Assyria Uber Alles (scales..)

Over the last few days I've managed to get a few more of the Newline Designs Assyrians (that I only bought in July...) painted up for a Biblical Era L'Art de la Guerre army I plan to try and use next year, all of whom match the 15mm Museum Miniatures army I already have.

They are all infantry, which is down to me prioritizing them over the rather more important cavalry and chariots in this army - and here they are, along with some of their smaller brothers in arms!

UK Ancients Competition Scene - 2019 year-end update

With the dammed election noise and nonsense now over (for some of us...) the really interesting surveys and polls are now able to be released, including my now-almost-as-traditional-as-sprouts snapshot summary of how widely played the leading basket of rulesets each are amongst UK Ancients competition players right now.

These December stats only cover the UK "player universe" numbers for competition players across the 7 most popular Ancients mass-battle rulesets. The data is drawn from competition results that I've found published online - so if I wasn't able to find it, it's not included.

The measurement period is all events held in the UK in the last 12 months - or, more catchily, the 2019 calendar year. The only exception is the very last event I'm aware of, the Tradeston club's traditional post-Christmas 1-day ADLG competition. I've included the 2018 edition in the 2019 numbers basically so I can get this out before Christmas and forget about the blog for a bit over the festive break!

One additional important factor which has become increasingly significant in recent years is the number of overseas players taking part in UK competitions, such that non-UK players can now make up as much as 10-15% of the 'UK' pool of players for some rulesets. To give a clearer picture of what people in the UK are playing I've therefore split out the numbers to show the numbers of both overseas players and "UK-based" players, giving a clearer indication of who in the UK is playing each set.

The more detailed annual analysis will again be out in a few months, but as of today the headlines for how many people have played what at competitions in the last 12 months are as follows:

Total Player Numbers  (UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1.   ADLG     189 / 210
2.   DBMM   73 / 84
3.   DBA        67 / 68
4.   TTS!        64 / 66
5.   MeG        61 / 71
6.   FoGAM   48 / 48
7.   DBM       43 / 45

Net Change 2018-2019  (UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1. TTS!       +36 / +36
2. ADLG     +28 / +30
3. DBM       +6 / +6
4. DBA        +3 / +3
5. MeG        -1 / +6
6. DBMM    -7 / -4
7. FoGAM   -11 / -11

New Players first seen during 2019 (UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1. TTS!       43 / 43
2. ADLG     41 / 48
3. MeG        13 / 20
4. DBA        12 / 12
5. DBM        8 / 8
6. DBMM    5 / 7
7. FoGAM   2 / 2

Players who appeared in 2018 but not 2019 (UK based players / UK+Overseas players):

1. ADLG       23 / 32   (UK player pool churning out this year = 12% of current UK total)
2. DBMM     16 / 20    (22%)
3. DBA          17 / 17   (25%)
4= FoGAM   14 / 14    (29%)
4= MeG        14 / 15    (23%)
6. TTS!         7 / 7        (10%)
7. DBM        4 / 4        (8%)

Ruleset Details

ADLG

ADLG remains the most widely played ruleset by some margin, with 35 events (yes..) held in the UK during the year and a player pool that topped 200 (if you include overseas players) for the first time. Despite it now being almost 5 years since ADLG was first introduced to the UK, player numbers increased in the last 12 months an even faster rate than in 2018 with a net increase of 30 comfortably topping the net increase of 19 last year. 41 new UK-based players joined the circuit, offset by 23 who dropped out (a fall in attrition rate compared to last year when 30 dropped off the circuit between 2017-2018). A handful of lapsed players returning to competitions rounded out the net increase. The proportion of players who took part in just one event also stayed flat at 38% year on year.

Since the first UK ADLG event at Roll Call in April 2015, 251 different UK-based players have entered at least one competition in the UK, and have been joined by 41 overseas-based players as well. 77% of this all-time UK player universe remained active on the UK circuit in the last 12 months.  

DBMM

The size of the DBMM player universe across all UK events dipped a little in 2019 with overall participation down 4 year on year. counting internationals (a few of whom took part in the new London GT team event), or 7 based just on UK attendees alone. As is usual with DBMM, a number of players returned to the circuit after a break as well to offset the in-year attrition which saw 16 UK-based players not return after featuring at events held in 2018. The proportion of players who took part in just one event also stayed pretty much flat at 36% year on year, with the one-day events in Milton Keynes and Guildford contributing many of these players to the UK pool.

