Kitbashed Arabs... the project at half way through

During the rolling, seemingly endless series of lockdowns and partial lockdowns in 2020 followers of my blog and website will know that I've been gradually building up an "all options" set of Arab troops to make up armies for L'Art de la Guerre in 28mm. The aim is kinda to mirror the 15mm Arab armies that I've enjoyed using in various competitions over the last few years, but also to try a couple of new things along the way - kitbashing and using GW Contrast paints. 

Having - of course - bought far too many figures for the army I decided to start by mainly concentrating on the cavalry first, with a few excursions into infantry for variety.  This set of 50-odd photos you can now access on my site is the first tranche of all of those figures, made up from 5 boxes of plastic figures all mushed together.

What you can now see here is a set each of Gripping Beast's Arab Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry, a Fireforge Mongol Cavalry set and two boxes of Gripping Beast's latst Gothic Heavy Cavalry - which are basically armoured lancers on cataphract-style fully barded horses.

Over the next few weeks you will see more of the cavalry on display - and perhaps more of the infantry as well if I get cracking on finishing them too.

Link to the page with all the photos here:

Listen to the 48th episode of the Madaxeman.com Podcast in which I talk about these figures a little (as well as other stuff)

Hungary vs Spain in Medieval Tabletop Simulator action

 Another Tabletop Simulator battle report, this time in full HD with a 200 point L'Art de la Guerre matchup featuring List 238 Medieval Hungarian vs List 228 Medieval Spanish is now on my YouTube channel. 

The gameplay has been speeded up around 8-fold to allow the whole battle to be watched in just over 20 minutes, and includes a running commentary describing the action from the Hungarian sides' point of view. 

There are also photos of the 15mm Essex Miniatures Hungarian army I painted during lockdown, and a review of both army lists being used as well. 

Episode 47 - The Lockdown Crew are back in Podtown

OK, perhaps that's a smidge overdramatic, but with the shutters coming down on social gaming across the UK right now it seems like the right time to toss another podcast into the ether for your indoor painting-accompaniment over the coming week.

This episode sees all 7 regular contributors Zooming in, with an increasingly un-rare unplanned guest appearance from Mrs Andy yet again stealing the show early doors. As well as a gallop through everyone's painting achievements, we attempt to dip a disconcertingly long toe into the garlic-infused pond-water that makes up the Bataille Empire ruleset, and of course there is a return for yet another innuendo-laden episode of Andy's Quiz. 

In an effort to ease you back in gently this episode only runs to just over an hour - there will be more next week... 

Video walkthrough : Vikings vs Carolingians on TTS for L' Art de la Guerre

My second video walk-through of a 200 point game of L'Art de la Guerre played on Tabletop Simulator has just gone live on the Madaxeman.com YouTube channel, this time featuring the Carolingians of Charlemagne vs one of their main historical foes, the Vikings.

The video includes some snippets of "real-figures" eye candy and also a brief demonstration (at the start - you don't need to watch the whole thing!) of how you can very easily customize existing units in TTS.

Arab WiP - starting to get the first few done

 As well as experimenting with contrast paints on infantry and horses I have gotten a few bases close to completion already - I find finishing some of them early helps motivate me to do the rest production-line-style, as it gives me an idea of what I'm looking to achieve:

The first lot are a couple of sprues of Perry Sudanese infantry, here representing the ADLG "Impetuous Swordsmen" Tribal or Indian troops that many Arab armies have as a cutting edge to their infantry attack.

They are sprayed with Army Painter Leather, then the flesh has been inkwashed twice with ArmyPainter Dark Tone. The clothes are a base of white with diluted Softtone, GW Contrast Skeleton Horse or Nazdreg Yellow.

The Sudanese haircuts are a lttle distinctive on these, so I tried to use as many bald heads as I could from the sprues instead.

From the back you can see a couple of colourful "belts"to give them a smidge more colour. 

This is a finished Commander base - the horse is pale grey with a white wet-brushed coat on top, the armour is drybrushed ArmyPainter Gunmetal over black, and all of the cloth has been done with Contrast Paints.

The Talassar Blue on the cloak is a fantastic colour. 

The shield was cast-on this metal figure so I sadly couldn't use transfer and had to improvise this half-hearted peacock style thing

He's now ready for sand to be added to his base.