Cangames 2013 and the People's Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award is the only award offered at Cangames 2013 for painting figures.   At the Sunday evening awards ceremony, I was extremely pleased that one of my two entries was selected as the people’s choice. It was in competition with 15 or 20 other entries. 

The award is a $25 Cangames Certificate which I can use it at any Cangames vendor or with the Cangames organization itself.

Compared to many of the Blogs I follow, My paint jobs don’t measure up, but I paint in order to play. The photographs of the miniatures on my posts display many imperfections, but my figures easily stand up to the three foot rule, which is how they were judged. 

The winning entry was the Nikaian Byzantine Army (DBA IV 31) that was loaned to Paul for use at the DBA open book round robin competition held immediately after the awards ceremony. In 2010 I won this army for a 2nd place finish in the same tournament. 

I was told that it was the first time in many years that a historically based unit (or figure) was chosen as the winner. In recent years the award has gone to fantasy figures.

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 .