Brand New Battle Reports!

Yes, after a near-18-month hiatus I have actually played in a real live competition and almost-immediately written up 5 all-new battle reports from the recent 3T's competition held in York ! 

This means that the commentary alongside the photos might actually bear at least a passing resemblance to what actually went on on the tabletop during the games - and I may even remember some of the results as well. 

The reports also feature many references to roadside retail establishments on the Great North Road, as well as the usual animations, captions and speech bubble nonsense. 

The matches in question feature a lockdown-painted Thracian Army taking on all comers, in the form of Carthage, Palmyra, Sassanid Persia, Triumverate Rome and finally the Seleucids.   

The road to the competition also saw us visit the Newark Air Museum, and there's a separate gallery of photos from that trip now online too.  

Finally - of course - there are TWO Podcasts, one featuring the Madaxeman Podcast team trying to predict the winners from the event (before it happened) in a Euro 2020/21 style, and then a second , subsequent Podcast in which the Thracian list and four others are all discussed and evaluated. The List Pod is available on both Podbean and YouTube. 

Read the reports now!

Cold Wars 2020 (yes, 2020...) Match reports from the ADLG Singles Competition

In the dim and distant past, face to face games were played, and people crossd mighty oceans in metal tubes held aloft by the power of magic to crowd together in enclosed spaces and drink beer and eat chinese food. 

In that long-forgotten time an ADLG event took place in Amish Country - a land without Zoom in a time before ubiquitous face mask wearing. 

To this event went a brave and tiny Sassanid Persian army (with Alannic Allies), and, unearthed from the  swamps of time, archeologists have now found three brand new ADLG v3 Match Reports in a long-lost corner of Madaxeman.com

They are now most humbly presented here for your delight and amusement, along with an added bonus - The epic tale of the Sweaty Crocodile:

Go on, click the link. You know Dale wants you to... 

More War & Empire Sassanid Cataphracts

Painted up at pretty much the same time as the Carolingians are three more units of War & Empire / Forged in Battle Sassanids Cataphracts. 

I'd already got 3 units worth, which isn't quite enough for a proper Sassanid army (you kinda need 4 at least I think) so rather than stick with using Roman-style ones, when I saw a pack on eBay for a tenner for 12 mounted figures I dived in and doubled the force.

These chaps have a lot of variety in the pack, and handily come with 13 riders, one of whom is a standard bearer and one an officer/General type with a mace so you can choose whether to have a standard-bearing officer in one of the units or not. 

They paint up super-easily, with simple cloaks and just enough variety to keep them interesting.

 You can also comfortably get 4 on a 40mm wide base by staggering them slightly front and back

I chose to give just a few of them cloth (or cloth-covered) armour, the rest are in full metal again to get a smidge more colour into the block. What's not to like, especially for just a tenner post-free ?!

 

The Seleucids in Beery ADLG Doubles Action at Burton 2020

Burton upon Trent, that double-barrelled city of beer barrels recently played host to a 24-team  ADLG Doubles tournament, which was an opportunity to use a recycled army list and a refurbished Seleucid army (with Maccabean allies) in 4 Classical era battles.

The rather unusual points total of 325 in force at BADCON 2020 saw the Successors take on Romans, Palmyrans, Vandals and Sassanids in 4 reports only briefly interrupted for discursive coverage of various beers, yet more pastry-covered meat products deplyed at lunchtimes, a hearty curry and some cockney rhyming slang.

Read on for these 4 full-flavoured and decidedly hoppy battle reports, and raise a toast to the King of Beers!

This is not the Pasty you were looking for.. Gepids in ADLG action at PAW 2020

For the first set of battle reports from events held in the roaring 20's the Gepid army assembles in glorious 28mm and then travels down the A30 all the way to the edge of Cornwall in order to assault the pasty-crust foothills and mountains of success at the 2020 PAW competition in Plymouth.

Will this complex and clever army of maniacally charging one-dimensional horse warriors manage to discover the meaty taste of success, or will they find that they have they bitten off more stewed vegetables of indeterminate provenance than they are able to chew?

One game against Trimverate Roman, two battles against the Seleucids and a final round playing the Sassanian Empire will show the answer in these  4 full-scale West Country reports.

May the Pasty be With You!

War & Empire Sassanid cataphracts

As well as picking up some Numidians at Britcon from West Wind's war & Empire range I also added a set of 12 of their Sassanid cataphracts to my collection.

OK, I do have lots of cataphracts already, but none which were overtly Sassanid - so a blister pack of a dozen seemed like a good chance to add 3 units to my mostly Legio Heroica ADLG army, and to get some size comparison photos of the W&E cavalry as well.

Here are the full dozen from the blister pack. The pack has (well, mine did have) more riders than horses, with a few officers and standard bearers to include if you want - which of course I chose to do.

Cataphracts are a decent host for a Sub General in ADLG, so the standard and sword-waving chaps in the middle may well be an embedded Sub General with some regularity.

Here are 8 of the W&E guys, with a textbook Essex cataphract unit in the middle of the line.

The proportions are a tad different, with the Essex ones looking bulkier and having stumpier horses but bigger bodies for the men, but they are basically the same height at the end of the day.

This shot has the Legio Heroica Sassanid Asarvan cavalry in the line. Again, not a great match in terms of stature but a decent one in terms of overall height.

The W&E Cataphracts are from their first range of releases, which seem to have fairly slight and short cavalry riders so perhaps later ranges will be a bit chunkier.

Here's the General and standard bearer. I wanted a fairly colourful mix of figures with different types of barding to match the look and feel of my existing Asarvan.

From the rear you can also see they have a fair selection of cloaks, allowing a more irregular look as well.

The size comparison shots for the Numidian foot can be seen here

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! 

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..!

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