The Devonian Classic - 5 Tapas & Pasty Match Reports

Another 5 Madaxeman L'Art de la Guerre Battle Reports from The Devonian Classic, a competition in the west country that was straight outta Brixham - a small town in Devon, packed full of pasties, pirates and, erm.. pubs ? 

But, more importantly home to an eminently rentable community hall, plenty of cheap off-peak off-season accommodation (and of course the new venue for the fabulous Steve Price Towers), and more fish and chip shops than you can shake a stick at - all making it an ideal location for hosting an ADLG competition of the large but perfectly formed variety!

To this event the newly-minted Spanish army of Sertorius came, singing sea shanties and burping chorizo and garlic at all and sundry, towing behind them the legendary BURNING CART OF DOOOOM!!!. 

These five resulting L'Art de la Guerre match reports are your chance to see how an Iberian army does against the Early Arabs, Seleukos, the Mitanni, the Might of Rome, and the rest of the Successors in 5 full-definition, seagull-targeted battle reports full of the usual stuff and nonsense.

15mm Corvus Belli (plus others..) Spanish infantry

 I've owned a DBA army pack sized force of Corvus Belli 15mm Ancient Spanish for many years, and they have from time to time served as an allied command to the Carthaginians - but I always harboured an ambition to extend it to a full army.

With the demise of Corvus Belli as a casting company for many years this was never really possible, but recently I managed to pick up a second DBA army box from a clubmate (thanks Mike!), add in a few more figures from the bits box and some odd figures from Clive's collection that didn't really fit into any other armies, and end up with what is hopefully going to be a viable Ancient Spanish army for ADLG.

These are the new guys:

6 bases of Impetuous Medium Swordsmen

The colour scheme is a bit random, but I've generally tried to get a lot of red, white and yellow as the dominant colours to make them look, well, "Spanish"-ish.

The central unit here is mostly Xyston figures, which look way bigger than the CB guys in the metal, but are not so bad when based up like this.

These guys have been based in 5's to represent Javelinmen and differentiate them from the Warband -types

These are the find from Clive's collection - they look like old Donnington figures, from both the Spanish and the (sort of) Etruscan type ranges.  

The shields are great - far better than I could manage these days - so much so that they distract from the rather old school statically posed figures. These will be the Celtiberian Internal Allied Tribe Heavy Infantry Swordsmen. 

 

A Load of Old Bulls - The Koreans invade Spain

Its Spain - and of course it's 6 battle reports which are as tasty as a Korean barbecue with added Chorizo and Manchego !

The occasion is a competition in Pamplona, the home of the running of the bulls which was of course an ideal place to try out an army which may in itself be a load of old bull.

But even more pertinently they are the Koryo Koreans and their War Wagon Wagon Train, a novelty item often overlooked in ADLG. 

Will the cunning Koreans make the wagons work in these six trucking good battle reports?

The wheels are certainly rolling - will they come off, or will they ride to victory in Spain?

Yummy-yads in Spain - Food, Castles and ADLG!

The Umayyad Caliphate in a few short years managed to build a mighty empire stretching from Asia to the shores of the Atlantic ... but now they faced their greatest mission, The Conquest of Spain (reached via Bilbao airport, travelling in a small metal tin).

Yes, after somewhat of a hiatus here are 5 match reports of yet another fairly randomly selected ADLG army fighting at a competition held in Northern Spain at Estella.

In these reports the Umayyads take on the Armenians, Alexandrian Macedonians, Maurikian Byzantines, Arab Indians and finally the Medieval Polish, whilst Team Central London take on a variety of three course meal options, tapas plates, obscure Basque spirits and rather nice Rioja, all of which get featured heavily in the writeups.

Finally, in a totally new departure, Siege Warfare comes to Madaxeman.com as the intrepid CLWC crack castle-wall-storming brigade meanders through the hinterland of Castile visiting an array of Moslem, Visigothic and Reconquista fortresses, all of which are photographed and presented for your delight and delectation.

Be extra careful if you are squeamish about roast pork products, otherwise just be careful of the poor quality jokes and captions and the sub-standard gameplay (as usual).

Norman / Spanish Mini-Me!

Having recently done some 28mm Norman/Spanish/Crusader spearmen, and seeing that their colour scheme seemed to work, I decided to retro-fit some 15mm mostly 2 Dragons infantry with the same heraldry.

These guys may well get used in an army soon, as some of the castles around Spain the CLWC team saw on our way back from Estella were pretty inspiring in terms of making me want to field a Spanish El Cid era army.

More of these photos in the upcoming Estella Reports!

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... 

ADLG in Estella, Navarre - What's it to you !?!

Buono Estente!  An intrepid team of Central London ADLG players continue our pre-Brexit World Tour by taking ourselves off to Estella in Northern Spain, the gateway to La Rioja, and also home to the wines of Navarre (which are of course just as good if not even a little better than those of Rioja, especially if you are playing ADLG with the good gamers of Navarre, like we were).

In the resulting 5 ADLG match reports and gastronomic and touristic reviews, as well as the accompanying immediately-post-event episode of the Madaxeman.com Podcast (this episode entitled Dear Catastrophe Tapas Waitress) you can see how a classic DBx army, the Patrician Romans, fares in ADLG.

This was a deliberate attempt to create a wall of barbarians and overwhelm the enemy by sheer hairyness after this tactic, impossible to do well in most other rulesets, had caused me so much trouble when I had encountered it in several previous events.

The Patrician list that emerged was far from Reigate Standard in all senses of the word, but did they manage to "tapas" into a vein of success in these 5 L'Art de la Guerre battles in Spain, or was their "tinto" spilt and were then instead left like so many huevos rotos on the floor by the pride of Navarre?

Read on to find out more ....