The Persians are Coming!

Last month my mostly-Legio Heroica 15mm Sassanid Persian army fought its way out of the Bisley storage cabinet* for the first time in almost 8 years (!!) to conduct a 5-battle campaign against a number of fairly historical foes at the Roll Call competition in Cranfield.

All of the many highs (and lows) of this sequence of military misadventures have now been painstakingly captured and lovingly crafted into a semi-coherent wordy and verbose narrative for your delight and delectation, and are even now available on Madaxeman.com.

These include three battles against the Sassanids arch-enemies the Byzantines, as well as a Sassanid Civil War and a somewhat time travelling faceoff against the might of the Fatimid Caliphate.

You'll see Elephants, Camels, fierce hill tribesmen and well-drilled Roman-style cavalry whirling across a number of tabletops, all with the added bonus of all of the in-stream historical videos, dreadful puns, partially-relevant animated GIFs, and vague attempts to explain the rules of the game that you may by now have come to love and dread in equal measure. 

There are - of course - also a great many photos in which you can see what the soldiers are saying and thinking on the tabletop, blatantly false and self-congratulatory summaries of the battle from the Great Shah, and all topped off with the usual bitingly acerbic analysis from Hannibal himself.

So, pour yourself a cup of Iranian tea and get ready to dunk into the un-digestive-able narrative that is 5 all new Sassanid Persian battle reports on Madaxeman.com!  

(* That link to eBay is an Affiliate Link. If you buy something after following it I get a small commission from eBay)

3D Printed Numidians

 Another week, another dabble with 3D printed models.

This time it is some 15mm Numidian cavalry from the 3D Breed March to Hell range, which I picked up as I have never really been happy with the mix of Essex, Baueda and Old Glory Numidians that I already own. 

So, having flogged off some of the metals as part of an eBay sale I then spent some of my ill-gotten eBay gains to pick up some of these prints mostly to see what this now well-established and well-known design shop (is that the right wording?) could offer. 

And here are the results:

I did this as a set of 4 to see how they worked initially.

Horses are mostly done in GW Contrasts - Aggaros Dunes, Gore-Grunta Fur, Templar Black and then the grey is Warlords Speeedpaint Holy White.

The rope "bridle" is also a Speedpaint, hardened leather - all done with white base coat.  

The horses are lovely sculpts - the riders come as separate pieces and I was immediately fearful of the spears as they are thin and rather brittle, to the point I was a little nervous about snipping off some of the "flash" even with a sprue cutter. 

 

These chaps have rather luxurious hair - David Ginola must have had Numidan ancestors somewhere down the line! 

They are a well animated bunch and take paint nicely too... however ... 

... whilst taking them outside for some spray matt varnish I dropped them onto a wooden floor from I guess just over 3 feet up... and this was the sad outcome:

 Yes, every single one broke off its base at the ankles, with a couple also suffering further damage to the horses legs - some very tiny bits of which I knew immediately that I would never find. 

One of the riders also lost the upper part of a set of javelins which he was holding in his shield hand too - but that I did spot and managed to reattach.

To be fair they all went together again with some superglue pretty easily, but that does no doubt mean they could also break again pretty easily too. I've therefore put only minimal magnabase on the bottoms of these units, as they don't need to be desparately gripping the bottom of the tin to stay in place as the figures are so lightweight anyway. 

Once I start doing the full set of 24 my plan is to try and base them up such that the horses and riders can be glued together at some hard-to-see point, giving the entire base a bit of extra stability and structural integrity in the process.

So, in summary, these are very nice figures, and a real upgrade on my rather old metals - but the combination of "materials" and "design" for these 3D prints still perhaps isn't quite there as yet to make them robust enough for butterfingered wargamers like me!

The Skoutatoi

If you'd been worried that I hadn't posted any pictures of Byzantines in 15mm for a couple of weeks, then worry no more, as here come the Skoutatoi for my Byantine army! 

