It's all Greek To Me!

 Back in February of this year, when the weather was chilly and damp (unlike this balmy almost-May Springtime we're getting in the UK right now...?) I headed off to Athens to take in some local gastronomy, hit a few museums, drink some local beer and wine, attend a Greek Super League football match ... oh, and play a bit of ADLG at a "Crusades" themed event held by the Strategikon Club in Athens too!

The gaming parts of this epic weekend saw a rather unusual Later Crusader army take to the field, based around the army commanded by Richard The Lionheart ("Coeur du Lion") at Arsuf and other rather defensive battles, taking on a variety of Feudal opponents across 5 games over 2 days. 

This saw a wall of well protected Crusader spearmen, supported by crossbows attempt to lure successive opponents either to their doom in a vain and futile charge, or to stunning success as the enemy rode down the quivering Crusader sergeants at lance point!

In all cases the action was epic and brutal, and (of course...) the post-game criticism from Hannibal was even more so! 

In a post-event coda, these reports also feature a video walk-through of the Athens Archeological Museum (with some stunning Mycenean stuff), the Greek Military Museum (from antiquity to the near-present day) and a pop-up museum with relics and remains from the decisive battle of Charonea, where Philip established Macedonian control over the Greek peninsula with his defeat of the other Theban-led City States. 

All of the reports, including the usual captions and nonsense are now posted on Madaxeman.com

The Plastic Crack Podcast

 I was kindly invited onto the Plastic Crack Podcast on Monday night as a guest, and had a great time chatting nonsense about all things wargaming-related to the guys.

During the chat quite a few "Madaxeman" and also "Britcon" things came up, so I thought it might be handy to try and pull together some links here so that anyone who hears or sees the podcast and then stumbles across this site will not have to rummage around in the metaphorical bits-box that is Madaxeman.com's menu structure to see what on earth I was taking about!

In no particular order therefore:

28mm Successor Phalanx, a painting and building guide

A recent battle report, featuring the army of Spartacus, plenty of speech-bubble soldiery, and with commentary from Hannibal as well at the end of each report

A mercifully short "highlights package" from the Madaxeman Podcast in which we run through an episode of "I'm Sorry I think You're An Arse" while discussing whether GW paint names have just gone too damned far.

Who Played What, the 2023 review of the UK Ancients competition circuit

A link to the Madaxeman YouTube Channel 

Evidence that I do base AFVs in 10mm and below, (in what was also perhaps my last ever Arrowhead order..)

Rigging Hell! , the Windy Ships starter set and a lot of black cotton

Victrix Galatians, with waterslide transfers from Battle Flag

The BHGS/Britcon stuff is also here:

• The Britcon Web Page on the BHGS site
• Gaming Systems on offer at Britcon 2024
• If you are interested in having a chat about bringing your game or group to Britcon, email me via the BHGS 

You can also listen to the episode on Spotify or watch it on YouTube as well: 

Enjoy!

Roll Call 2024 - The Hittites and their opponents

 This weekend I took part in the 15mm L'Art de la Guerre competition at Roll Call, finishing in a creditable 7th place with a Hittite army which was salvaged from the last knockings of Clive McLeods' collection. 

The army was painted pretty well originally, but had suffered a LOT of battle damage so the end result I think was somewhat of a demonstration of the power of repairing and especially rebasing. More of them can be seen here on this site in an article from a few years ago.  

Over the weekend I played against:

• New Kingdom Egyptians (won)
• Assyrian & Sargonid (won)
• North American Forest Indians (mutual break)
• Mayans (mutual break)
• Achaemenid Persians (narrow loss)

and all the army lists are posted on the ADLG Wiki, so just follow the links to see them there.

My Hittite list was rather driven by what figures I had ended up with, and was:

Strategist

3 Hittite Guard Chariots Heavy Chariot Impact Elite

1 Syro-Canannite Chariot Light Chariot Armour Bow ------

1 Hittite Warriors Medium Spearmen ------

1 Guardsmen Medium Spearmen Elite

1 Archers Bowmen Mediocre

1 Syro-Canaanite & Bedouin Light Infantry Javelin ----

==

Competent Unreliable

1 Hittite Guard Chariots Heavy Chariot Impact Elite

2 Ugarit Chariots Heavy Chariot impetuous ------

2 Hittite Warriors Medium Spearmen ------

1 Slingers Light Infantry Sling ----

1 Bowmen Bowmen Mediocre

1 Levy Levy ------

==

Competent

1 Scout Light Cavalry Bow Mediocre

3 Gasgans Medium Swordsmen Impetuous ------

1 Hittite Warriors Medium Swordsmen ------

1 Syro-Canannite Chariot Light Chariot Armour Javelin ------

1 Syro-Canannite Chariot Light Chariot Armour Bow ----

1 Syro-Canaanite & Bedouin Light Infantry Javelin ----

This list worked essentially an HCh delivery system, with support from the Light Chariots (ie HCv with wheels). 

My theory was that 3 Gasgans are as good as anything else they are likely to come across in terrain in a Biblical period so they would at worst always manage to fight their opponents to a standstill while the Chariots got into contact, and on occasions they would also be able to scare the bejeezus out of any mixed spear or mixed swordsmen they might hunt down and find. 

The Mediocre Bow are cheap and always sat between the 2 Spearmen in each command, keeping any enemy mounted honest with the whole mini block acting as flank guards for each set of Chariots, and doing a bit of long range shooting too in the meantime. 

Medium Spear are a fairly rare troop type usually, but they are decent enough in a Biblical period at standing up to most things, especially the Elite Guard unit. Standing to receive they even have half a chance against Heavy Chariots with Impact, and they widen the two blocks of Chariots considerably for anything facing them. 

I used the Armoured LCh to support the archers shooting, go into any MF alongside the Heavy Chariots, and I found in conjunction with the Gascans the 2 LCh in that command could often charge enemy infantry shooters who had been careful to stay just out of range of the Gasgan infantrymen but had missed the Chariots as a result. 

I was always prepared to commit the troops at evens or sometimes worse odds to pin an enemy in place so the Chariot strike force had enough time to arrive. With only 4 skirmishers in an army of 24, there is more staying power than it looks.

There was no real logic behind not having the Strategist with at one of the groups of Impetuous troops, bit was just a list I had cobbled together a couple of years ago to use these figures at the club a few times to give clubmates Biblical practice games - and as it had seemed to do OK, I hadn't really looked at it properly before submitting it. 

However in all honesty the Ugarit Chariots always wanted to go down the middle and were happy to charge anything anyway, and the MF Gasgans often found they were not Impetuous due to the presence of enemy mounted, so it didn't seem to matter much - and having extra pips for the Strategist command meant it could really motor across the table in wide flanking moves if needed. 

There won't be any reports from this one however - I have a lot of stuff in the hopper right now and I didn't think I could do this one justice so I only took a couple of photos... which are in this post. 

(and when I say I "nearly" beat the Persians, this is what I mean - the only time I've ever seen an army squeeze itself into such a tight space before this has been when their general has been packing them up  into the biscuit tin to take them home at  the end of an event!!)