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.

  

They are a-gaggin' and a-drippin'....the Welsh get lush for some 25mm ADLG action

Almost 2 years after the majority of the figures were bought in a bring and buy, finally a full fat 25mm mostly Old Glory Dark Ages army from the Celtic fringes of Britain makes its way onto the table in the guise of the Welsh.

Inspired by tales of derring do and the discovery of some daffodil-simulating grass tufts on eBay, this mountain-dwelling army takes on all comers from the far ends of the earth to the naughty neighbours across Offa's Dyke and the Irish Sea in 5 spectacular full colour match reports with big, big, big soldiers on display throughout.

The man, the legend, the Knight of the Realm Sir Tom Jones gives the judgement for the home team and of course, Medieval Hannibal is there for the insight and analysis at the end as well.

It's massive. It's Lush. Its Welsh through to the bone. And there are plenty of "double-L's" in there too for good measure.

Pour yourself a pint of Brains, settle in for the evening (because as Sir Tom would say, "it's cold outside") and enjoy the spectacle in these 5 widescreen brand new reports.

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!

Old Glory January sale as well..

Old Glory US have a sale until the end of January offering 30% off for orders of $101-$399 and 40% off for orders of $400 or more. Their website can also be reached via the 15mm Ancient Suppliers Index on this site.