So, I've always had a soft spot for the lost cultures of the world (Dacians, Thracians, Illyrians, Lusitanians, Carthaginians...) but all of this aside, I find the Sarmatians extremely interesting. They spoke an Indo-Iranian language, they supplanted the Scythians in the steppe north of the Black Sea, and they preferred to ride as heavy cavalry cataphracts.
They were conquered by the Huns, and the Goths after them. They were gone by the 8th century. So, how could they have lasted longer? Could they somehow defeated the Huns, could they have revived after the death of Attila, or maybe a Sarmatian migration is needed?
Well, AH, what are y'all's ideas?