Essex made you assemble the slingers: the sling was separate and had to be glued into place.  Annoying!  I’m also not that pleased with the figure selection in the horde.  I know that product code has more poses, because I used them with my Hittites; but I got a lousy mix, with 3 of one particularly distinctive looking figure.

This army will be a matched pair and an ally to my Hittites.  I purposefully put them on different bases (thin metal instead of thicker wood) than the Hittites, so they will be easy to distinguish on the battlefield despite the similar color schemes (offwhite).