Rome 2's penultimate playable faction rides armored horses across the desert

I kind of tuned out of Rome 2's faction announcements after personal favorites, the Arverni and the Suebi , were announced, but if you've been holding out for some Eastern flavor, today is your day.

, were announced, but if you've been holding out for some Eastern flavor, today is your day. Joining the aforementioned barbarian badasses, their Icenicousins, and the imperialist dogs of Rome, Macedon, and Carthage, the Parthian Persians enter the fray from the previously-shrouded, right-hand side of the map.

"A confederation of tribes, Parthia is famed for its horses, nomadic horse-archers and heavy cavalry," the new faction pagereads, continuing, "the latter developing distinctive bronze or iron scaled armour which covers both horse and rider. For its infantry it relies on ethnic Persian/Iranian hillmen, spear and skirmisher units and sometimes mercenaries, armed and drilled in the Seleucid fashion."

Long-time Total War fans will be familiar with horse archers as the most annoying thing ever invented in human history. It seems we will not be spared their wheel of death in Rome 2. The Parthains are also bringing some Zoroastrian flavor to the battlefield, which basically demands that you name at least one of your generals Farrokh Bulsara (the birth name of Freddie Mercury, the most rocking Zoroastrian of the last 1000 years.)