Egyptian Chariots- Divisions Re and Ptah

It seems like I've been working on these chariots forever, but they are finally done! I think Chariots must be among the most time consuming models to make in our hobby, requiring gluing together of the vehicle, painting it, painting the horses, then assembling it all together, and then finally painting and affixing the crew figures to the cab of the chariot. Still, this website, which gives interesting details regarding the construction of the lightweight Egyptian chariots, states that it took modern German carpenters roughly 600 man hours to manufacture a chariot using methods that the ancients used or may have used.

The first four are by Esssex (28mm):

The Green color identifies them as being from Division Ptah in my scheme. Probably not too historical, but makes it easy to tell the units apart!

The Essex horses are larger than the Old Glory ones; for once the smaller horses are probably more accurate, this being the early centuries of horse breeding! 

Another pair of Chariots from Division Ptah.  I played around with the settings on my aged Nikon Coolpix 800 Digital SLR camera, trying to get the colors more accurate and allow slower shutter speeds; overall, I'm probably better sticking with the standard automatic settings and then re-balancing them!  :-)

In the earlier photo, the colors of the Chariot are right, but the ground cloth is too drab. Here, the ground cloth colors are better but the figures are shifted a bit too far into the green spectrum!

Rear view of these Essex Chariots - one w/ Prince, one regular. 

The arrangement used to yoke the horses to the chariot is somewhat different in these models form that used in the Old Glory ones later. 

A pair of Old Glory Chariots from Division Re (yellow distinctive color). 

Rear view; the purple accents are probably again a bit over the top!

Bronze scale armor for these horses!

A final Old Glory Chariot from Divison Re; this one will pair with the Pharaoh's chariot, hence the white horses. 

Contrast the color balance in this shot....

with this one. Again, the colors of the figures are better here, and the ground cloth is better above!

A shot looking down from atop a  Palm tree at the passing Chariot.

All seven new chariots in line - added to the nine I already have done, that makes 16 chariots total!

Ready to trample some Cananites and Sea Peoples in our Historicon game in July!  

Here's a link to a really fascinating and well done NOVA episode reconstructing 2 Egyptian chariots, and testing them out, including shooting from the maneuvering chariot. Well worth the 52 minutes to understand the sophistication of the design! There are some other short (5 minutes or less) links there about composite bows, other Egyptian weapons, and Egyptian leather scale armor, also well worth the a short viewing!

Finally, taking advantage of the ongoing clearance of Essex Miniatures at Wargames, Inc, I picked up figures for another Light Infantry unit, slingers this time, and also 2 more MI archers and a few High Command figures. I don't need them for my Historicon games, so they won't get painted until much later this year!

Peter