Episode 47 - The Lockdown Crew are back in Podtown

OK, perhaps that's a smidge overdramatic, but with the shutters coming down on social gaming across the UK right now it seems like the right time to toss another podcast into the ether for your indoor painting-accompaniment over the coming week.

This episode sees all 7 regular contributors Zooming in, with an increasingly un-rare unplanned guest appearance from Mrs Andy yet again stealing the show early doors. As well as a gallop through everyone's painting achievements, we attempt to dip a disconcertingly long toe into the garlic-infused pond-water that makes up the Bataille Empire ruleset, and of course there is a return for yet another innuendo-laden episode of Andy's Quiz. 

In an effort to ease you back in gently this episode only runs to just over an hour - there will be more next week... 

Giving Bataille Empire a Go in The Garden

Having spent ages in Lockdown painting my 10mm Napoleonic French army, I have been keen to give the Bataille Empire rules a bit of a go. 

The rules have a beginners scenario, with two smallish equal forces attacking each other across simple terrain which is intended to give players a chance to learn the basics of movement and combat before moving onto bigger games and adding the all-important "orders" layer to the game - so this was what I attempted to do one sunny weekend afternoon last week.

The game was set up on a standard ADLG 80-120 mat, and I used 30mm MU move distances using some sticks I'd made from 30mm electrical spacers.

All in all I'm pleased to report that the mechanics flowed pretty clearly and allowed me to push lead around without too much head-scratching, to roll some dice and generate some outcomes.

This was my very first time shoving Napoleonic lead around at all, so I mostly learnt that there is more to this lark than Ancients with more complicated uniforms - it's certainly a very different feel, with different mechanics built on the same fundamental D6-based engine as ADLG. All in all an encouraging start and proof that my 10mm painting frenzy has not been wasted. 

The full photogenic rules walk-through is now online 

A Flurry of Podcasts

Over the last couple of weeks I've been busy chatting online with some of my CLWC cubmates, and the result is a positive flurry of podcasts which are all now available on Podbean, on iTunes and now also on Spotify to be background chatter to yoru weekend of painting. 

First up is a one-off special ADLG 'cast looking at some of the ways to design a New Kingdom Egyptian army list to get the best out of this historically popular, but hard to run army. The 'pod had input from Richard Case, who's previous podcast on the Sassanid Persian army proved very popular.  This podcast is also available to watch and listen to on YouTube with some pictures of NKE figures and match report photos as well.

There are also now two special bonus episodes of the Madaxeman Podcast online, each addressing a very specific topics. The first bonus episode on the vexed subject of how to choose a paintbrush (and how much to spend on it) has been out for a week or so already and has been downloaded almost 100 times so far. A follow-up episode in which the subject of different types of Glue is discussed was also released earlier this week.

Finally, just in time for your weekend of painting the 8th "Lockdown Special" has been released today covering a broad range of important yet strangely rarely discussed topics such as what colour should rigging be on a 1/240th scale 19th Century Ironclad, do Gnomes still have a place in modern warfare, can a camel get a tan if it stands out in the desert too long, is the Austrian army a painters dream or simply a signifier of laziness, if a Grenzer joined the cast of Eastenders would he become a Geezer, is it still legal to resist buying 10mm Napoleonics and does getting your children to paint Perry plastics fall under the remit of the Modern Day Slavery act?

There is also a phenomenally long discussion on how to assemble and use Hannibals Carthaginian army under ADLG (and instructions on how to skip over it if you're not interested in ADLG list building), and a new feature on what games we have actually played in the last week. Oh, and Andy's Quiz returns - cue the music!  

These and all previous episodes are now available on Podbean, on iTunes and now also on Spotify

10mm French Napoleonics - a Lockdown Painting Challenge

Can you believe that I've never owned any Napoleonic figures, played any Napoleonic games or even read any books about the Napoleonic Wars? I mean, I've not even watched a single episode of Sharpe! 

