Kegworth Codgers - the Battle Reports

 This year's Kegworth Codgers event was themed for the years in which Kegworth Church was (broadly speaking) built, namely 1200-1299, with a mix of Christian and non-Christian armies who would have clashed in Europe and the Middle East being permitted.

With mostly "Christian" armies entered, I opted to balance the books a little with a Berber army, also fitting in 2 Almughavars which were newly painted.

This meant I ended up with a list who's key attributes were a solid core of spearmen, with a more punchy Almughavars + Javelinmen block to take on terrain and elephants (of which it turned out there were none), a wing command with Medium Cavalry Javelin Elite and some supporting foot, and a third command of 3 Impetuous Medium Knights in reserve to find a suitable gap to aim for and punch through - in theory! 

So, with a trip up the M1 achieved, and a decent few pints on the Monday evening before this midweek extravaganza began, The 2025 Kegworth Codgers Competition was soon playing host to the Berbers.

The reports from all 5 games are now available in video format, either on YouTube or on this website.  

Byzantine Cavalry - the never ending army!

 I now seem to be almost there with collecting countless legions of Byzantine Cavalry to allow me to make up almost all of the Byzantine lists in ADLG - this time it's some "kite shielded" very late ones which I think of as being Nikephorian types, but which Forged in Battle seem to have decided are Thematics. 

The product code on their website for these chaps is a bit of a mix of WE-BT03 Middle Byzantine (Thematic) - Kavallarioi EHC bow which provides the archers and horses, and some lance-armed riders from the pack of WE-BT02 Middle Byzantine (Thematic) - Kavallarioi EHC (which look to be exactly the same riders as those in WE-BT04).

Mixing the two packs gives me cavalry units with both bows and lances, which matches their capabilities in the ADLG army lists.  

 Kite shields began appearing in Byzantine art and military texts around the mid-10th to mid-12th centuries, placing them very much in the Nikephorian period, and its those which give these chaps their distinctive look.

These are again using the LBMS shield transfers from Forged in Battle, which have also appeared on some of the Skoutatoi I painted up some time ago. 

Everything here is done with a white base coat, using GW Contrast paints for the brown and black horses, and Army Painter Speedpaint Holy White for the greys as well as a "2nd undercoat" for the one white horse too. 

I may use these as "medium" cavalry, and so I used Army Painter Hardened Leather Speedpaint on the shoulder and body armour that looks like it could be designed to be leather, although there is still quite  a lot of gunmetal - in this case Enchanted Steel Army Painter Speedpaint, which I am becoming a bit of a convert to as it doesn't need a base coat of black to work (unlike my more traditional drybrushed gunmetal approach).

The cavalrymen have base-specific colours on their tunics - this allows me in theory to mix them up across different commands and tell them apart, without being too intrusive or jarring. 

I am still somewhat puzzled by this shield transfer - it looks like it's missing a shield boss or something, but it is a specific transfer for this range and the shields don't have bosses, so perhaps its just a design that I don't quite understand!

The Army Painter Speedpaint Hardened Leather really pings when seen from the back - I also used it for the horses straps and reins, as it self-blacklines really effectively for minimal effort. 

 

Numidian "Imitation Legionaries"

I've been accidentally collecting a Numidian army for many years now, with the most recent addition being some 3D printed cavalry who entered the collection earlier this year. 

With a possible opportunity to use the army in a competition at Warfare 2025, I recently decided that I really did need to add some "imitation legionaries" to the mix to make the army a little more viable - and with Forged in Battle being easy to buy in quantity, and compatible with the rest of my FiB infantry in the army it was their Numidian heavy infantry who got bought. 

These troops were recruited and fielded in the later Punic Wars period, when the Numidians began to adopt Roman military formations and equipment, such as a pilum and shield, and even trained under Roman instructors - or sons of Gladiators if you believe the 2nd installment of Ridley Scott's opus! 

Either way, troops who were trained to fight in a more resilient close-combat style that imitated Roman tactics and capabilities sounded like a good complement to the Numidians' traditional light cavalry and skirmishing types, and here they all are: 

Buying two packs of infantry and basing many of them 7 to a base allowed me to eke out 7 units from the nominally 2x24 FiB blisters, due to the presence of a couple of extra figures. 

As they are not-quite Romans, I wanted to paint them in a non-Roman (ie "not red") palette, so I went with a white undercoat, with Yanden Yellow GW Contrast as the main colour for their tunics. 

The straps were left white, and then done with Army Painter Leather Speedpaint, which I find gives an interesting colour texture, but more importantly pretty much self-blacklines (or "brown-lines"?) on these deeply sculpted FiB figures. 

  

The 2 blisters had a set each of trumpeter, officer and standard bearer, which you can see at the front of this block of all 7 units. 

For shields I wanted to be a bit Roman, but still retain a tribal feel that would match my existing Numidian skirmisher types, all of whom have brown hide-like shields. The compromise I settled on was to paint the shields in a dusty brown (a bit of a mix of various browns) and then add either "tribal" patterns or a knock-off "Roman-style" laurel wreath in a random selection, suggesting that whilst these were still tribal warriors, some of them had made at least a passing effort to impersonate the "Romans " their commanders aspired them to become.

 

The laurel wreath is pretty effective IMO, and even better, remarkably easy to do as its a series of green blobs and half-moons, each half-moon then having a second layer in a lighter shade of green added on top for contrast. 

