Blemmyes - an enquiry

Does anyone have a proposed BI list for Blemmyes or a valid analogue from the BI lists?

who the hell are the Blemmyes??

Darklord wrote:who the hell are the Blemmyes??

They were a nomadic people living East of the Nile in the 'Eastern Desert' that stretches from Egypt all the way south almost to Sudan.Also known as the Beja
In the late Roman and later period they sometimes controlled stretches of the Nile south of Egypt.

Their descendants probably include the Hadendoa who produced the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' warrors who fought for the Mahdi against the British and everybody else in the Sudan in the 1880s and 1890s



This is something I did for BI some time back

BLEMMYE OR BEJA 30 BC - 1500 AD
I’m assuming that they were roughly the same people, but it was the ‘Greek’ world that called them Blemmye and the ‘Arab’ world that called the Beja. Most of them seem to have lived in the semi-arid and arid area to the east of the Nile. This is the area fighting occurred during the Sudanese wars in the 19th century and the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies of Corporal Jones or Kipling are Beja.

Prior to 200AD
Type M VBU I VD Notes
1 CM- Cavalry (*) 10 5 2 3
3 FL - Warriors(*) 8 4 2 2
3 S - Archers 8 2 0 1 Short bow B
4 T - Archers 6 3 0 2 Short Bow A


After 200 AD camels came in

Replace up to two FL warriors with

Type M VBU I VD Notes
2 CM- Cavalry 10 4 2 2 Camel


Those Blemmye living in the Nile valley between 400 and 540AD

Type M VBU I VD Notes
2 CM- Cavalry (*) 10 5 2 3
2 FL - Warriors(*) 8 4 2 2
2 FP - Kushite levies 5 4 2 1
1 S - Archers 8 2 0 1 Short bow B
3 T - Archers 6 3 0 2 Short Bow A

Again you can replace up to two FL warriors or two FP Kushite levies (or a combination) with

Type M VBU I VD Notes
2 CM- Cavalry 10 4 2 2 Camel

This looks good. Well done Jim.

It was done before the new BI rules came out but the factors seem to hang together still :-)

Been away from the forum for a while, Jim. My apologies for not acknowledging this earlier.

Thanks for that. It looks pretty much as I would have thought. I blame Tartty for not telling me.

starkadder wrote:Been away from the forum for a while, Jim. My apologies for not acknowledging this earlier.

Thanks for that. It looks pretty much as I would have thought. I blame Tartty for not telling me.

hope you have fun with them

Jim