It's not a good day. The weather is really horrid - wind, rain, hailstones, cold and half-dark. I don't feel very well - I have had belly-ache since last evening, so I didn't sleep well and going for my usual swim this morning was probably unwise.
And my modelling mojo has upped and left. Here's why (sorry, it's not a short story).
I'm not 100% happy with the current selection of 28 mm Sassanid infantry shields. There are those based on the old Peter Wilcox/Angus McBride Osprey (MAA 175 'Romes Enemies (3) Parthians and Sassanid Persians'), and which don't bear any resemblance to either the written sources or the archaeology - Miniature Design Studio and Gripping Beast both do this sort. And then there's A&A Miniatures, who at least made a stab at showing that the shields were made from bamboo and leather interwoven, though their shields are rectangular, rather than the 'pointy rectangle' revealed by the archaeology.
Three more or less complete shields (thought to be Sasanian) were excavated at Dura Europos in the 1920s/30s. One is a stonking great 'pavise' about 5'2" high and 2'6" wide, and the other is a smaller version about 3'4" high and 20" wide. In appearance they're a similar shape to a medieval 'heater' shield. I think it would be really nice to be able to equip my Sassanid infantry with these - perhaps giving the front rank the big ones (which ought probably to come up to the figures' noses when the 'point' is resting on the ground - not wholly unlike the earlier Achaemenid Persian 'Spara) and the rear ranks the smaller version. I think they'd make the units look really 'cool' - as well as being much more satisfactory from the point of view of historical accuracy.
If you want to get the basic idea of what I'm thinking of, there are illustrations in several popular books. The front cover of 'Roman Army - Wars of Empire' by Graham Sumner in the Brassey's History of Uniforms series, shows one. Plate F of Osprey MAA 243 'Rome's Enemies 5, The Desert Frontier' depicts one too, as does plate D of the Montvert Publications book 'Sassanian Armies - The Iranian Empire early 3rd to mid-7th centuries AD' by David Nicolle.
I've found someone willing to cast some for me. All I have to do is come up with a master model. I'm a competent scratch-builder (witness the elephant tower at this link). But somehow, four attempts down the line, this is not working. I can make a scale model, which looks fine. But it is really too 'fine', and the detail probably won't show up when cast, and it'll be a right royal pain where the sun shineth not when it comes to painting it. When I try to make a typical 'wargameified', slightly caricatured version, well, it just looks crude.
So I'm fed up. Having just finished some Romans, I 'ought' to be painting Sassanids next. I thought if I could crack the shield problem, it'd be worth painting some infantry, ready for castings of the new shields to arrive. But it just doesn't seem worth starting on them.
I'm expecting a little parcel from Warlord Games any day now, with the remaining, missing, part from the (Early Imperial Roman) model they want me to paint and photograph. Maybe that'll make me feel better - if it ever arrives - Royal Mail aren't exactly covering themselves with glory right now.