The Yanden Yellow works really well on these figures too, almost uniform but also very "in the desert" 

 

Here's an officer unit close up - showing how I failed to clean off the static grass before photographing them! 

There are more Numidian figures on this blog / website you can see here:

• Numidan Light Horse in 15mm 
• 28mm Infantry 
• 28mm cavalry
• 15mm Numidian Infantry - Traditional Skirmishers
• More 15mm Infantry
• Numidians in the Photo Gallery

28mm Scythed Beastie!

 "Would you prefer your Scythed Chariot to be a little less noticable Sir? "

"No thanks. It's a bit rubbish in practice, but it does still really scare the sh-t out of my enemies - so I absolutely don't want them to fail to spot it on the battlefield.. "

Yes, that nonsensical, frequently damp-squid-like tabletop staple the Scythed Chariot gets added to my 28mm Hellenistic Successor armies in the shape of a Newline Designs bargain priced Scythed Chariot model.

It's absolutely insane to think that this is being sold for just £10.50, especially when you consider that a Xyston 15mm model of a Scythed Chariot is currently going for £7.50, with the 15mm Essex version at £7.95 !

As you can see here, I accidentally made the cab with the floor upside down (I think...?) so the driver is standing a bit lower than he should be. 

A least it might keep him safer for a little longer than normal...

Here it is in its traditonal role, running down some Foundry Republican Roman Legionaries.  

 Bosh! 

The Bosses - and the Baggage

 Rounding out this expansive run-through of the Tlaxcalan army I finished last month is the 3 Commande rbases, and the ritual sacrifice that is the baggage camp. 

These figures are from the command pack, with a couple of extras tucked in as well to bulk out the retinue of the main leader

The big boss is on a 40mm round, with 30mm rounds for the lesser commanders.

The camp, on an 80x40 base, has as its highlight a... tiki bar-style lighter picked up in Walgreens in Key West many moons ago, and kept for exactly this purpose ! 

The eyes light up in a fiery hue when the top of the statue is pressed. 

OK, so Polynesian tiki statues are not exactly Meso-American but hey, did I mention that the eyes light up? 

The sacrificing guys are 3D prints, for which I must thank Harry, and the baggage carriers are F15's figures from Dave from the Podcast, as he had some spares left over. 

All in all it does a pretty good job IMO. 

The boss will see you now...

The Suits are here to see you now !

 Mad as you like, and twice as dangerous, the Suit Wearers are the Military Orders of the Tlaxcalan army.

All of these figures are kind of dressed in the same suit - a bit like a crocodile onsie if I'm honest - but with a lot of bright contrast paints and drybrushing to pick out highlights I'm pretty pleased to have made them look as varied as they do. 

Doing red "lips" aorund each suits "mouth" was a bit of a faff, but very much worth it IMO.

There were just enough back banners in the army pack to add one to each unit of 6 men. 

Warriors in brightly dyes PJs' - who'dve thought it eh?

Top Tier Nikephorians

 In what may possibly be the final Byzantine Cavalry installment, here are the "Elite" Nikephorian (and perhaps a little later too) mixed bow/lance cavalry all from Forged in Battle.

As with the previous set, these are a mix of archer figures from one pack, and lance armed guys from another, both in the "Thematic" range.

Being half-armoured marks them out on the tabletop as being either "Elite", or "Heavy cavalry" - or indeed perhaps both. 

The colours are the same as for the previous set, although on this picture you can also see some of the bow cases, which are - for no scientific or historical reason - GWs Contrast Akhelion Green, which pools nicely to give a real depth of colour to help pick out the small details of bowcases on these figures. 

I had 8 remaining LBMS kite shield transfers when I did this set, which looked idea - but having cut them all out and stuck them on I suddenly noticed that the trumpeter with the Commander had a hidden shield slung on his back - which meant that this set of 8 was in fact a set of 9 ! 

Mustering all my bravery, a new paint brush, and secure in the knowledge that a shield on the back of a cavalryman would only ever really be seen by me (and from a distance of a couple of feet at best), I attempted to create a "trompe l'oeil" impression of the LBMS design for the vacant shield.

This close up it's clearly not the same, but in all honesty I'm pretty dammed prooud of even being able to get this close - and at tabletop distances with my eyesight its as close to perfect as you can hope for!

The Cortez-inspired Mercenaries

 The Texcalans famously allied with Cortez and the Conquistadores (or perhaps "not" famously, as I suspect many folks believe that Cortez and a couple of dozen men beat the Aztecs on their own?).

In that alliance of Aztec-hating contingents were the Totomac levies and Chinantec levies, both of whom I have made by picking out some distinctive figures and conjured up a unit of each with little or no basis in historical reality - but at least they are colourful and can be easily distinguished from the other Tlaxcallan troops!

I decided to use these chaps as Totomac Levies, as they were so different to the orun of the mill Tlaxcallan warriors that I didn't feel they would mix in all that well anyway. 

 

They have very exuberant head dresses, and I gave them all similar frilly-edged shields from the set that came with all of my purchase from Fighting 15s 

There is more than a sniff of the Xenomorph about them in a weird way, but at least they are obviously different to the regular warriors. 

These guys will play as Chinantec Medium Spearmen - they are all armed with spears, and I gave them a simple almost-plain blue shield as well. 

Given all the other options in the army, they may be a little-used option - or I may even get two bases of Chinantec "pikemen" at a later stage if I can find any suitable figures to use. 

With all of them in red (or pink) romper suits they are very much a distinctive unit.