The Sassanids are coming...slowly..

With the 28mm Goths mostly out of the way now (apart from two dozen cavalry...oops!) these 15mm Sassanid Persians have made it to the top of the pile again after a bit of a hiatus.

The 9 bases of Clibanarii are now all painted and varnished, just needing to be based and the elephants are on their way too.

Most Legio Heroica figures.

The Levy spearmen/horde/mob are going to be in 3 ranks so they can appear either as Mediocre Spear or as a Mob. Donnington elephants in the background - Irregular Levy.

After some dithering I based the Generals on 40mm round bases - they won't be used for other armies and it's a cool look. Not sure I'd be keen enough to rebase any others but for new stuff it makes a nice change. These are Irregular mounted and Legio Heroica foot

The Clibanarii have a bit of a blue/purple theme going on

4 elements of LH and 3 of LH bowmen round out the army - I have the cataphracts already

Copplestone Barbarians sneak into the battle line...

Having acquired a pack of Copplestone Barbarian Heroes earlier this year in a complex shipping and exchange rate transaction involving a man known by many as the scourge of TMP, and which, fortunately, has yet to be drawn into the "Car Wash" scandal engulfing much of Brazil, I have finally gotten round to painting the figures and sneaking them into various 'proper' barbarian battle lines.

Here are the guys - proper 18mm Heroic 15mm scale, on the painting table

Three of them now form part of the front line of my enough for an ADLG army's worth of double-based DBx units of generic Barbarian Gauls and Germans

Two more are faster moving, even with such huge swords, and fight alongside the loose formation Gauls and Britons, again already DBE'ed for ADLG

Were you ever to wish for a mid 80's German Hair Metal band in 15mm, these figures might also make good starting points for a conversion ...  

Two more now fight alongside the Vikings and Rus, as legendary "Northmen" - my theory being that what we recreate on the tabletop is as much based on first hand reports turned into the stuff of legend by retelling over the years - and we're also recreating cool films too - so why not!

And the one axeman in the pack is suitably mad, appearing with some Two Dragons Beserkers

Isn't that a Massive Chopper?

Ready to create legends...  Follow the painting progress of the main batch which these were siphoned from here on the Lead Doesn't Bleed blog

With a spare 28mm figure or two....

.. from my Gripping Beast Plastic Late Romans still lying around, I decided it was a good time to add a 25mm "Heroic" Commander to my Late Roman 15mm armies... and here's the evidence.

This is the in-box Gripping Beast plastic commander figure, together with a standard bearer on a 40mm round base to act as an L'Art de la Guerre General

The standard bearer looks especially glum today for some reason...

He is clearly somewhat lacking the exuberance of his boss.. but he does have an LBMS transfer for his flag, so it's not all bad.

Usual Army Painter technique with matt varnish to finish and a very light pale drybrush.

Here they are with some Later Roman/Byzantine infantry from Strategia et Tactica

Leading from the back in textbook style

Or from the front, making the standard bearer even more unhappy... and showing off the LBMS transfer on his bosses shield as well.

(unusually, these pictures are all clickable and give you a much bigger version)

Double the Roman Trouble in Wales..?

Another year, another Doubles L'Art de la Guerre outing as ADLG became the biggest game in town at the traditional UK Wargaming season curtain-raiser, the Godendingdangdag Doubles in in Sunny Wales.

This year saw the event move out of Usk and into the rather spiffing purpose-built venue at Firestorm Games in Cardiff.

This did mean that most of the games appears to be played on the surface of a battle-blasted alien planet (note to self, bring cloth next time) but other than that it was regarded as a great improvement by everyone who joined in.

But, did the new venue prove a happy hunting ground for our Roman and Judean combination?

Read these 4 map-heavy match reports and see how the Early Imperial Roman & Judean did against the Chinese Northern Dynasties & Chi'ang, the Ostrogoths and Gepids, the Greco-Indians and Kushans and finally Don Alexander the Great and the Classical Indians.

If you ever wanted to know just what the Romans Ever Did For Us, the answer is surely hidden in these 4 reports!

No More Turkey - it's time for Chinese!

Appearing shortly after the festive break, the perfect antidote to too much turkey, stuffing and the inevitable but somehow unwanted cheese course are these FIVE battle reports from Warfare 2016, featuring a Spring and Autumn Chinese army in brutal combat against a range of Biblical-era foes...

Watch in amazement as an order of L'Art de la Guerre appears on the table in Reading for the very first time, and a long-unused biblical era chariot force is taken out of the deep freeze to rumble across the battlefield and poke it's chopsticks at the enemy from close range.

The Chinese take on the Babylonians, Assyrians, Omanis, Carthaginians and the always difficult to spell Aechemenid Persians in 5 brutal tabletop conflicts, all of which have been certified MSG-free, (but which may contain nuts).

