15mm Samurai - and Samurai Terrain as well

A near-unique event today, as I post pictures of an army that I haven't painted myself... but don't worry, the usual bog-standard finishing is then in evidence with some bodged-together and over ambitious terrain !

The army is a 15mm Samurai force for L'Art de la Guerre. Mostly composed of Old Glory figures from Timecast, they are supplemented with a handful of Baueda Emeshi cavalry and a Dixon 28mm Great Commander.

All of them have been painted by Lurkio

The Samurai Village has already been posted online but this time there is also a self-made "ADLG Waterway" Samurai Castle wall to marvel at the amount of spare time I have to do stuff other than paint figures !

 The Walls come with a walk-through construction guide as well.

Godedingdangdag 2018 - The Romans Return!

It's time yet again for Kenneth Williams to don his toga and avoid being stabbed in the back as he takes command of a Patrician Roman army against enemies from all edges of the Roman empire - Franks, Palmyrans, Spaniards and the eastern extremities of the Warring States Chinese in four separate 300 point L'Art de la Guerre doubles battle reports.

Thrill to the thunder of hooves, marvel at the download time of the often inappropriate and shoehorned-into-the-narrative comedy animated GIF's, hold your breath in fear as the two lines of mighty warriors clash together and roll dice to see who comes out on top in almost 10,000 words of irrelevant and semi-educational nonsense

Reports contain all the usual mutterings and puns, as well as some truly incredible feats of bravery and military success (not all of which are from the Roman troops - as you may well already have guessed..).

See for yourself if they truly do have it Infamy..

Festive (ish) painting...

In the absence of any competitions to report on over the festive period, I've managed to fit in a little painting and photographing (is that a word?) time.

If you follow Madaxeman.com on Facebook you may well already have seen some of this rather unusual mix of stuff, but if not - here you go!

 Malifaux's Union Steamfitter - one of three in the pack, the other two of which I sold as I can't see myself using more than one in any single crew. J

She joins my MS&U-themed set of models, which is why I have used a WW2 Battlefront Russian tank star to symbolise her support for the international proletariat in their quest to avoid oppression at the hands of evil undead magic using fascists.  And painting a Billy Bragg T-shirt on a 32mm figure was beyond me.

 A Dawn Serpent - after all, who doesn't need a flying japanese-inspired dragon that is on fire and spreads poison in their lives?

This is a "wave 1" Malifaux model so has been out for several years. It's been on my "buy if it is cheap enough on eBay" list for the same length of time, and finally one came up at a sensible price.

The January 2018 errata has literally just yesterday reduced the in-game cost of the model, making it even better value on-table. Many of these you can see online have been "floated" by attaching the model to terrain on the base, but I wanted to try for a "it's just floating anyway" look, so I pinned it with a think black-painted piece of brass wire by the tail and half-hid it with grass tufts.

 Kandara - another must-have cool new henchperson for the already overpowered Sandeep.

Painting her was something of an exercise in doing single-model painting over a number of days, rather than my more usual "only seen in a unit at tabletop distances" style.

The on-fire hair seems to have been worth the effort though.

On the ancients front it's been more about refurbishing and rounding out some armies.

These are some genric Essex Miniatures arab foot who have been based and painted as Medium Swordsmen/Spearmen/Javelinmen for L'Art de le Guerre

This is my first use of the Armypainter acrylic washes in a squeezy bottle - previously I have always used the big tins of varnish-based tint, which do tend to dry up and so I'l always reluctant to use them for small batch work. The squeeze paint bottle sized washes can also be easily diluted - these are a done with a diluted version of the soft tone.

I also refurbished another old Essex Ghaznavid elephant

Not as bright as the first one, but I tried to use different colours.

And finally, a very lazy "rearrange the riders" bit of work on some Essex Byzantine cavalry to get a mix of Bow and Lance armed figures on the same base.

I'm planning on putting all of the ADLG Byzantine armies on table at some point this year, so you will see plenty of these guys online.

The Ancient British Panzer Division - in ADLG

That well-known Barkeresque wargaming trope, the Ancient British Panzer Division, gets a surprise but strangely welcome outing in these three L'Art de la Guerre competition reports all taken from the recent Central London Invitational 1-day event.

This is your chance to thrill to the rumble of 32 separate wheels as the 15mm British Catuvellauni tribesmen race across the tabletop towards the Carthaginians and the Seleukids, before rounding off by taking part in a Very British Civil War against a more pedestrian flavour of Ancient British.

The reports are now laid out in a new wider-screen format with bigger pictures, but the same hapless captions and post match-mishmash of commentary and analysis from Cassivellaunus himself as well as Hannibal. The three opposing army lists are also referenced and included.

Trust me - these reports are wheely, wheely good !

The Chimu - 15mm Lurkio figures

You know how it goes, you have lots of stuff on the painting table, some of which you might need fairly soon... but that long-neglected project somehow insinuates itself into your mind and forces it's way to the front even thought it's of no use whatsoever?

