QR Miniatures Pancerni

Just realised that I'd not posted any pictures of the Pancerni after putting up some carbine-armed horse from QR of Poland.

Well, here they are (click on any photo for a larger version)

I added the rather oversized lance myself - I think the figures actually come with swords and stuff, but I seem to have mislaid some of the hands (which are separate)

Nice to see someone actually shooting a carbine from horseback

This shows them next to Old Glory Pancerni. They are a little less bulky in these shots, but on the table the difference is really not noticeable at all.

Aquilifer added to the 15mm Renaissance Manufacturers listing

Italian manufacturer Aquilifer have now been added to the 15mm Renaissance listing, with their range of 12 Scottish and Highlander figure packs.

They now have their own website, which has also been added to their listing in the Ancients 15mm directory

PSC 15mm British Infantry

I've been painting some of these chaps, and very nice they are too. This time it's an experiment in painting on the sprue. The base colour is an undercoat of Khaki spray from Halfords, which turned out very pale, so I added two washes of Windsor and Newton Peat Brown ink, and then did the straps in Faded Khaki from Coat d'Arms. 

Here they are with a final coat of ArmyPainter Strong Tone, prior to matt varnishing

The bases need some grass to hide the figures bases I think

FoGR Army Lists from Usk

Lists of the French Italian Wars, Ming Chinese, Scots, Caroline Imperialists and Ottomans (morphed from the FoG:AM Ottoman army) as seen at Godendag 2014 this weekend in Usk now all posted on the FoGR Wiki

• French Italian Wars, 
• Ming Chinese
• Scots, 
• Caroline Imperialists 
• Ottomans

Match reports to follow...

3 extremely well-plastered Match Reports..

Coming hot on the heels of the last lot, here are 3 more hardworking, professionally crafted well put together match reports that not only amuse and entertain, they also sweep up after they have finished and save up the earnings from ad impressions to send it back to their families

Yes, it's a Polish Army riding to the rescue in three reports from the Milton Keynes round of the Southern League 2013 !

PIRATES! The Buccaneers return in 4 more match reports

The "I can't believe it's a serious army choice" Buccaneers return in 4 match reports from the BHGS Doubles, taking on opponents from the year 1695 in a fury of pirate-based action.

See a 900AP Pirate army in action against non-historical and entirely infeasible opponents such as The Tatars, The Anglo-Dutch, The French and finally, The Poles and Lithuanians as Piracy reaches shorelines previously thought safe from the scourge of the Caribbean (especially the Tatars, on account of Mongolia technically being land-locked).

The reports even feature proper maps and stuff so you can make some sense of the action, as well as just being vaguely amused by the bits I've spliced into the reports..

The French go to Southampton

A textbook Italian Wars French army, containing the mandatory Mikes Models Swiss Pike Kiel takes on three opponents in one day in the Southern League round held in Southampton.

See all the usual stuff, with the added bonus this time of a new commander for the French Army being deployed and using his extensive linguistic skills to explain his success - or lack of it perhaps..?

Arrrr! Here be Pirates!

In one of the most extensively trailed competition writeups ever seen anywhere on the whole internet, the Buccaneer Army takes to the field at Campaign in Milton Keynes (well, where else would you expect to find Pirates eh?) for 5 games of cutlass-swinging, eyepatch-wearing, blunderbuss-shootin' Pirate-ey action of the most intense type imaginable.

See how me band o'hearties fared in combat in 5 pages, 200 pictures and several thousand words of puns, random links, irrelevant videos and three of the best episodes of Madaxeman TV ever broadcast!

Arrr!

The Pirates are Here!

My much-heralded Pirate army is now finished - just some ship rigging to finalise and then the whole thing will be ready to take the field in a rather ineffective yet amusing manner.

The whole process of painting them can be followed on my Facebook photo album (Facebook access not required).

The ship is almost done as well, and will make it's appearance online hopefully this week.  

The Maratha In The Southern League

Don "The Don" McHugh organised a round of the Southern League one-day FoGR competition in chilly Clevedon recently and this encouraged me to field yet another new army (made up of rather dubiously morphed old figures) - the Maratha.

Now, in 3 fully detailed and historically accurate match reports you can see how the Renaissance Indians did against Samurai, Jin Chinese and finally full widescreen Technicolor Aztecs.

The reports also feature expert critique and analysis from a new member of the Madaxeman.com Pundits Panel, our resident expert on Indian armies, the legendary General and Indian King Hannibalipuripathi

Pirates!

My Pirate (well, Buccaneer) army is gradually taking shape - keep up with the progress on my Madaxeman.com facebook page, as I add photos to a gallery of "work in progress" Pirates...

Looking for 15mm Napoleonics?

I've just finished pulling together a new Manufacturers Directory, covering the Napoleonic period, and the completed page in all its glory is now up and running on this website via this link.

So, if you are looking for 15mm Napoleonic wargaming figures to use for FoG:N, Lasalle, Shako, Piquet, To the Sound of the Guns, Grand Armee, Volley and Bayonet, Empires and Eagles, General de Brigade, L'Empereur, Napoleonic Principles of War, Black Powder or any other Napoleonic ruleset you've come to the right place, as my new 15mm Napoleonic Manufacturers Directory page has information about all of the ranges carried by ALL the 15mm Napoleonic suppliers.

