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

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

Copplestone Barbarians sneak into the battle line...

Having acquired a pack of Copplestone Barbarian Heroes earlier this year in a complex shipping and exchange rate transaction involving a man known by many as the scourge of TMP, and which, fortunately, has yet to be drawn into the "Car Wash" scandal engulfing much of Brazil, I have finally gotten round to painting the figures and sneaking them into various 'proper' barbarian battle lines.

Here are the guys - proper 18mm Heroic 15mm scale, on the painting table

Three of them now form part of the front line of my enough for an ADLG army's worth of double-based DBx units of generic Barbarian Gauls and Germans

Two more are faster moving, even with such huge swords, and fight alongside the loose formation Gauls and Britons, again already DBE'ed for ADLG

Were you ever to wish for a mid 80's German Hair Metal band in 15mm, these figures might also make good starting points for a conversion ...  

Two more now fight alongside the Vikings and Rus, as legendary "Northmen" - my theory being that what we recreate on the tabletop is as much based on first hand reports turned into the stuff of legend by retelling over the years - and we're also recreating cool films too - so why not!

And the one axeman in the pack is suitably mad, appearing with some Two Dragons Beserkers

Isn't that a Massive Chopper?

Ready to create legends...  Follow the painting progress of the main batch which these were siphoned from here on the Lead Doesn't Bleed blog

L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance...

ADLG Renaissance is in development... and even with having not actually played it or laid eyes on a copy, I do know that it will probably involve "double units" for Pike & Shot.

The idea of rebasing is a frightening one, but amazingly, on examination of my Renaissance collection, I have spotted that I have at least a couple more bases of ECW/TYW Pike & Shotte than I actually need for any conceivable FoGR army I might wish to use in future... who'd a thunk it?!

So, knowing I have plenty of spares, I decided to test-base some Pike & Shot, using "second line" figures who won't honestly get an outing anyway just to see what they might look like.

It's an "Impetus-style" basing methodology !

Not sure that having 3 ranks of each is entirely right, but as a first experiment its a pretty decent look I think.

Medieval Scots for L'Art de la Guerre - an army in 15mm

Medieval Scots is not a subtle army - lots of poor quality pikemen, but one had successfully caused me a lot of problems in The Worlds in Belgium in 2016 so I had then quite fancied creating one myself.

I had also rebased a lot of Museum Miniatures Medieval pikemen to FoGR basing (40x20mm) a year earlier, cramming more than the regulation number of figures on a base for a mass effect, and this had also inspired me to see what a whole army of them might look like.

So, with a rather interesting order last thing in the day up at Derby last year which surprised the chap at Museum no end, the army started to take shape... and here is the finished result.

See the wee beasties in action with loads more photos here 

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!

Gripping Beast Plastic Romans

I'm gradually working my way through 2 boxes of Gripping Beast plastic Roman infantry, and in the process adding some LBMS shield transfers which cost almost as much as the figures.

Here's a unit of armoured Legionaries based for L'Art de la Guerre, with one added Foundry dart-throwing chap sneaking into the front line for added variety.

 

All of the images are clickable for larger pictures.

Gordon Bennett, it's El Sid! 5 more ADLG Reports

ADLG has reinvigorated a whole host of previously little-seen armies and figures, and next up on the rehabilitation trail are some Two Dragons Normans (and dubiously Viking-esque Almughavar morphs) who take part as a Feudal Spanish army in 5 games of 300 point large-army L'Art de la Guerre 15mm action at the 2016 BHGS Challenge.

Marvel at how these brave Norman-esque warriors emerge blinking into the light after so many years with flocked (rather than more modern grass tufted) bases.

Thrill as they double-base themselves to form ADLG units.

Gasp in horror as they still appear to have learnt nothing about tactics and planning despite their years of free time in which to study the classic military manuals.

And chortle with smutty delight as El Sid James provides the General's Commentary in all 5 match reports