The Madaxeman Christmas Bonus - a one-off, festive ADLG Match Report

In a rare festive treat, your post-lunch turkey-digesting can now be undertaken in the company of a one-off Madaxeman.com L'Art de la Guerre Battle Report, featuring a matchup between the Sassanid Persians and Attila's Huns!

Santa's sack is positively bulging as it seeks to contain the excitement in this report , which is as comprehensively stuffed with goodies as a classic Christmas pudding is stuffed with health-and-safety-challenging sixpences.

There are maps, comments from both of the generals involved as well as Hannibal's usual pithy analysis, a host of animations and videos and all of the usual captions and comments too.

So, grab yourself an egg-nogg, pull up a comfy sweater and dive into the Sassanid vs Hunnic Christmas Match Report! 

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 !

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...

Derby not Derby, the "Post-Derby" Madaxeman.com Podcast

In this episode featuring regular guests Dave Dave and Aussie Simon, the Central London A-Team are travelling home by car and discussing the merits of the new "Derby not Derby" venue, undertaking a highly detailed pint-by-pint review of the pubs and restaurants of Market Harborough, and get into some actual wargaming-related discussions about army list composition for L'Art de la Guerre and the upcoming UK competition schedule.

You can stream the episode from here, or download to listen later at your leisure...



The match reports for the games in this podcast are not far behind...

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!

Army lists from my 6 opponents at The Worlds now published on the Wiki

The armies fielded by my opponents in the recent "The Worlds" L'Art de la Guerre event in Salamanca are now on the ADLG Wiki:

They were, in order of play

• Classical Indian
• Graeco Indian
• French Ordonnance
• Delhi Sultanate
• Christian Nubian
• Sassanid Persian 

My own two army lists were taken from the Alexander The Great list.

Battle reports are underway and being written... but here's some in-game pictures to kick things off... 

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!

Two Armies, Two Podcasts...

With two L'Art de la Guerre podcasts now firmly under my belt it feels like an opportune moment to release them fully into the interweb by actually telling people that they exist.

Ideal to listen to whilst painting your own figures, in these two Podcasts (also available on YouTube, with pictures) are where you can learn from people who are far better players than I am about how to design a Ghaznavid or a Sassanid army list for L'Art de la Guerre.

The Podcasts are available to listen to via Podbean, also iTunes (honestly!) and are linked to from my L'Art de la Guerre page.

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

This Campaign is Over !!!

No - not an election-themed blog post, but a potentially welcome notification that SIX full-page reports from the inaugural L'Art de la Guerre competition at Campaign in Milton Keynes are now available to use to distract yourself from the tedium of election day in the UK (and also probably another edition of "I Can't Believe He Just Tweeted THAT" day in the US, just to be fair to everyone who might be reading this).

Marvel as the Sicilian Armenians use every Mafioso cliche in the book to take on a near-clean-sweep of German armies with just one set of tactics and two pieces of terrain!

Thrill as Knights smash into Knights, and bounce off spearmen in a "they're in combat in round 2??" ringing endorsement for the immediacy of ADLG combat

Gasp as animated GIF's sneak their way into the match reports showcasing culturally appropriate contextual messaging at the end of each report, and ...

Drool as you learn along with the Sicilian Milites just how to make Lemon Drizzle cake at home!

These reports also come with a fully-functional podcast where at least three of the protagonists talk about the games and other rubbish immediately after the event finishes!

So, get out, vote, and then rush home and read on - you know that it's an offer you can't refuse...

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...

The Sassanids are coming...slowly..

With the 28mm Goths mostly out of the way now (apart from two dozen cavalry...oops!) these 15mm Sassanid Persians have made it to the top of the pile again after a bit of a hiatus.

The 9 bases of Clibanarii are now all painted and varnished, just needing to be based and the elephants are on their way too.

Most Legio Heroica figures.

The Levy spearmen/horde/mob are going to be in 3 ranks so they can appear either as Mediocre Spear or as a Mob. Donnington elephants in the background - Irregular Levy.

After some dithering I based the Generals on 40mm round bases - they won't be used for other armies and it's a cool look. Not sure I'd be keen enough to rebase any others but for new stuff it makes a nice change. These are Irregular mounted and Legio Heroica foot

The Clibanarii have a bit of a blue/purple theme going on

4 elements of LH and 3 of LH bowmen round out the army - I have the cataphracts already

28mm Lombards in action

The much-trailed Gothic/Germanic/Viking/Barbarian army that has been on the painting table for the last year got a near-full outing tonight against some old-school Hinchcliffe Byzantines.

Playing 25mm L'Art de la Guerre, my 200AP Lombard list was:

• 5 Elite & 1 Ordinary Impetuous HC, Competent General 
• 6 Saxon Impetuous HF Swordsmen, 4 LF Bw, 1 Slavic MF Swordsman, Brilliant General
• 4 Bowmen & 4 Slav MF Swordsmen, Ordinary General

25 Units

Here are the guys in action...

 Heavy Foot advance in the centre (a part-unfinished general with no flag urging them on...)

Bowmen and Swordsmen in action

The Shieldwall advances

Spare bowmen slide into the centre - semi-fictional Pictish crossbowman figure on one of the bases

Slave hiding in a Plantation

It's a casualty!

The Heavy Foot struggle to hold back the enemy mounted force - red markers = 3 hits

But while they do, the rest of the Saxons close in on the exposed Skoutatoi

The Slavs look set to overrun the Byzantine bowmen too

Old School Hinchliffe Kavalllaroi with impressive banner skills

Everything is engaged on a broad front - the Lombard cavalry are being eroded, but the Lombard foot is deep into the soft infantry underbelly of the smaller Byzantine force

Not much shooting taking place now - everyone is in combat!

The last Byzantine archer unit falls - an inaugural victory for the Lombards!