FiB tend to chuck in a couple of extra figures into each "24" blister pack, to leave the officers and standard bearers as extras.  

I used the extras up by making a couple of bases with 5 spearmen in the front rank rather than the usual 4, with the theory that I can occasionally use these bases as "supported spearmen", or just call them even more Skoutatoi as needed, depending on the design of the army list.

Shields are of course LBMS transfers, sold to me by Forged in Battle. 

This padded armour is Warlord Games Blood Red from their Speedpaint set.

TheLBMS transfers are smaller than the shields by some margin, so these blue 'blokes face' ones I painted in with a dark blue (and also a mached red) up to the edges of the shields.

This armour is GW Aggaros Dunes contrast type paint. One of my favourite contrast colours. 

These rather odd looking shield transfers seem to be missing a bit  - possibly a cutout for a shield boss? 

Anyways, as they too didn't reach to the edge of the shield I painted in a red edge to each shield before sticking on the transfer (which already has a red edge...)

That also didn't really look right, so I then added an outer edge of yellow with an AK paint pen, which I am finding is much easier to use for touchup than a brush.

This armour is GW Militarum Green - a contrast type paint.

Viewed from above this close up you can see a load of casting lines that I perhaps should have spent more time shaving off .. but, "three foot rule" and all that I guess ?!

An extra shield transfer was cut down and used for the standard bearer. 

Some "Yuge" War Wagons !

 Having sold a few of the textbook Essex War Wagons in recent years, I've accidentally drifted back into owning more than I will ever probably use as a result of picking up some because they looked interesting, and more latterly being given some 3D prints as giveaways along with competition entry. 

Mixing metal ones from different manufacturers, 3D prints in resin and even an MDF one does however lead to some serious variations in scale, or perhaps more accurately, "size" between the different ranges - and that is very much reflected here! 

This one was a 3D print handed out to competitors at the Akra Leuka Tournament in Alicante in January 2025.  I've added some Essex & Mirliton crew who are sort of randoms, all picked out of the bits box. The wagon is enormous and I needed to sit the crew on 2 lolly sticks to give them the extra height to see out. 

This cute little box on wheels is the Fireforge MDF kit of a 15mm war wagon. The wheels are a bit "Fred Flintstone" and it comes without the oxen, again from the bits box (I think Mirlitons Carroccio wagon comes with 4 which was too many to fit on a base) so these have at least got some wagon-pulling experience in a previous life

The lid of the Fireforrge MDF kit does however lift off, and they supply this folded-out lid that becomes a pavise shield thingy too. Even so its a huge blocky wagon.

Here is the 3D print and the MDF kit side by side. 

And, for a contrast, the 3D printed wagon and a Museum wagon side by side. 

I guess I know which one I'd prefer to be defending!

From the other side the sheer scale of the folded-out roof on the 3D print is even more striking.

Here is the front-on view. No room for horses or oxen on an 80mm long base with the 3D print.

This is the Museum wagon. They are ridiculously good value, especially in the annual Museum sale when you can pick them up for under £4 each.

Having draft horses as well is a bonus - my bits box is only so deep after all!

This is the 3D print again - the flag is one I Googled looking for a Hussite Flag

The imposing wall of defence - ideally they will only attack from this side!

I haven't glued the crew in though, so if needed they can turn around as a block of 4 and fight over this side too.

All in all a real mix - I suppose there is no reason all "wagons" would be the same size (unlike say, people or horses) but if I do get these all on table at the same time I am sure some eyebrows will be raised nevertheless!

Grab a Toblerone and head to Farnborough!

 Yes, after a somewhat lengthy delay the 5 battle reports from the L'Art de la Guerre competition at Warfare 2024 have finally made it to these pages, allowing you to see the Swiss army in all its glory!

In a series of 5 consecutive High Medieval battles the Gnome of Zurich leads his cheese-eating, cowbell-donging merry band of men with (long pointy) sticks into action against the Scottish Schiltrons, the Reconquering Medieval Spanish, the pecunious mercenary Free Companies, the even more monetarily-focused Condottieri, and finally the highly efficient Medieval Germans.