DBA

DBA has continued its recent trend of increasing UK player numbers in recent years, ending the year wit 68 separate players taking part in the 12 events staged across the country. DBA however also continued to see a relatively high rate of churn of players joining and leaving the circuit for such an established ruleset, with almost 1 in 4 players joiing or leaving in the last 12 months. 31 players took part in just one event, representing almost half of the UK pool of DBA players - one of the highest ratios for any of these rulesets, but which given the wide geographic spread of DBA events is perhaps not surprising. 

To The Strongest!

TTS! lept into the limelight in 2018 as a result of, erm, staging more than just one event over the course of the year. The five events staged ranged from Glasgow down to London and across to Cardiff, and clearly tapped into a significant and previously unfulfilled demand for TTS! events amongst the 'social' player universe in the UK.

The end result was a universe of 64 UK-based competition players, of whom an astonishing 43 had never played in a TTS! event before this year. 7 out of the 30 who entered the 2018 TTS! Worlds in Chalgrove however failed to reappear on the expanded UK circuit in 2019, giving a "since these records began" universe of 71.

MeG

The number of people taking part in one of the 18 MeG events held across the UK in 2019 increased by 6 over 2018, driven entirely by increased numbers of international travelling to the UK, most notably at the MeG World Championships and Britcon. The UK-based players was almost unchanged at 61. Almost a quarter of all players churned both in and out during 2019 and 25 players took part in just one event, placing MeG firmly into the almost-weirdly-standard 35-40%-ish range against this measure.

Since the first UK MeG event held at the BHGS Challenge in 2016, 89 different UK-based players have entered at least one competition in the UK and have been joined by 14 overseas-based players as well. 69% of the all-time UK player universe remained active on the MeG circuit by attending events held in 2019.

FOGAM

2019 saw 15 players dropping out of the AM circuit after trying V3 in 2018, and 2 new players entering their first FoG event (each with a single appearance as part of the same doubles team at Burton). 12 players (exactly 25% of the FoG universe) took part in just one event making FoG the only set to deviate noticeably from the "just over a third play only once" norm in this respect.

Following the introduction on FoGAM V3 in January 2018, 62 different UK-based players have entered at least one V3 competition in the UK. 77% of these remained active in the last 12 months.

DBM

Numbers for DBM lept upwards this year by almost 15%, or more precisely 6. That gave DBM a total of 45 competition players in 2019, with 8 new players mostly from the handful of clubs where DBM is played competitively were persuaded to enter competitions - often at events hosted by their own clubs. Only 4 players dropped off the circuit, a couple returned after a break and - of course - a near-textbook 39% of players entered only one event. The 2 regular overseas-based players continued to appear in UK tournaments in 2019.

The Conclusion

In summary as 2019 draws to a close these 7 popular Ancients rulesets have attracted 549 UK-based players and a further 42 international visitors to make 591 different players in total taking part in a UK Ancients competition in the last 12 months.

That total is almost 100 up on the prior year count of 496 (although the addition of TTS! to these numbers does accounts for two thirds of this increase alone).

That also still represents an 80% share across the 7 most popular UK Ancients competition rulesets for the "Barkeresque" concept of one unit = one base, although to be fair TTS! isn't really a DBx derived set in the same way that DBM, DBA, DBMM and ADLG all are. 

So, numbers on the up, international visitors on the up, but even so the near-30-year-old DBx engine is still going strong as 2020 hoves into view!

(Whilst some players appear in the stats twice because they played two rulesets over the course of the past year this is discounted for the analysis as numbers are too low to impact the main trends. And it's too much work to de-dupe them by name as well)

Oooh-err Missus! It's a B.I.G. Abona !

Way back in the mists of time in a far flung corner of this sceptred isle a band of well-muscled 25mm army-carrying wargamers gathered together to celebrate the Roman era of British history (and, more pertinently, how it was portrayed in Carry On films - of course).

The end result was the BIG Abona Festival, a 2-day, 4-game 25mm ADLG event with a theme of all armies valid at any date during the Roman presence in Britain.

To this esteemed gathering I elected to take the Vikings, who just about squeaked in with a dateline before the end of the Sub Roman British list. Just.

Many months later the four reports of the Viking's exploits are finally published for your delight and delectation, as the Norseen take on the Mongols, Ancient British and two very different sets of Roman soldiery in full widescreen technicolour.

Read on for the usual mix of poor puns, comedy captions and expert analysis - this time with added rubbish rhymes!
 

Avignon ADLG Lists - more than half the top 10 !

Having just returned from a weekend in the South of France taking part in a 1-list, 200 AP tournament at Villeneuve Les Avignon, I'm pleased to be able to post the lists from the players who finished in 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th.  Or, put another way, my list, and the lists of my opponents all of whom finished above me in a 30+ strong field!