Well, in the last week or so, that project for me has been painting a DBA v3 Chimu Imperial Army 1350-1480AD from Lurkio, that I won in a competition more than a year ago.

I don't really play DBA all that often, I have no intention of expanding the army to a full ADLG one, but these guys had been waiting to be painted and, well, one day I just got the bug...

See the full army here.

Alexanders Companions Go Tilting at Windmills

After an unfeasibly long delay, the 6-game "Worlds 2017" set of L'Art de le Guerre match reports are now released into the wild in all their multi-faceted glory!

Set in the sun-drenched uplands of Salamanca in Western Spain, the biggest event in the world draws out Hannibal's only true rival, Alexander The Greats own army to take on opponents from across the swathe of time, from their own back garden in the form of the Classical Indians all the way to the Middle Ages and the Ordonnance French.

Thrill as Alexander himself narrates in these 6 match reports, stuffed full of videos, inappropriate accents, suggestive double-entendres and all manner of painted lead as it refuses to melt in the Spanish heat, and Gasp as Hannibal skillfully and not at all politely deconstructs it all after each game.

And, in a special ADLG bonus, Even The Man, The Legend, The Hero - El Kreator Herve Caille gets a look-in as Alexander's Phalanx clashes with the authors own concoction of an army in Game 4!

It's a widescreen epic - read all about it here!

What an Atmosphere! The Rus get in some ADLG action

Hot on the heels of The BHGS Challenge comes Dogs of War, in the excellent Bristol Independent Gaming Centre.

This was a Dark Ages & Early Medieval themed L'Art de la Guerre event, and in keeping with my efforts to try and get as many of my long-forgotten armies on table as possible under ADLG I had elected to wheel out the Rus - with a Viking ally.

The "Wall of Spears" was a new thing for me to try in L'Art de la Guerre competition gaming, so the big question was whether that was because everyone else had missed the tactical potential of such an army, or because it was a bit pants and I hadn't worked that out yet.

See how the men from the Ukraine did in these 5 rather linear battle reports!

Massive Heeds, Sausages and Tie Fighters - ADLG from the NEC.

With this year's BHGS Challenge taking place in the galaxy-sized open spaces of Birmingham's NEC expo centre, the first army to be dropped to the planetary surface was also a brand new to the table outfit - the much-trailed Sassanid Persians.

Resplendent in their new livery, the "Sausages", as they have been affectionately known to generations of wargamers were certainly Feeling the Force as they deployed an army built around a massive Death Star, surrounded by horsemen with Massive Heeds (or those 'lightbulb' hats to be more precise).

To find out what happened, the best bet is to see if your local protocol droid will help you translate each of these 5 match reports into something sensible.

You can also listen to a podcast at the end of Battle Report # 4 to help you learn how to build a good Sassanid list in ADLG - which is much easier than having to ask a couple of favours from some guys who look just like Tuskan Raiders...

May the Sausages Be With You..!

15mm Indian allied contingent for ADLG

Having flirted with the idea of actually using my Classical Era Greek Successor States armies on many occasions, and now discovering that the Indians (in their Kushan incarnation) also work well with the Sassanids I decided to refurbish a Classical Indian allied contingent.

These are troops who had been languishing in a drawer for many years, so they were delighted to be brought out into the light and converted into L'Art de la Guerre DBE double based elements to make up an allied contingent with essentially all of the useful options.

You can see the finished collection here

The Sassanids are almost here..!

A Bank holiday weekend and a mixed forecast meant I accelerated the basing and finishing of the Sassanid ADLG army in order to take advantage of the warm dry weather for dullcote-ing the troops.

Normally I like to add the static grass before matt varnishing, but in this case the weather was just too good to miss, so here are the "before" and "after" dullcote shots for your delectation.

 The whole lot...

Essex Ghaznavid infantry stand in - as I am sure they do for many wargamers - as Dailami infantry. I have added a couple of random arab-looking archers to the 40x40 base so they can have integral support (a nice-to-have in ADLG if you have spare points).

 The Legio Heroica infantry command with Irregular mounted command. The shield ended up a bit 'FC Barcelona', but that's still pretty cool, right?

 The Donnington elephants tower over the rest of the men

Very simple sun-themed banners. No LBMS transfers for me today, more's the pity!

I have used some new colour palettes for these troops, in particular Vallejo ESMERALDA (071) and MAGENTA (042) together with Army Painter Hydra Turquoise. I've never used such vibrant colours before but for this army they do sort of work.

I went with different schemes on all of the Clibanarii - they are nobles after all.

The still-shiny levy spear in serried ranks...

I might go back later and add more design to the Generals horse barding.

Banners and pennants are another thing I'm still considering...probably out of metal foil.

Each of the three elephants has a consistent colour scheme

Two types of LH from 2 manufacturers - Legio Heroica and Irregular. The Irregular ones can be javelin or bow armed as they have both.

Plenty of blue Lightbulb hats on display

This is the whole thing - add in a couple of Cataphracts from another army and maybe some slingers and I'm good to go  

Being able to do the photography in full sunlight is a nice bonus

The static grass and some drybrushing of the bases is all that is left...