International Vandalism - 28mm ADLG from Devizes 2018

The pleasant west country town of Devizes is home to the Wadworth 6X brewery, a collection of over-filled bed & breakfast pub type establishments and the DDWG annual "Attack!" competition and show - and with a set of propositions as enticing as that, how can anyone resist?

The army of choice this time are the African Vandals, as a combination of a simple list with impetuous charging cavalry and my ownership of some brand new Gripping Beast plastic lancers working in tandem with some slightly older Footsore cavalry made the grade.

The Vandals take on Arabs and Byzantines in 4 spectacularly large-scale reports featuring 12th century religious iconography, big-hair-metal music videos and an opportunistic homage to Jeremy Corbyn.

There are also some fantastically painted troops on display as well - plus a video/audio commentary on the first game too.

Don't waste time - dive into some serious Vandalism with these 4 reports!

Gripping Beast (& others) Dark Age Horse

To round out two armies (don't ask...) for the upcoming event in Devizes I picked up a box of Gripping Beast plastic Dark Age cavalry recently, and added a few more figures to them as well. Here are the results:

Three Gripping Beast cavalry. They go together well, but you can't help feeling they have missed an opportunity to really load up the sprue with different weapons and arm poses - a bit like the Roman Infantry set I did a couple of years ago.

A mix of round and oval shields. Some of the arm poses are a bit ungainly, and I had t cut the base of one arm to get it to work at a reasonable angle. 

This base has a Warlord Games Romano-British cavalryman added in the middle. Its not a great figure to be honest, but gives another guy with armour on the base to make them more obviously Heavy Cavalry, as all of the GB ones are in tunics. 

The horses have that slightly weird "seahorse" neck of the GB horses in this set, but once they are charging straight at you it's not so obvious.

 Another Warlord figure. They are all mounted on metal horses, as they didn't mix and match at all with the saddle shapes on the GB figures.

They do take an ink wash extremely well.

I also picked up these Alans/Huns unpainted in a bring and buy.

I think they may be Foundry, but could also be Old glory due to the variety. They are split at the waist. 

If you look carefully you can see some heads attached to the bridles...

And finally a fortified camp made with kebab skewers

A bit of baggage from Ainsty Castings 

And a General - I think this one may have been from Warlord.

Saga V2 - a short and hairy summary of the changes from V1

The new version of Saga (V2) is getting great early reviews at CLWC, with a cleaner and simpler set of mechanics that appear at first glance to be less susceptible to being "gamed" than V1.

The club have cobbled together a summary of the key changes we have found so far which you can download from the CLWC club page

Hopefully it's of use and encourages you to have a punt on this new (and we already think, "better") edition of a great and very popular ruleset.

This is a totally unofficial summary of the changes between versions, so let me know if you spot any errors! 

Projects You Probably Shouldn't Start...

Cheap Gripping Beast plastic Arabs are really cool - I have a load for a Saga army that I painted up a couple of years ago.

So... it's then only a short step from there to "Wouldn't it be easy - and cheap - to make a 28mm L'Art de la Guerre generic Arab army mainly out of plastic figures?"

The maths is actually not too bad..

• 2 boxes of cavalry = 24 figures, which is 6 bases of HC/MC and 3 bases of LH

Add in a box of Foreforge Mongol Cavalry for variety and you're at 10 Cavalry + 6 LH for the mounted, which is more than enough for most 200 point armies.

So, the foot...

• 1 box of infantry = 44 figures, which is 4 LI and 6 more Medium Foot sword/spear/bowmen

That brings you to about £80 (if you get a good price on eBay for the Gripping Beast Arab boxes) for 26 units.

Add in a few Generals from GB, Footsore and others and it's the core of a solid 28mm Generic Arab army for just under £100.

But... then you realise that the GB boxes (foot and mounted) both have more heads than figures, so you then think about using these spare heads to add to...

• 2-3 more sprues of GB Vikings and Fireforge Byzantine & Russian infantry bought separately off eBay = another 20-odd armoured figures that could be kit-bashed into more elite Arab warriors, or mixed in with the others anyway for more variety.
• And then, why not buy some metal foot for even more variety in the BTD sale ?   

So... a project is born.

Of course, the starting point is not the simple stuff. You pick up a Fireforge Byzantine warrior, add in a GB Arab head and shield, and fashion a longer skirt out of Ronseal wood filler.

Here's what that guy looks like right now...

And again, after a lick of paint

It's the point at which you start thinking about adding in a couple of Victrix elephants, and replacing the howdah and crew with Essex Arab elephant crew that it starts to get silly...

Derby 2017 - time for the big toys to come out to play!

Having been painting, making and generally faffing around and not quite finishing my 28mm Patrician Roman army for the last 18 months, the annual Derby competition suddenly hove into view and offered up not one, but two opportunities to put the figures on the table.

The end result are 5 well-packed and imposing L'Art de le Guerre battle reports featuring sumptuous imagery of troops that are actually big enough to be able to see with the naked, unaided human eye!

Across the weekend the army from the tail end of the Roman Empire fought its predecessors, its contemporaries, its allies and it's mortal enemies - and even, on one notable occasion, itself - on a series of 6x4 tabletops in an aircraft hangar in the East Midlands.

See for yourself why the fall of the Roman Empire may actually have been FAKE NEWS, and why the 28mm game might well prove to be the absolute real sweet spot for Ancient wargaming with the L'Art de la Guerre ruleset.

Yes, these reports are possibly your gateway drug to mainlining the seemingly almost daily releases of plastic multipose 28mm ancients figures now on the market. Read on with care...

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)

These Romans Are Not Far Away!

Posts to Madaxeman.com have been on a bit of a hiatus recently, but that's not to say that wargaming has been taking a back seat.

No, I've actually been painting and basing some serious quantities of figures, including some new 28mm Patrician Romans built on the core of a couple of boxes of the new-ish Gripping Beast plastic figures.

Of course, the project expanded and soon included some Foundry and Footsore metals, and a huge number of Old Glory not-quite-historical hairy barbarian foederate foot and mounted to pad out the army.

But, they are here, and have even had at least one game so far too - where they beat the Huns at L'Art de la Guerre. All of the figures are based for ADLG, on 60mm wide basing with 2 ranks for all of the non-skirmishing infantry. 

The Auxilia in particular who are on 60x60's really suit this basing, with some even being based in a dangerous-looking wedge formation.

There's as a result now a huge page of pictures of these excellent figures for you to browse and enjoy!

Gripping Beast Plastic Romans

I'm gradually working my way through 2 boxes of Gripping Beast plastic Roman infantry, and in the process adding some LBMS shield transfers which cost almost as much as the figures.

Here's a unit of armoured Legionaries based for L'Art de la Guerre, with one added Foundry dart-throwing chap sneaking into the front line for added variety.

 

All of the images are clickable for larger pictures.