A visit to the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia is what inspired me to purchase and paint up this army. The ruined temples set amidst the jungle sprawl is enough to awake the dreams of any wargamer, and I highly recommend a visit. I know it is a long way, and some may be leary of Cambodia, but I found the people there the nicest of any place I've visited in my extensive travels. For a travelog, go to my travel web site at: http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedemana/.
These guys are the battering rams of the army. They also happen to be the most colorful part of the army, and I'm very happy with how they turned out. The few sources I'd found stated that their cloth trappings were decorated with flower patterns. So, I used a variety of colors and patterns. Khmer elephants tended to have just a driver and one fighting crewman.
This was my first time I'd painted anything from Irregular Miniatures. I picked them because they were, quite literally, the only choice when I bought the army at Cold Wars 2002. Others make them, but no dealer carried them at the show, so it was Irregular I bought! At first, I wasn't thrilled looking at them in the packs, but after painting, I am very happy with how this army turned out.
The spearmen are the most numerous troop type in the army, and are a looser order variety meant to be able to fight in the dense terrain of Cambodia. I painted their armor as padded cloth, and used bits of Cambodian letters for their shield patterns.
The elite of the spearmen (perhaps), were the Khmer Maiden Guard. I was razzed a bit by the dealer when I purchased them ("Everybody buys the Maiden Guard figures..."). However, they are a documented troop type, and what Khmer army would be complete without them? Some think the Maiden Guard were only in attendence on the king himself, and would thus not be a numerous part of the army.
A mainstay of the Khmer army was its densely formed archers and crossbowmen. When combined with the elephants, this makes the army a difficult one for a mounted opponent to face. There wasn't a lot of painting information on this army, but one feature that was mentioned more than once in my sources was the vests they wore decorated with floral patterns. The crossbowmen can be seen below wearing these type vests.
This was a unique, Khmer weapon called the ph'kak, consisting of a curved blade on a long handle. The neat thing about the Khmer army is that so many of its troop types and weapons are depicted on the carved walls of the temples at Angkor Wat. What the gaming community needs, though, is someone to make a book with lots of line drawing reproductions of the carvings. In all my searches, I've yet to find such a tome.
As can be imagined, horsemen are not a large part of the Khmer army, what with its jungle terrain. However, the Khmer kingdom made the most of its mounted by decorating their horse armor to appear as dragons. I wasn't sure whether this would mean metallic scales or colored ones, so compromised by doing both. The swords on these figs are a little fragile, though, so anyone purchasing them are recommended to stiffen them with white glue or similar.
Completing the well-balanced Khmer army, are infantry skirmishers. These were doubtless meant to act as scouts in the terrain and ordered to harass the enemy before, during and after the battle. Light infantry like this would be essential to an army operating in this climate and terrain.