Biblical at Brixham 2025
Sea Peoples ... by the Sea!
Game 1 Sea Peoples vs Syria, Canaan and Ugarit
Game 2 Sea Peoples vs Oman and Gulf States
Game 3 Sea Peoples vs Assyrian
Game 4 Sea Peoples vs New Kingdom Egyptian
Game 5 Sea Peoples vs Assyrian
At Brixham in 2025 the theme of the event was a sort of Biblical one, with a few extra armies thrown in from the early part of the rest of the books for good measure.
I didn't really manage to take enough photos to populate "proper" match reports over the weekend, and with lots going on in the weeks after the event the battles have largely faded from memory by the time I have gotten around to looking at the photos and results as well - but rather than have some of what are actually a pretty cool set of photos be lost in the ether, I've posted them all here anyway with some pretty lite commentary as well.
The key thing I do remember is that I had taken Sea Peoples, as the latest attempt to pick a list which is little-seen, can provide my opponents with an entertaining game, and most importantly is unlikely to allow me to unduly trouble the trophy engravers in an event that I'm actually running myself
The list was as follows:
Libyan Ally - Competent
1 Warriors Medium Swordsmen Impetuous ------
2 Light Infantry Light Infantry Javelin ------
1 Bowmen Bowmen Mediocre
2 Warriors Medium Swordsmen Impetuous Elite
1 Warriors Javelinmen ------
2 Light Chariot Light Chariot Bow Elite
==
Brilliant
2 Retinue Heavy Swordsmen Impetuous Elite
2 Light Chariot Light Chariot Javelin Elite
6 Common Warriors Medium Swordsmen Impetuous ------
2 Javelinmen Light Infantry Javelin ------
2 Levy Levy Mediocre
==
Ordinary, Included, Unreliable
4 Retinue Heavy Swordsmen Impetuous Elite
2 Javelinmen Light Infantry Javelin ------
The vague theory of this list was that the HI (of course) go down the middle, and hope to face off against as many chariots as possible who will be drawn towards them to protect their own infantry, with the two big wings then putting out enough infantry to swamp anyone they face, even taking on enemy Light chariots with sheer numbers. It is also big enough to take a lot of punishment.
It of course also fitted around what figures I actually owned - my Sea Peoples army being mostly Fighting 15s figures, with the Heavy Infantry being a mishmash of pretty much all of the "biblical" figures I had left over from consolidating a FoG/DBM New Kingdom Egyptian army down into an ADLG one + "bits" many years ago
The lists for the Sea Peoples and the other armies from the event at Brixham can be seen here in the ADLG Wiki.
So, off we go with Game 1 vs a Syria, Canaan and Ugarit army
Putting the Sea People on table for almost the first time was quite entertaining - they certainly looked the part of being a biblical horde, especially as my opponent's army was on the small side - and doubly so as there was a Waterway on table on my left!
With a flank march missing the Ugarits were short of Heavy Chariots - the bane of a Sea Peoples army, allowing me to flood forward in numbers
The massed Medium Foot were overwhelming the Ugarit centre pretty much immediately, supported by the more resilient Heavy Infantry too
By the waterside the too-few Sea People chariots were just hoping to hold off the enemy Light Chariot wing for long enough for the swordsmen to overrun the enemy centre. Heavy Infantry warriors drifted left to help block the enemy chariots into the corner.
Battle was joined as soon as I could manage it in the centre
This was very much the Sea Peoples ethos I was aiming for.
Put down a Waterway, then charge everything not on wheels almost immediately
The enemy Light Chariots on my left were unusually reticent about mixing it in combat for some reason.
This was great news for my squishy Medium Swordsmen !
In the centre the tidal wave of Sea People warriors was washing over the defences of the Ugarit foot
Yes, I was taking losses, but that was par for the course once these guys hit the beach
The handful of archers in the Sea People army had done some sterling work against the Ugarit Light Chariots, causing them to fall back and regroup - and keeping them from running down my fragile infantry for a little while longer too.
The Ugarit flank march finally arrived - four Heavy Chariots who really should have been on table from the start, as the Sea Peoples had almost nothing to answer them with
People from the Sea!