Each manufacturers individual listing has details of the nationalities they make, taken from the list of nations explicitly mentioned on their websites - these include: French, British, Prussian, Russian, Austrian, Spanish, Polish (including Grand Duchy of Warsaw), Bavarian, other minor German states (Saxony & Rhine Confederation, Wurttenburg, Hannovarian, Hessian, Saxon, etc) Italian/Neapolitan, Dutch/Belgian, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, and Turks. Many also have generic equipment and dead and wounded ranges too.

For each supplier there is also an indication of whether they are making "15mm" 15mm figures or "18mm" 15mm figures, how they package and sell the figures (singles, packs of 8 etc), details on how you can order from them and a link to their site.

There is also a set of new Auction Pages pulling live auction listings from UK eBay for 15mm French, British, Prussian, Russian and Austrian troops if you don't want to paint your own!

I'm not personally an expert on Napoleonic gaming or indeed the figures so I had some assistance from some of our club members who are - but if there are oddities in the way I have classified and categorized each manufacturers range, please let me know and I can correct them and update the page.

The page is live and online here

More Scots..

This time to give some extra short-range firepower to the Scots, it's Peter Pig's rather dinky little Frame Guns that get an unveiling

 These also feature at least one Essex artillery crewman (the chap in the hat on the left of shot)

 A very by-now traditional Armypainter Dark Tone has brought them up very well. I also used brush-on Testors Dullcote as I didn't fancy getting a spray can out for so few figures.

I've done one gun in brass, and one in a more iron type metal - I suspect the real things were leather but metal looks a bit more, well, gun-like.

Peter Pig ECW Scots

Just in time for the club competition I've snuck in a couple of units of Peter Pig ECW Scots. Here they are being painted in various stages

Based up, figure bases hidden by some wood filler, and sprayed with a Halfords matt white spray (that's a car and bike parts retailer for those of you not in the UK) 

After the undercoat, the figures have blocks of colour added at random across the two units. Here Brown and Green have been added - usually my stuff is a mix of Coat d'Arms colours and some other bits and pieces such as Vallejo

Here I've also added a lot of grey, as I found a good picture online of some Scots units and thought it was worth copying... 

 With most of the colours completed, the Piggy guys are almost ready to varnish and tint

 I paint the feet/shoes and also look to ink them before painting the earth colour on the bases so I can paint over the inevitable messy bits. But it's still a simple looking blocky paint scheme at this stage.

And moments later with Army Painter Dark Tone here they are. Normally I'd use the middle Army Painter tone, but I didn't have any to hand, and with the grey tunics on these guys the darker one works quite well

Not bad for wargaming standard

 Here they are with some colour on the bases, and a few bits of static grass added

And with varnishing - not as good as Testors Dullcote, but I'd run out. I will have to re-spray them later once I order some more.

Close up on the commanders

Peter Pig's Drums of Scotland!

The pikemen - one has a fairly simple bit of tartan

Musketeers - the shine on the bonnets makes them look like they have some sort of yellow patch on the bonnet, but it's just a trick of the light

I added some swordsmen to make the infantry into Musket/Sword infantry... pretty pleased with them for a rush job.

And here is my step by step "Tartan for tiny soldiers" guide:

Start with a plain blue background

Add a cross-hatching of yellow stripes

Finish with a thinner red line in the middle of the yellow

This is with a green background

Then yellow...

And finally red. Simple, but effective on 15mm figures. Nothing too scary ....

15mm Comparison photos for Renaissance

I've just added a load more comparison photos to my site showing the scale/height/bulk of Peter Pig figures against a lot of the other manufacturers - like this one...

(Peter Pig and Old Glory)

Acies Edizioni TYW Generals

I've actually finished some of the massive lead mountain that has been clogging my desk for a while - and Much to Martin at Vexillia's delight no doubt, the first things to be done are from his newly acquired/distributed range of Acies Edizione TYW figures.

These are at the bigger "18mm" end of 15mm - they tower over some Peter Pig figures I am also painting right now - and whilst they look a bit bland in the bare metal they have actually surprised my by how well they finish up and take a coat of ink.

These are a combination of the infantry and mounted command sets, although I had to drill out the flagpoles for all of the figures as the metal that they come in is quite soft making the cast-on flagpoles totally unworkable. The drilling was pretty easy to do - well presuming you have a Mini Drill

The mounted command set includes Wallenstein and Tilly apparently - however these two chaps are generic mounted trumpeter and flag carrying blokes

This looks more like a famous person. The infantry have been painted in yellow with a red sash, probably when I was thinking I might have them finished to be commanders for a Spanish army I used in a competition earlier this year....

This flag is one of my favourites from Alex Flags 

The inking is using Army Painter Dark tone - I bought it accidentally as I had used Strong Tone before. It seems to me more "black" rather than just being a darker brown compared to the Strong Tone - not ideal for these figures, but it does work well on white/grey horses I think.

This is a Saxon flag from the Grimsby Wargames Society site 

Slightly shiny finish - I ran out of Testors dullcote halfway through the spraying session 

This chap looks very much like my 28mm Tilly figure

I base the figures before painting them - unusually these were undercoated in white, largely to bring the yellow colours up more strongly than compared to a normal black undercoat. The base is painted in a matchpot tin of  emulsion from Homebase - much cheaper than buying real paint !

For some reason everyone in the TYW had a moustache

and finally...

Here they were just before being Army Painter'ed and varnished ..