The reports are then wrapped up in lettuce leaves and dipped in some classical analysis from Hannibal to counteract the Communist speechifying and propaganda of the Chinese General... so dig in, as you know you'll want some more in half an hour anyway.

Aaah-oooh - it's the Dacians of London Again..!

Fresh from drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics, those barbarian scallywags from the land of Dracula, the Dacians, touch down in Central London for 3 games of Roman-period themed L'Art de la Guerre goodness.

Marvel at how this usually somewhat underpowered army performs against Mithradates, Rome and the Germanic Tribes in three punchy and to the point match reports, complete with the usual smattering of captions and other tosh.

Be warned though, it's not going to be subtle... !

Post Industrial Decay & Fruit Based Drinks – Madaxeman.com plays ADLG at The 2016 Worlds

“The Worlds” – not the one in Derby, but the global historical multi-ruleset gaming tournament that traces its’ lineage back over a decade and which now was occurring up in its’ most glamorous location ever – Charleroi in Belgium.

This year an intrepid team of Central Londoners made the hazardous journey into post-Brexit Europe by trains, planes and automobiles to take on the world in the biggest and most multi-national competition at this year’s event – L’Art de la Guerre, featuring almost 50 players drawn from France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the USA (and us...).

In 6 lavishly (or should that be laddishly?) illustrated match reports you can be astounded by the local architecture, amazed by the quality of painting of the opposition’s troops, puzzled by the near-complete absence of success for the 15mm Condotta army list that did do well in their previous 25mm outing at Devizes, and enlightened by the usual flurry of ADLG hints, rules explanations and insights.

With over 10,000 words, and opponents ranging from as far afield as Han China to as close as a Condotta civil war, these 6 perfectly formed match reports make compelling and convincing reading for anyone considering ADLG, especially those looking for evidence that a game with around 35 DBx bases per side has enough variety in list composition, tactics and general play style to offer repeated playability.

At the end of each report Hannibal is quite rude about my tactics (as usual), a few of the speech bubbles have swearing in them as well (which always goes down well on Frothers), and there is even multimedia accompaniment in the form of a post-event Madaxeman.com Podcast for you to download and listen to whilst painting your next army!

Read on to see how the Condotta did in teeny tiny 15mm scale playing The Worlds Most Popular Competition-grade Ancients Ruleset - ADLG at The Worlds 2016.

The Sassanids are Coming!

For what might well be the first time in almost a decade I've just ordered myself a whole "new" 15mm Ancients army - Sassanid Persian - for ADLG.

To be honest I thought for a short while about just getting some Levy Spearmen, as I have plenty of "Arab" cavalry who could do service as Clibanarii at a pinch, as well as generic Light Horse and Light Infantry, and even some elephants who could be re-crewed easily enough... but a combination of really, really wanting some figures in those a-historical lightbulb hats, and the fact you can cook up an ADLG army in far fewer figures than it takes for FoG made me decide that now was the time to add one of the few truly distinctive armies to the collection. Having said that, I'll be recycling my Greek/Makedonian Cataphracts, or possible the Tibetans ones and also some of the other LF with javelins from other armies. Why go too crazy...?

The shopping list I was working to was based on being able to copy the lists currently in the ADLG Wiki (plus a bit more), which came out as about 8 bases of Clibanarii, 3 Elephants, 4 bases of Levy (going with 7 figures to a base so they can be 2 ranks of spears or 1 of Mob),  a couple of bases each of LH with Bows and Javelins and 3 Generals. So, a whole new army in about 20 bases!

After a bit of searching I have decided to go with 3 main manufacturers:

• Legio Heroica for most of the Clibanarii, Generals, and some LH and LF
• Irregular Miniatures for the Levy, the LH with Javelins and some different Generals
• Donnington, for the Elephants

I did also toy with the idea of Lurkio and Eureka as well but that would have involved splitting the order into too many small chunks - and also there is a finite amount I'm prepared to pay for Levy Spearmen figures, which Eureka, nice as they are, somewhat exceeded!

The orders are now all in, and hopefully the figures will be back and ready for priming in early October (after Derby when I pick up the Elephants from Donnington).

Painting progress will be reported here...

The War Memorial of Korea Museum

I was recently fortunate enough to go to the very impressive Korean War Memorial Museum in Seoul, which has an unsurprisingly large amount of Korean War and post-war Korean stuff in it, as well as some pretty solid ancient history, with uniforms, artifacts, armour and some impressive paintings of the Goguryeo and Joseon eras.

These are the nearly 100 pictures I managed to take before my phone ran out of juice, starting in the grounds with Korean War and post war aircraft and AFVs, then moving inside to the uniforms and kit from the Goguryeo Korean and Joseon Korean Dynasties era.

Some of the Ancient photos can be clicked to give you a marginally bigger but higher resolution original image.

