Sassanid Persians and Byzantines

I am in the process of replacing my Sassanid Persian and Byzantine armies.   I did have armies composed of figures from Heroics and Ros, but sold them to another club member a while back.  I would have kept them, but the figures were based on outdated information.  Currently only Baccus makes updated figures for Sassanid Persians.   Unfortunately they do not make Early Byzantine or Maurikian Byzantine figures.   However, with a bit of painting and adding shields to the armored horse archers and the lancers on unarmored horses the figures will pass for Byzantines.

The following pictures are of the 180 Sassanid Persian armored horse archers and the 72 Byzantine cavalry on partially armored horses.   I still have 180 armored lancers to paint for the Sassanid Persians, 144 armored horse archers for the Byzantines, and 144 lancers on unarmored horses for the Byzantines.

To distinguish the Byzantines from the Sassanid the Byzantine cavalry will have iron armor for the partially armored horses while the Sassanids will have bronze armor for their horses.  I also gave the Byzantine cavalry red standards and shields while the Persian standards and shields will be in multiple colors.   I did try reducing and printing shields from the Notitia Dignitaum, but the images would not print clearly.

 The Byzantines

The Sassanid Persians