DBA IV/31 Nikaian Byzantine Army

As previously blogged, last May at the Cangames DBA Open Book Tournament I placed second and won an Essex Miniatures Nikaian Byzantine (IV/31) army pack.  Patrick Laffey provides an excellent commentary of the tournament from the POV of the Chanca (IV/70) Commander in the September 2010 issue of Slingshot (No. 272), The Journal of the Society of Ancients. In the article, I was one the four opponents he faced in the competition.

Nikaian Byzantine Army

With Cangames rapidly approaching I felt I should open the package and make the army battle ready. It will accompany my troops to Ottawa next month and will be made available as a loaner. As per DBA 2.2 the army consists of just 12 required elements, represented by Essex Miniatures by the following figures.

1x 3CV (Gen)  1 EMED43 (Cv General) with 2 CRU28 Bodyguard        

1x3 CV            3 EMED43

2x 3Kn             3 MID10  Kn (Franks) and 3 MID89 Kn (Eastern)

4x 2LH            4 CRU30 LH(Cuman) and 4 MID88 LH (Turkopoloi)  

 1x 4Sp             4 BZA25 (with Psiloi rear rank)

 1x 4Bw            4 BZA26 (with Psiloi rear rank)

2x 2Ps              4 CRU32 (See above photos)

David Kuijt provides justification for expanded army lists for a number of the Later Byzantine Armies.

His variants may be found at Medieval Armies DBA Page

Later Byzantine Armies: DBA 153 Army Variants

With those comments in mind, I purchased another 19 infantry figures which fellow blogger Sean of,  I was a Teenage Visigoth fame had offered for sale. Check out his blog .