No doubt encouraged by the arrival of their colleagues, the Ugarit left wing chariots returned to the fray and charged home too
Unsurprisingly perhaps this was an immediate success, washing away great slabs of the Sea People infantry at a stroke
But in the centre the Ugarit infantry had been totally wiped out, exposing their baggage to a highly appropriate Sea Peoples raid that saw it captured before the flank marching Heavy Chariots had found any targets at all.
And with that the game ended in a Victory for the Sea Peoples, winning 86-24
The next game was against the camel hordes of the Omani's and Gulf States
With a lot of mounted troops and nowhere to hide on this table, it looked like this would be a battle where the Sea Peoples Medium Fpoot would just have to suck it up and try their best to hold on.
The Omanis had barely any visible infantry - everything could run down Medium Foot in the Open
Fear of Camels would also hamstring the handful of Sea People chariots - leaving their few in number Heavy Infantry with a lot to do!
All I could really do was keep a coherent line and make sure the Heavy Foot were in the centre.
To add insult to injury the Omani infantry swept forward, supported by Camels, and swept away the first line of Sea People / Libyan warriors
Losing to the enemy foot was not part of a winning battle plan
But at least I had numbers and width on my side, allowing some more of the Libyans to get around the end of the lengthy Omani line.
The Omanis were cutting down the Sea People warriors like harvesting seaweed from a beach
The left flank was the next place to see their defences breached by a tide of desert dwellers
At least the Heavy Infantry warriors were doing the business storming down the centre and driving off the enemy Camelry
Having said that, the wings collapsing was now starting to impinge on the success of my centre!
My success on the right was also starting to have a positive knock-on into the surprisingly still-ongoing struggle in the middle
The Omani infantry had done well initially, but weight of numbers was now tipping the tide here in favour of the Sea Peoples
This was not however the case on the left, where I'd been almost totally wiped out.
With spaces opening up right across the beach, the much faster-moving (and easier to control in terms of pips) Omani camelry really started to take advantage of the slow-to-turn Sea Peoples infantry, surrounding them and attacking them from all sides.
The Sea Peoples
Soon the last remnants of my attacks were isolated and surrounded, and with the baggage under threat from yet more fast-moving camels, the game ended in defeat, with the Sea Peoples losing 85-25
The next game saw the Sea Peoples invading the Lions of Assyria
These Assyrians fortunately had ducked the option for 3-horse Heavy Chariots though, giving them a centre of armoured Light Chariots, which the Sea Peoples infantry could at least aspire to stand up to in the open - of which there was much on this again Waterway-bounded table
The Assyrians wasted no time charging into the centre of the Sea Peoples line - but of course this meant hitting the more resilient Heavy Infantry, which was pretty much teh full extent of my plan for the entire weekend.
Over on the right wing the Assyrians had withdrawn some of their combat infantry, giving the Sea Peoples Libyan allies even more of an advantage in numbers
This gave the amusingly hatted Libyans a greater than usual motivation to rush forward and get stuck in as soon as possible
One camel, even if it was very half-heartedly disguised as an elephant in theory, was not going to scare them off this time
The opposite flank was a bit of a mirror image, with the Heavy Chariot you can see lurking at the back actually representing a Commanders base rather than an actual chariot. THis as a result gave the Sea Persons great encouragement as they stormed up the beach
That encouragement faltered as they came up rather short in their first charge against the Assyrian Mixed Sword/Bow infantry however.
Having neutralized the Elephant/Camel malarkey though, Sea People Javelinmen were now poised to turn the enemy flank and roll them up from the coast (as ordained in ancient scriptures).
In the centre the Assyrian chariots were getting bogged down in the quicksand-like embrace of Sea People close formation warriors and chariotry
The lack of a breakthrough here only cast more focus on the infantry on infantry battles on either flank
Almost everything across the table was by now engaged in a sandstorm of struggle against the waterway of war!
Hold the middle, stove in the flanks seemed to be the right plan to have in this battle - which was lucky given it sort of was my only plan anyway.
The beachside attack was the first to gain decisive advantage, crushing the Assyrians at the seaside with a flood of Sea People warriors ruching up the beach. And with casualties racking up all across the rest of the table, the decisive advantage being gained here saw the second Sea Peoples victory of the weekend, 84-26!