• 1st- Kushan
• 3rd - Ugarit
• 5th - Alexander  
• 7th - Galatian 
• 9th - Carthaginian
• 10th (My) Assyrian and Sargonid

As usual, match reports to follow at some unspecified point in future...

(Update 5/11/19 : 4th place Mycenean list (minimal chariots!) now also added to the Wiki)

Late Theme ADLG lists from Britcon 2019

All of the "late" period army lists, as well as the 25mm lists from this weekend's Britcon event are now published on the ADLG Wiki on Madaxeman.com.

That's 44 different army lists covering the following 28 armies:

• Anglo-Irish
• Berber
• Bulgar
• Burgundian Ordonnance
• Communal Italian
• Condottieri
• Free Company
• Ghaznavid
• Hundred Years War French
• Ilkhanid Mongol
• Indonesian and Malay
• Jurchen-Chin
• Low Countries
• Medieval German
• Medieval Hungarian
• Medieval Polish
• Medieval Scots
• Medieval Spanish
• Mongol Empire
• Normans in Sicily
• Ottoman Empire
• Samurai
• Siam
• Swiss
• Timurid
• Tuareg
• Wars of the Roses
• Yuan Chinese

The 'early' lists were published earlier later this week.

Britcon 2019 - ADLG Army Lists on the Wiki

All of the "early" period army lists from this weekend's Britcon event are now published on the ADLG Wiki on Madaxeman.com.

That's 19 different army lists covering the following armies:

• Achaemenid Persian   
• Arab Conquest   
• Assyrian Empire and Sargonid 
• Burmese    
• Christian Nubian  
• Classical Greek   
• Classical Indian   
• Early Imperial Roman  
• Early Successors   
• Han Chinese   
• Hindu Indian   
• Kushan    
• Maurikian Byzantine   
• Nikephorian Byzantine   
• Ostrogoth    
• Republican Roman   
• Romano-British    
• Seleucid    
• Sumer et Akkad  
• Tamil Indian   
• Thematic Byzantine   
• Vedic Indian   
• Warring States   

The rest of the lists will be published later this week. 

ADLG Worlds - Al Shearer rides into Rome !

The World Championships somehow managed to shift across Europe, moving from a shed in Birmingham into a 5-star hotel in glorious Rome this year.

That of course means another overseas extravaganza for Team CLWC, and for yours truly another chance to try and craft something out of yet another of the Arab-flavoured armies I have been working through this year.

The Khurasanians - basically a poor man's Ghaznavid/Abbasid hybrid - were the lucky chaps to make it out into the hot, hot Italian sunlight this time, where they took on 6 different enemies drawn from the US, Mexico, France, Spain and somewhere else using Mongols, Han Chinese, Carolingians, Alexandrians, French Ordonnance and the Seleukids.

To track the games (and the food, and the swimming) there are many thousands of words spread across six fully illustrated, (unusually) map-annotated, kawasaki-riding battle reports in which Geordie General Al'Shearer lands yet again in the commentary position.

Guarantee yourself a Big Night Oot and read away (the lads)..

2019 L'Art de la Guerre Worlds - The Top 5 Lists

In case you've not already spotted it, I've now posted the army lists from the top-placing players in last month's 2019 Worlds from Rome on the ADLG Wiki.

The lists are;

1st - Yuan Chinese
2nd - Timurid
3rd - Communal Italian
4th - Ottoman Empire
5th - Khurasanian

The full placings from The Worlds are on the FIW website, with a complete list of armies on the ADLG forum. The Madaxeman.com Podcast about the Yuan list was published earlier this month - other may follow!

If you are inspired by these lists, here's a couple of very nice looking Timurid/Yuan style elephants from Donnington Miniatures to be tempted by as well.

A fistful of 15mm Swiss

With a one-day Late medieval themed competition looming, it seemed a good time to upgrade my handful of Mirliton Swiss pikemen into a L'Art de la Guerre Swiss army capable of taking to the table.

With the Mirliton ranges no no longer being available in the UK, I decided to try a different manufacturer to round out the 5 pike blocks I owned already. After a bit of browsing I settled on the perhaps unlikely choice of QRF/Freikorps, on the basis that they looked to be a similar heft and body shape to the Mirliton figures, and also as they too had open hands for separate weapons.

The QRF figures are a smidge more frail, and are less "frilly sleeved" than the "a bit frilly" Mirliton figures, but with a good selection of flags downloaded from Alex Flags, compatible basing and similar paint schemes they look pretty decent at tabletop distances to me.

These are 40x40 bases with 12 figures in 3 ranks - an  ADLG Kiel

I chose to blackline these figures - not a style I usually adopt, but with the blocks of adjacent colour on the Swiss and my reluctance to ink-wash a set of figures with so much white on them it helps to make the limited palette of contrasting colours pop a little more 

It can of course end up looking like Mondrian was their official uniform designer.