Here's just a taste of whats in store...

ADLG Army Lists from The Worlds 2016

After The Worlds this weekend, a number of the players have been kindly sending me their army lists for inclusion on the ADLG Wiki. Some who are even kinder have registered and added their list to the wiki themselves (!!) but even so, I now have a number of lists from the event available to see.

The lists I have so far are on the relevant wiki pages and are linked from these final standings for the ADLG event - hopefully its right, as I've had to guess some of the names from email addresses.

I'll update this post if / when I get more.

1 Tortosa Rafa Spain 503  - Yuan Chinese
2 Duthil Philippe France 456 - Communal Italian
3 Tahon Patrick France 442 - Han Chinese
4 Lopez Julian Spain 424 - Later Aechemenid
5 Crotteau Marc USA 419 - Normans in Sicily
6 Diaz Javier Spain 401 Late Aechemenid
7 Teulié Brice France 401 Koryo Korean
8 Tate Hugo Belgium 393 - Classical Indian
9 Lefevre Eudes France 391 - 100YW French
10 Roudil Cédric France 379 - Yuan Chinese
11 Gilles Jean-François France 366 - Burgundian Ordonnance
12 Bricault Mickael France 364 - Italian Condotta
13 Sciangula Christophe France 362 Ottoman Empire
14 Martellacci Massimiliano Italy 349 - Late Roman
15 Maistriaux Thomas Belgium 348 - Ottoman Empire
16 Hazelwood Dan USA 348 - Condotta
17 Lefebvre Patrick France 344 - Medieval German
18 Matagne Jean Belgium 344 Ottoman Empire
19 Maistriaux Jean-Louis Belgium 342 - Thematic Byzantine
20 Docremont Philippe France 341 - Classical Indian
21 Salvaderi Stefano Italy 337 - Italian Condotta
22 Piegle Olivier France 337 - Aztec
23 Martinez Lionel France 337 Italian Condotta
24 Berucci Francesco Italy 329 - Condotta Italian
25 Plouchart Stéphane France 328 Arabs in India
26 Allen David Uk 327  -100YW English
27 Abric Matthieu France 327 - Jurchen Chin
28 Webb Peter UK 301 - French Ordonnance
29 Villaescusa Frédéric France 290 Samurai
30 Gouret Corentin France 278 - Seleukid
31 Lo Moro Carmelo Andrea Italy 278 - Condotta
32 Misson Etienne Belgium 275 - Medieval Hungarian
33 Van Lersberghe Renaud Belgium 272 Warring Kingdoms
34 Sanders Dave UK 268 Condotta
35 Porter Tim UK 267- Condotta
36 Jamieson Gordon UK 263 Warring States
37 Dejoux Bruno France 262 French Ordonnance
38 Marlia Guglielmo Italy 260 Communal Italian
39 Zito Claudio Italy 250 - Warring States
40 D'addino Stefano Italy 240 Italian Condotta
41 Gomez Mattia Italy 238 - Medieval; Scots
42 Defour Florent France 232 Feudal French
43 Suárez Pablo Italy 205 - Nikephorian Byzantine
44 Impair Joueur Terre 188 - Pecheng
45 Morvan Lionel France 173 - Timurid
46 Germain Yvan France 108 - LIR

The registration code for the Wiki is "Alexander" if you want to add comments, or add an army list yourself. 

Here also are some pictures of the armies in action... 

Saumur - Taking bows and arrows to a tank fight...

As L'Art de la Guerre continues it's inexorable advance in popularity right across the world (it's set to be the biggest competition at the upcoming "The Worlds" in Belgium later this month, with almost 50% more players, drawn from more countries than any other ruleset on offer there), the opportunity to take part in an overseas holiday competition was inevitably going to come around sooner rather than later - and where better do do so than the home of the rules, France, and an event held in one of the most amazing wargaming spaces imaginable - the French Tank Museum in Saumur in the stunning Loire Valley.

I had chosen to take an Early Achaemenid Persian army, mainly on the rationale that I had a lot of Sparabara figures that hadn't seen light of day in years as well as some new cavalry from Xyston (very nice) and Forged in Battle (not quite as impressive). The competition mandated an allied contingent too, which for the Persians was an armoured hoplite Greek command.

After a "fantastique" drive down to Saumur (after getting around the brain-bender of crossing the channel and going into Europe the day after the Brexit vote..) the competition est arrive, giving me 5 games in which to see if my ADLG knowledge and skills stood up to the test of playing against French experts, in French.

The end result was plenty of good learning experiences as various French players gave my army some stiff lessons about new and different ways to play (yes, barbarian armies are more than viable in ADLG!), and the even more surprising appearance of the use of "tactics" and "maneuver" by my forces as we battled to hang on in there and not get crushed underfoot

See for yourself how the Persians did in these "incroyable" 5 fully-featured battle reports ...