The fourth game saw the Sea Peoples taking on their proper foes - the New Kingdom Egyptians
Yet again useful chariot-unfriendly terrain had managed to avoid appearing in the middle of the beach, leaving the Sea Peoples at risk of being run down by hordes of wheeled charioteers
Faced with this not-unexpected problem the Sea Peoples adopted their standard approach.
Send Heavy Foot and chariots up the middle, flood the flanks with medium foot impetuous warriors and hope for the best.
Of course, the army list doesn't really have enough heavy Infantry in it to fully cover the centre of the field, and the faster moving chariots are pretty good at avoiding them to slam into the more squishy Medium Swordsmen as soon as they can.
The Egyptians had also stuffed an Oasis with their own set of Libyans, teeing up a battle in which both sides could easily simply evaporate on contact text
In the interests of trying to do at least something clever at one point during the weekend, the Sea Peoples also tried to sneak some chariots round the edge of the terrain to so some as yet unspecified malarkey behind the enemy lines.
Suddenly battle broke out all along the frontage of the Egyptian army, with the Sea Peoples really doing their best to give that whole "countless hordes of lunatics appearing from nowhere and attacking like banshees" thing that they were so famous for historically
The ferocity of the assault swept away large swathes of the Egyptian army in a tidal wave of combat, even as other parts of the glass-hammeresque Sea Peoples horde struggled to make headway.
The Libyan on Libyan action was where the battle seemed fiercest
Various types of ethnically suspect headgear clashed in the shade of some cake-decoration palm trees, some of which can be bought from eBay UK by clicking on this picture -->> which uses an affiliate link that may even see me earn a few pence in commission if you click it and buy something on "buy it now"!
Loads of stuff then happened, much of which like the Sea Peoples themselves is lost to the mists of time. The big picture stuff was that the New Kingdom Egyptian Chariotry, after being initially cautious, committed themselves fully to battle and as a results managed to overrun sufficient numbers of Sea Peoples Medium Infantry to tip the scales in their favour right at the death, and as a result this saw the Sea Peoples fall just short of victory to end up with a second defeat - 83-27
The last round saw a rematch against the Assyrians
Rather worryingly though this iteration had far more Heavy Chariots - and again a terrain setup with almost nothing of note in the middle of the beach for the Sea Peoples to take advantage of (and hide in from enemy chariots).
A doomed desperate attempt to storm across the table and reach the safety of an oasis by a mass of Sea Peoples warriors ended rather abruptly when a huge horde of well drilled Elite Assyrian infantry out-raced them to make it through the terrain first.
Who are these peoples?
In the centre, the budget-conscious Unreliable commander was also deciding this was the game he would refuse to take part in, acting instead as baggage guards with the best, most capable parts of the Sea Peoples army under his command.
The inevitable outcome was quick carnage, as the Assyrian Heavy Chariots had free reign to roam around running down hapless Sea Peoples and Libyans wherever they could find them.
Add in a dramatically failed attempt to overrun the Assyrian Guard infantry which also saw huge instant casualties on the Sea Peoples side, and the game was over in double quick time
The Result is a crushing defeat for the Sea Peoples, in less than an hour from first to last move!
Read on for the post match summaries from the Sea Peoples General, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Sea Peoples Commander
Hear me, sons of the surf and daughters of the salt wind! Gather close and listen well, for it falls to me—your commander, your guide, the terror of timid kings—to recount this campaign so that its glory may be properly understood.
First let it be known that the lands of the eastern shore have trembled beneath our coming. The soft-robed princes of Ugarit learned this truth as his warriors marched with shining shields and neat ranks, and were scattered like driftwood before the storm of our blades. Their walls heard our laughter, their fields felt our tread, and their scribes—no doubt—are still struggling to invent words large enough to describe their humiliation.
And the Assyrians—ah yes, the Assyrians! A boastful people, fond of carving their victories in stone before they have earned them. In our first meeting they too learned respect, as our warriors crashed upon them like a winter tide. Their ranks bent, their courage thinned, and their generals surely wondered whether the gods had abandoned them to the fury of the Sea Peoples.
Now… lesser men would speak timidly of the other encounters. But I am not a lesser man, and truth—properly understood—only magnifies our legend.