The bases are painted in a Homebase testor pot - nice and cheap !

The Mondrian effect is very visible from the back

As I've probably posted before, making sure to paint the edges of the flags to remove that unsightly white paper line along their edges is really important and makes a huge difference to the overall look and feel. If you don't do this your eye is automatically drawn to the (white) edges of the flags, breaking the illusion of the figures.

Here are some of the QRF/Freikorps guys next to the Mirliton figures (LKM on the right)

I also based up some halberdier units - these are pretty flimsy and I can see some casualties in the halberd-blade department as soon as they take to the table in battle conditions

Another view of the two types - Mirliton on the left, QRF on the right.

 Halberdiers again.  Not that great close up, but these are painted for tabletop distance viewing.

 Mirliton in the foreground, QRF from Berne behind them

Some day my Ninja will come...

June 2019 - The NEC, UK Games Expo and one of the bigger UK events I will manage to get to this year. So, why not take an almost legendarily unusable army into a theme where it is certain to meet opponents it struggles to deal with?

Well, if that army is a Samurai force that hasn't seen light of day since it's almost-win in Burton last year, the answer is of course a resounding YES!!!

The end result is five full match reports, packed to the sushi-tasting gills with pictures of Samurai figures far better painted than I could ever hope to manage myself, as well as all of the usual videos, jokes, witty banter (some of it from headless ex-warriors serving as markers), and half-baked tactical theories.

In fact, there's even a herd of cows. What more could anyone want in the height of BBQ season eh?

Read on to find out how the Samurai fared against the Song Chinese, Sicilians, French, Ottomans and a properly colourful Samurai Civil War as well (just one) in these 5 fully ninja-tastic reports.

What's for Desert? The Egyptians @ Campaign 2019

The Campaign team event has become a bit of a regular feature on the ADLG circuit, and this year I ended up driving a newly-rebased and refurbished New Kingdom Egyptian army in a tightly themed competition against 6 other extremely similar armies.

The Egyptians fought Bedouin Camels! 

They fought an artistically licensed army of Egyptian Undead ! 

And, most of all, they fought Egyptian Civil Wars

These 6 match reports chronicle the complete biblically epic weekend for the NKE, in a widescreen spectacular that only the presence of Charlton Heston could possibly improve! 

Building the Lancastrians in 25mm for ADLG

Following on from the battle reports of the surprisingly effective Lancastrian ADLG army, I thought it might be interesting to share how the army was put together in terms of figures and basing, and the thought behind the list design as well.

Most - but not all - of them are Perry plastics, making this a very cost-effective army to build. There is now a summary of the figures I used,  how the army was designed and was supposed to work (in theory and then in practice) and also some ideas as to how I painted them up on the main website now. If you wish you can buy yourself a set of the whole lot for under £100!

Full details of the figures are on madaxeman.com

Lancaster Bombers! ADLG from Roll Call 2019

Roll Call this year saw a 25mm competition in the High Medieval era, and to this gunfight came the Wars of the Roses Lancastrians, in an attempt to use a load of longbowmen and dismounted Perry Men at Arms in a sort of OK army.

There was a big Gunne, plenty of Northern references, 5 matches against everyone from the Jurchen Chin to the Swiss, the Samurai to the Burgundians and even with a Condottieri pasta course in the middle of it all.

See how "our kids" did in these heavy metal battles as longbows twanged and plastic swords clanged and the Lancastrians tried to find out if every single list in the L'Art de la Guerre book is at least partly viable.

It's a veritable Coronation Street episode of  convoluted plotting and amazing acting (by some of the casualty markers especially) - but who will be crowned Landlord of the Rovers Return at the end?

Read on to find out!

Lambs to the Slaughter! The Assyrians invade Patras in 5 new battle reports!

The much-trailed Assyrian army has finally made it not only onto the table, but onto a plane, and into a 5-round competition in sunny (and rainy) Greece at the 2019 Patras Challenge.

The Winged Lion of Assyria takes on three very different Roman armies, a Classical Indian and finally the Han Chinese in a series of battles fitted carefully in between bouts of extreme eating and drinking across a swathe of the Patrene nightlife's top venues.

Watch as the the newly minted chariots and infantry, supported by archer cavalry do their very best on a number of different playing surfaces to dodge between the cakes, biscuits and pieces of lamb which attempt to prove more problematic than their enemies

 Even goats occasionally get a look in.

Its all there in glorious sunshine, so roll up your Gyros, sizzle up some Spanakopita and chuck a halloumi slice on the bbq to enjoy these 5 consecutive reports !