But, finally the inevitable has caught up with me, and with the help of a nudge from the arrival of a set of rules which more than one person at my club might potentially agree to play (in the form of Bataille Empire) I have finally taken the plunge and dipped my toe into Napoleon's wars.

Of course, being respectful of the principles of Napoleonic gaming in which every player must have their own individual approach to rules, scale, basing, terminology history, uniform and painting I had to find a means of doing something unique and (in some way at least partly) incompatible with my clubmates - so with everyone else already having 15-18mm troops based for Blucher, FoGN and various other sets I went my own way and built an army in 10mm with a large investment in Pendraken lead in the form of a French starter army picked up at Warfare 2019. 

I then topped this up with a few more orders from the nice chaps at Pendraken and added in a couple of extra purchases from Old Glory and The Wargaming Company (both made at Cold Wars 2020 just before Lockdown struck) to leave me with the daunting painting challenge of maybe 500+ foot and mounted figures to do under Lockdown conditions, hopefully to leave me with a viable Bataille Empire army that is still utterly different to the stuff owned by the people I'll be (eventually) playing.

I took a load of photos through the painting process, and learnt quite a lot about painting 10mm massed, uniformed figures as well - all of which is is now online on Madaxeman.com on a page with about 70 photos of the WiP and finished army, as well as my thoughts and learnings from the near-industrial process of getting them all done.

  

Lockdown Podcast VII now out

The 7th Lockdown Podcast (and 3oth all-time Madaxeman Podcast) has now been published on Podbean and iTunes, and is already picking up a steady stream of listeners and regular subscribers on both platforms. It's ideal bank holiday listening for your weekend painting or legally permitted outdoor exercise session. 

This week the team discuss their latest painting haul, chat at some length about airbrushing, take an in-depth look at the Lydian army in ADLG and endure another week of Andy's Quiz Music wrapped around the far more acceptable Andy's Quiz.

Watch out later this week for a special one-off edition covering Paintbrushes !

 

  

Something new, shiny (and tiny)... 10mm Napoleonics!

In a first for me (first time ever owning any Napoleonic troops - honestly..) here are some newly-painted 10mm Pendraken Napoleonics based up on 40mm wide bases for our CLWC club-standard basing for Bataille Empire.

These guys are undercoated in Army Painter blue spray, then inked in Army Painter dark blue ink before having the other colours added to them

These are a couple of test paints of standard sized 4-base units, for which I've used four 40mmx20mm DBx bases with two ranks on the rear base and one rank + skirmishers on the front rank base to set up the unit.

Bataille Empire incorporates skirmisher screens as a defensive factor in shooting rather than as separate units or bases, so these units are based to represent good quality French Line infantry, with the two shooting figures out front denoting infantry with a Skirmisher factor of +2

This is my first foray into painting Naps, and I thought that by doing them in 10mm not only would they get a good mass effect, I also wouldn't have to be too detailed on the painting of straps and the like. However, I did get suckered into adding coloured epaulets on these... against my better judgement. I also tried dark-washing the trousers of the main marching infantry, which came out a bit darker than I would ideally have liked, so I repainted some wioth another layer of white. The 2 shooting chaps at the front have uninked trousers at the moment for comparison.

I've not got any knowledge of this period other than at a very (very...) superficial level, so the apparently very important colour schemes for the pompoms and feathers in their hats and the like is somewhat ("entirely") beyond me. Grenadiers stick around the flag and have red pompoms, and everyone else has some sort of cllour that is only yellow in exceptional circumstances... is I think how it works?

The fun and easy bit is mnaking sure they look interesting from the back as well - here I've done different colours for blankets, backpacks and their other impedimentia. I was looking for that WW2 german style gas-mask holder, but seemingly they don't have those!!

If you prefer bigger figures my website has a review page with all of the 15/17/18mm manufacturers listed and rated to help you choose, and I also have pages that pull out all of the current listings on eBay for Napoleonics (separated into individual listings by nation) so you can go shopping there - but I think I'll stick with Pendraken and 10mm for now.