Consider the Egyptians of the southern river. They did not defeat us through courage, no—rather they relied upon their curious contraptions: those rattling chariots, drawn by nervous horses and driven by men who fear to fight on their own feet. These wheeled nuisances buzzed about the battlefield like flies around a feast. Had the land possessed proper rocky ground, tangled scrub, or the broken hills that honour true warriors, our infantry would have pulled them down like fishermen hauling nets.
But the battlefield—alas!—was treacherously flat. A most unsporting arrangement of the terrain.
The second coming of the Assyrians too saw them resorting to such devices in our later meeting. Their chariots swarmed about us in the open fields, darting away whenever a real warrior approached. I would not say they won the battle so much as they conducted an extended and rather cowardly demonstration of horse-drawn mobility.
Then there were the Omanis. A strange folk. Instead of proper horses they ride great ill-tempered camels—creatures that appear to have been assembled by a distracted god from spare parts. These beasts lope across the sands with infuriating ease, carrying their riders far beyond the reach of honourable combat. Again, the battlefield stubbornly refused to provide the forests, rocks, marshes, ravines, gullies, hedges, or convenient ruined temples that would have allowed us to deal with such absurd animals properly.
Had the ground shown even a little consideration for the needs of my strategy, events might have unfolded quite differently.
Still, let no one say the Sea Peoples shrink from adversity. We fought them all: Ugarit, Assyria, Egypt, and the camel riders of Oman. We crossed their lands like a storm across the sea, leaving fear, confusion, and several very annoyed scribes in our wake. And now, warriors, we return to the waves.
The sea—our mother and our fortress—calls us home. There we shall mend our shields, sharpen our spears, and tell the tale of how the kings of the east required chariots, camels, and the flattest ground imaginable merely to inconvenience us.
Let the coastal cities watch the horizon, for one day the sails of our ships will appear again, rising from the mist like the teeth of the tide. And when that day comes—when the winds favour us and the land finally provides a battlefield worthy of my brilliance—then the world shall learn that this campaign was merely the beginning of our legend.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Good captain of the wandering tide, thy tongue doth foam like a storm-tossed surf, yet thy wits run aground upon the first sandbank of reason.
IN homage to my own Viking spirits, thou hast crossed the breadth of the wine-dark sea, harried kingdoms, rattled gates, and proclaimed thyself the scourge of empires. A stirring tale indeed. Yet I ask thee this most modest question: when thou didst load thy ships and summon thy host, did it never once pass through thy skull—perhaps between the third amphora and the fourth boast—that the lands thou meantest to plunder were famed above all things for their chariots?
The kings of the east ride upon wheels as princes ride upon thrones. The warriors of Assyria scour the plains in chariots like hawks upon doves. The lords of Egypt have polished the art of the chariot as a priest polishes the sacred altar. Even the lesser realms harness horses and wheels to grind invaders beneath them
And thou—bold mariner, terror of fishing villages—didst bring… what?
Spears. Shouting. And a cargo hold full of misplaced confidence
Not a counter to the chariot. Not a thought for its fury. Not even a clever trick with ropes, stakes, or terrain. Thou didst sail boldly into the lion’s den armed with little more than the hope that the lions might be feeling charitable that morning
And then thou art surprised—surprised!—that the chariots of Egypt and Assyria ran through thy ranks like a scribe through soft clay. That the desert riders of Oman, perched smugly upon their camels, circled thee like jackals about a wounded ox
Hannibal Reply
And these endless sea metaphors—waves of courage, tides of destiny, storms of glory. My good man, thou art not at sea now. Thou art upon land. And upon land, wheels outrun waves
Perhaps it would have been wiser for thy people to remain what they once were—mysterious shadows upon the horizon. A rumor whispered by frightened scribes. ‘The Sea Peoples,’ they would say, ‘none know whence they come.
But now the world knows exactly whence you come. You come from across the sea… bearing no answer to the most predictable weapon on earth.
Had I planned such a venture, I would at least have brought something with which to inconvenience the chariot in my Longships. A ditch. A Scandinavian forest. A thousand javelins. A prayer. Anything.
But thou hast chosen instead the bold strategy of astonishment.
So take comfort, admiral of misplaced tides. Thy people have achieved something rare in the annals of war. They have transformed themselves from a mystery… into a lesson.
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