  

In each battle the highly complex and over-engineered Swiss plan unfolds in full Alpine Cinemascope, accompanied by ferocious yodelling and a faint whiff of burnt fondue

All battles come complete with speech bubbles, bizarre captions, and a series of FACTS to educate you about the lesser-known aspects of the Swiss Pikemen of the Medieval era! 

  

Pull up a Toblerone, log out of your secret bank account and take aim at the apple-on-the-head delights of these 5 full Madaxeman battle reports featuring a 15mm medieval Swiss army in all its technicolour glory! 

ADLG Renaissance: The Basics

 I've finally gotten round to recording a few ADLG-R videos with Simon LeRay-Meyer, in which we look to work through the basics of the system with a particular focus on explaining the differences to ADLG Ancients.

They are now all posted on YouTube and also here on my website 

The main areas covered are to do with how double-width bases for infantry formations in the Renaissance version actually work. 

This is all pretty simple once you get your head around how they work but can trip up someone who is familiar with ADLG Ancients if you are not mindful of what and why they are deemed necessary in Renaissance ADLG

The videos are a bit of an experiment using my webcam and recorded very simply on Zoom, so the quality isn't exactly top notch - but hopefully we manage to be chatty and engaging enough to carry you through that, and in so doing manage to get across the key ways in which these double units actually work and operate on the battlefield.

Here's hoping you make it at least half way through ! 

Rebasing 15mm figures for use with ADLG Renaissance

I've just uploaded a new video to the Madaxeman YouTube Channel, showing the process of rebasing some 15mm Renaissance wargames figures from "DBx" bases (40mmx20mm) and rebasing them into (the really cute!) integrated Pike & Shot units that are used for L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance.  

The video is pretty straightforward (OK, "basic") and takes you stepwise through a set of simple techniques for quickly and effectively rebasing 15mm (or any scale really) figures that would work for any change from one ruleset to another.

Rebasing can often seem such a huge PITA that any ruleset that requires rebasing is instantly discarded, but I've now come to accept that it can be necessary, isn't that painful to do, and does actually leave me with better looking bases than the ones I was making 20-odd (or more!) years ago.

If you are baulking at the thought of rebasing troops for ADLG-R then hopefully this video will give you some confidence that it's not a life-threatening operation, and instead can be done quickly and easily to generate good end results. 

And let's face it, these single units on 80mm x 40mm bases look really cool, and if you are honest with yourself you already have far too many 15mm Renaissance Pike and Shot based for other systems, so changing just a handful of 'other system' units will give you the half-dozen or so Pike & Shotte units you will need to play pretty much any nationality in ADLG-R (if you slot different flags onto the pikes)

ADLG-R is a semi-official mod of ADLG written by Simon LeRay-Meyer and can be downloaded from the "files" section of the L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance Facebook Group.

Charlemagne in a Shed: The Carolingians at Warfare 2023

In a near-miraculously quick turnaround I've now conjured up all 5 battle reports from last weekend's Warfare 15mm L'Art de la Guerre competition, featuring the on-table debut of a post-lockdown-painted Carolingian army under the command of the one and only Charlemagne himself.

The reports all feature a wildly aggressive approach to gameplay, hurling lancer-armed almost-Knightly Caballeri against pretty much anything that stands in their path and sitting back to watch the results unfold in the usual full-contact cinemascope fashion.

The reports as usual come complete with army lists, commentary from Hannibal, random speech bubbles which bear little if any relationships to the action going on at the time, dreadful cod-French, and some tenuously connected music videos too (including one from Christoper Lee - yes, that one!).

You can also see some close-ups of the Baueda and Forged in Battle figures themselves, and find links to all of the army lists of my 5 gracious opponents too.

Read on to see how Charlemagne's campaign of conquest ended up !