Welcome to the Madaxeman.com Wargaming Websites own Blogger-powered Blog. It carries updates of all the latest Ancients, Renaissance, Malifaux, Saga, WW2, Ultra-modern, ACW and other wargaming periods and projects as soon as they are added to Madaxeman.com.
Museum's annual January sale is always a good opportunity to buy something I don't really need, and this year was no exception.
Amongst the bits and bobs to round out existing armies I picked up 2 more Indian Chariots - this time from their new Z range to go with the original sculpts of the 2 I had somehow acquired through complete accident in previous years.
OK, so you probably remember the Spartacus army that I finished earlier this year?
Well, actually it turns out that it wasn't entirely "finished" after all.
The L'Art de la Guerre Slave Revolt army list has an option for a couple of Mediocre Levy - totally unarmed, totally combat-ineffective bodies of peasants who just provide a smidgeon of moral support through their sheer mass.
(And, at only 2 points each, they can help spend any left-over points up to the standard 200 point army limit in a list where everything else has a minimum cost of 4!).
So, having forgotten this when I based up the full army I ended up buying a couple of packs of Xyston Civilians from Donnington, and also some of Donningtons own new-casting Classical Civilians as well - and here they are:
All in all I'm very pleased with them - however if they ever end up featuring in a battle report you'll know something has gone badly wrong on the tabletop for the rest of the (fighting components of the) Spartacus army!
At Warfare last year I accidentally placed in the 15mm ADLG competition, for which part of the prize package was a blister of Forged in Battle 15mm Roman cavalry.
These chaps were Clibanarii on half armoured horses and armed with Kontos, bow & shield, from the Early Imperial era - a troop type I rather unusually didn't really own (unless you count my repeated and shameless morphing of Early Byzantine cavalry to fulfil that role when and if they were called upon to do so!).
So, I decided to paint these guys up, and to do so with ADLG specifically in mind, as in I painted all 4 bases in slightly different liveries so they could be used as units that would be easy to tell apart if they were in different commands.
With the EIR and LIR armies only having a couple of these in each list the round dozen were also slightly overkill, so I managed to find some spare unarmoured horses to make one base up without horse armour to play the role of an Average unit, two as standard half-armoured Clibanari and one as a half-armoured unit with a commander figure for an embedded General.
FiD do seem to throw in extra figures to each pack so I also have 2 spares left over, which are being baked into a separate Commander's base as we speak.
They were done mostly in Contrast paints on a white base, using Snakebite Leather for the really visible shoulder and skirt leather armour, and (of course) drybrushed Gunmetal on a black base for the actual armour. I spent extra time with a magnifying glass doing some of the detail on their straps and uniforms (if you note the reins for example, they even have two layered colours of leather brown on them for extra depth), which I think has paid off pretty well given it's a level of committment I rarely approach with 15mm figures !
These also look a little more spiffy than usual in these photos as I took the pictures before matt varnishing them, so they still quite literally have a little more sparkle.
I'm really pleased as to how they have come out, as these FiB figures really do take paint extremely well. The shields are the only "meh" bit, as I was lacking in inspiration and they are so small that it seemed like it would be both too hard to put any design on them. I also feared that any design I did conjure up might just look odd at that small a scale and size anyway.
The set is listed on the FiB site as a Random mix of 12 cavalry, including command. Figure code WE-RM09 Roman Clibanarii, 3rd century
Most of my Samurai army were also Old Glory figures which come in large bags, so even choosing a comptible range was a challenge - but eventually I settled on these really clean Ashigaru archers from Museum as being both the right height, and also simple enough to be easy to paint to a reasonably close standard to the rest of the army.
Being Ashigaru really reduced the level of detail needed
I also took an ADLG-specific approach to this set of 4 bases, choosing to paint them all in slightly different colours and uniforms to allow them to operate as single units of skirmishers in different commands.
The pattern of 3 or 4 dots on their clohing fits in thematically with the rest of the army, and is a very simple way to generate a bit of a Japanese vibe (at a 3 foot range!)
And here's the army they will be playing as part of:
As well as the Pavise infantry that I posted a few days ago, the main reason for buying the PSC Corvus Belli stuff was to get a new refreshed set of knights for the 100YW period, as my existing set of knights were starting to look rather tired and jaded.
I'd also seen some of what I think were Corvus Belli castings in Chris Tofalos' army at the Northern League event in Manchester at the end of last year, and really liked the bold and simple painting style, so wanted to see if I could emulate it.
A few years ago (2019 to be exact) I won an unpainted army in a raffle at the L'Art de la Guerre Worlds in Rome. The figures were from Italian manufacturer Strategia Nova, and the prize was actually an Arab army, however as I have Arab figures in abundance I asked the guy who'd provided them if I could swap for a different army.
And, of the ones he had, the Slave Revolt army of Spartacus looked like the best bet!
I've now finally finished painting the army (almost 4 years later!), and have uploaded them all to my website in their full Cinemascope glory, complete with an added YouTube video so you can watch the pictures that are already on my website flash past you in a matter of minutes as well.
Some highlights are:
At the end of 2021 a Lockdown-painted Ancient Spanish army had mixed (OK, hardly any) success at the Brixham Classic, so a year and a bit later I attempted to rehabilitate them in a different incarnation for the Oxford round of the Southern League One day ADLG Tournament circuit.
This time they were playing in a theme of armies valid in the reign of Mithradates of Pontus, a 15mm period
The army I used in Brixham had relied on Sertorius and his Roman turncoat legions, but this one was a more traditional crazy warband version with Heavy Infantry Celtiberians (a part played by these guys pictured below) and an ally of Lusitanians for rough terrain.
The cavalry contingent in this version was however purely nominal, relying on the punch of the infantry to carry the day, Even so, the Burning Cart of DOOOOM made a welcome reappearance anyway.
At the event the Celtiberian Spanish were drawn against Mithradates himself, the Ptolemies of Egypt and finally the Chinese steppe nomads of the Xiong Nu, all of which are covered in 3 mercifully short video reports in which I attempt to talk you through what exactly went right, and what also went wrong with this somewhat flawed plan!
I've finally given into the inevitable and started painting a Spartacus Slave Revolt army that I won (in a raffle) at a competition in Rome way back in the summer of 2019
They are 15mm, mostly Strategia et Tactica figures from Italy supplemented by some Forged in Battle chaps and no doubt all sorts of odds and ends from the bits box too by the time the army is done.
To compensate I added a white drybrush to them to really pick up the highlights so I could then aim for a mostly Contrast Paints approach
In the margins of the recent SELWG show in Picketts Lock a well-padded BHGS Teams event took place with sets of three players contesting ADLG glory in three well-themed pools - including Maximum Elephants!
