Urartu's War Allies

The logical allies would have been the Scythians and Cimmerians (note 7).

Archeologists acknowledge it as one of the greatest metalworking centers of the Ancient Middle East. They also had fine horses, and developed a formidable army with a particularly good cavalry arm.

What did they look like?

There are some decent plates in Armies of the Ancient Near East (note 8) that come from Assyrian reliefs and from Urartu embossed bronze belts, quivers and armour. The figures can be reproduced from Assyrian (just repainted to add more bronze bosses, for example) and the foot figures could easily be made by clipping the helmet plume on a Greek Hoplite. They apparently used animal heads on their shields, such as dogs, lions, griffons and bulls (note 9).

Urartu managed to divert the Cimmerians westward into Anatolia, and the Scythians went east into Media, but the Assyrians under Sargon (note 10) came marching north and took advantage of their weakness to strip off more territory.

Some Wargaming Thoughts

Urartu had the usual foot spear/shield units, bow armed foot (with specific reference to 25,000 copper shields in one case) as well as 2- horse chariots, and a good horse contingent. Assyria at the time used about 1 chariot to 10 horse to 100 foot, so it is likely that Urartu had about the same ratios. The Cavalry was the cream of their army, and probably should be fractionally better than the Assyrians; the 2- horse chariots were fractionally lighter than the Assyrians.

Arguably, Urartu should have strong mountain-capable elements (light infantry and/or light heavy infantry).

This makes a nice distinctive wargames army, with lots of capability of adding some painting flash.