Ćyg°e X°ymenym pai Leg°ege

The Difens Lige fun Benasia (Defence League of Benacia), also known as the Ćyg°e X°ymenym pai Leg°ege (Association for the Home Defence), is a former self-defence group formed in the Republic of Inner Benacia. Suppressed after the arrival of an allied peacekeeping mission in 1666 AN.

History

"A disgusting drunken rabble of verminous half-starved mongrel curs. Mark my words, nought but three square meals is all that lies between this so-called army and a reversion back to outright banditry."

—Yasin Bahadur Khoroushi, Frainan Hohmin of the III Corps of the Imperial Army, upon witnessing Laqi partisans in the field before Highbloom.

The Defence League was formed by the confederal clans in the aftermath of the Shirerithian invasion and the occupation of Nackholm to support the surviving fighters loyal to the Stonetree Pact. Officers were primarily drawn from Yehudi community displaced from the western pocket, now falling under Batavian occupation, as they lacked territorial aspirations that might affect the eastern clans.

The Defence League was Janus-like in facing two ways simultaneously. Since the spear throwing incident many thirsted for a demonstration of martial prowess and revenge against the Kalgachi, whilst at the same time others, the Karalaq especially, harboured fanciful notions of beginning a national liberation struggle in old Lachmodan where the first rumblings of fresh discontent were being felt.

"The RIB folks? No I quite agree... certifiable idiots. They could have had an ally in us, or at least a tolerable neighbour as we are to the Kasterburgers and your estimable selves. But they choose to treat us as their personal dartboard instead. As long as they do, we'll keep killing them - that's all there is to it. If they want to spare their capital the fate of Nackholm, they'd do well to quit this lance-flinging pokazukha and come at us with a more civil head. Not that civility comes easily to their type, I know... in terms of sheer witless effrontery I'm reminded of the spoiled adolescent whose face hasn't yet known a fist - they'll get it from us or yourselves soon enough. More gin?"

—Unnamed KDF adjutant, Sxiro-Kalgachi Military Coordination Council

Added to this, the Yehudi seethed at the loss of Nackholm to a bunch of upstart Voortrekkers stepping through the rubble and crater filled wasteland left behind by Shirerithian obliteration bombing. They in particular could not decide whether they were in a more urgent hurry to slaughter Batavians, or the Imperials, whose miscalculations and brutality had made the advance of the wretched cattle-drovers possible.

The fighting force of the Defence League is an unwieldy amalgam of the surviving followers of Pachad ben Mavet and those Laqi, especially of the Black Brotherhood, who wished to faithfully recreate the asymmetric force with which they had once, briefly, opposed the might of Shireroth. Organisationally therefore it carried marks indicative of both the strength and the weaknesses of those traditions stamped firmly upon its own structure.

The command structure proved to be somewhat schizophrenic, worthy of the unwieldy ethnic coalition that the DLB sought to defend.

• Siyacher Militerischer Kraft (Yehudi)
  • Gikh Atake Grupe (Rapid Assault Group) - armoured car company
• Laxija Aҳatkөrija Әrmija (Laqi)
  • 1a Bagьapš Rjep'әdisma (1st Bagapsh "The Indestructables")
  • 2a Bagьapš Rjep'lirөsma (2nd Bagapsh "The Indescribables")
  • 3a Bagьapš Rjep'taҳarma (3rd Bagapsh "The Indefectables")
• Doppicomando (Tellian)
  • Gruppo di Supporto Aereo - 4 scout planes in urgent need of servicing + 1 helicopter gunship with partially-intact avionics
• 4th Rifle Corps (Mishalanski)

For the most part the DLB comprised of little better than a mishmash of drunken brigands grouped around the tattered banners of old refuseniks who disdained to bend the knee to the overbearing and soft-handed lordlings in Shirekeep nor the troglodytes of Oktavyan and the infernal realms below, and certainly not to the upjumped Batavian chicken-farmers of the west. Their disdain for the alternatives goes a long way towards covering over their lack of affection for each other. Coalitions have been built on flimsier grounds than these.

The Laqi name for a brigade - Bagapsh - is not a direct translation, and its origins are believed to be obscure and esoteric, known only to the sages.

"It has not been possible as of yet to put an accurate figure to their numbers. Certainly their profusion of exotically named brigades and corps is of no help. I am certain that they do not have the coin, nor even the food and fodder, to maintain a regular establishment. More likely there is a small cadre of officers and whatever passes for the non-commissioned amongst them; their numbers swelling only when they call out their kinsmen for a stand up fight or else they are able to draw in a following of bandits lured with the prospect of easy plunder. By no means a professional force, I dare say scarcely even a competent one."

—Emett Gregory, Chief Marshal of the Redcoats

In spite of the ostentatiously racist invective and absolutely studied disdain for the Laqi and other ethnic militias grouped into the DLB a persistent fear, expressed only in whispers amongst Imperial officers and marshals over their port and sherry of an evening, is that these wretches of the green might yet establish contact with their kinsmen in the old country. Whilst the Minarborian Empire had long been scoured of all but the least viable weaponry by diligent Kalgachi scouting patrols, and any number of secreted arms caches had been dealt with by a controlled explosion overseen by disinterested professionals, there remained a veritable treasure trove of old and odd weapons systems that remained unaccounted for after the collapse of Lichbrook. Continuing administrative difficulties between the newly installed Imperial Lieutenants and the daemonic overseers of the Malarborian successor state had delayed any semblance of an effective inventorying and audit. Who knew how many sentient armoured vehicles, scourged of necrotic flesh, lied buried in forgotten burrows scattered across the southlands of Shireroth?

"It's a hard land, and a hard land breeds hard bastards. What fucking chance do you think we have going up against lads who've lived their whole lives under the shadow of the fucking Tee-als?"

—Jared Norsjaldam, An Ahtaldan of the XXIX Legion, executed for propagating defeatism and heresy after making this remark to his commanding Cohort Tribune.