ADLG-ready Patrician Romans on eBay

Now is your chance to own some "as seen on madaxeman.ccom" Late Roman /  Dominate / Patrician Romans, as I'm selling on eBay this 250-odd point 15mm army which includes a full range of options to form several different variations of this popular and flexible force.

The eBay link is here

 

All the figures have been based and magnabased for storage and transit, and have been double-varnished (Army Painter + Testors Dullcote) for tabletop handling.

These guys were originally part of a much bigger DBM/FoG army now being downsized to split into 2-3 ADLG armies, as I've finally decided to bite the bullet and admit to myself that the trend towards smaller army size games is irreversible, and that I can't see how I'll be using this many figures again in the future.

So, the eBay route it is

There's a total of 141 foot + 48 mounted (so almost 250 "things" in total) - which means anything less that £250 is a bargain in my book.

The army comprises:

• 2 Impact Cv  (Essex)
• 2 Cataphracts  (Essex)
• 2 LH Bow (Essex)
• 2 Huns LH (Minifigs?)
• 6 Mounted Foederate Cavalry  (Khurasan's Gothic & Sarmatian ranges)
• 4 Foederate foot (Peter Pig)
• 4 Legionaries (Donnington)
• 4 Auxilia (Donnington)
• 1 Auxilia Bowman (Donnington)
• 8 LI bow (can be used as support for the Legions/Auxilia) (Donnington)
• 1 Artillery (Essex)
• 3 Commanders (Mixed manufacturers)
• 1 Camp base

If you want to expand the army I am happy to either help point you at the exact figure codes or have a dig around in the rest of my collection as well to see if I can spare a few more bases to help you.

I can also arrange for collection at the BHGS Doubles or Warfare, or on a clubnight at CLWC in London so if you are a UK-based player those may be options to save on postage. If you're in Spain or Southern France, I'll also be at the Estella event in October. 

Part of all bids will go to support SSAFA, the UK armed forces charity (Help for Heroes passes a chunk of the cash they raise onto SSAFA).

Gripping Beast (& others) Dark Age Horse

To round out two armies (don't ask...) for the upcoming event in Devizes I picked up a box of Gripping Beast plastic Dark Age cavalry recently, and added a few more figures to them as well. Here are the results:

Three Gripping Beast cavalry. They go together well, but you can't help feeling they have missed an opportunity to really load up the sprue with different weapons and arm poses - a bit like the Roman Infantry set I did a couple of years ago.

A mix of round and oval shields. Some of the arm poses are a bit ungainly, and I had t cut the base of one arm to get it to work at a reasonable angle. 

This base has a Warlord Games Romano-British cavalryman added in the middle. Its not a great figure to be honest, but gives another guy with armour on the base to make them more obviously Heavy Cavalry, as all of the GB ones are in tunics. 

The horses have that slightly weird "seahorse" neck of the GB horses in this set, but once they are charging straight at you it's not so obvious.

 Another Warlord figure. They are all mounted on metal horses, as they didn't mix and match at all with the saddle shapes on the GB figures.

They do take an ink wash extremely well.

I also picked up these Alans/Huns unpainted in a bring and buy.

I think they may be Foundry, but could also be Old glory due to the variety. They are split at the waist. 

If you look carefully you can see some heads attached to the bridles...

And finally a fortified camp made with kebab skewers

A bit of baggage from Ainsty Castings 

And a General - I think this one may have been from Warlord.

28mm Late Roman Casualty Markers

In a sporadic burst of painting, I've finally gotten round to adding some colours to a pack of resin Late Roman casualties from 1st Corps that I picked up at "Derby" last year.

They are still needing a coat of Army Painter to tone them down a little, but anyways, here they are, all ready to sit behind the near-identical Gripping Beast Late Roman infantry that I finished some time ago.

It's a rather extravagant use of LBMS shield transfers I admit, but lets face it you always buy too many of them and it's and even bigger shame to let them go to waste.

I'll use the varnish rather than the wash version of Army Painter on these, as it will harden them up for being chucked in a box with the other casualty markers I have.

I've colour coded these chaps, into "Green", "Yellow" and "Red", mostly based on their shields. This makes them compatible with my usual ADLG hit marker scheme, with Red as 3 hits, Yellow as 2 hits and anything else as the first hit.

Three dead guys all in red - 3 hits!

Godedingdangdag 2018 - The Romans Return!

It's time yet again for Kenneth Williams to don his toga and avoid being stabbed in the back as he takes command of a Patrician Roman army against enemies from all edges of the Roman empire - Franks, Palmyrans, Spaniards and the eastern extremities of the Warring States Chinese in four separate 300 point L'Art de la Guerre doubles battle reports.

Thrill to the thunder of hooves, marvel at the download time of the often inappropriate and shoehorned-into-the-narrative comedy animated GIF's, hold your breath in fear as the two lines of mighty warriors clash together and roll dice to see who comes out on top in almost 10,000 words of irrelevant and semi-educational nonsense

Reports contain all the usual mutterings and puns, as well as some truly incredible feats of bravery and military success (not all of which are from the Roman troops - as you may well already have guessed..).

See for yourself if they truly do have it Infamy..

With a spare 28mm figure or two....

.. from my Gripping Beast Plastic Late Romans still lying around, I decided it was a good time to add a 25mm "Heroic" Commander to my Late Roman 15mm armies... and here's the evidence.

This is the in-box Gripping Beast plastic commander figure, together with a standard bearer on a 40mm round base to act as an L'Art de la Guerre General

The standard bearer looks especially glum today for some reason...

He is clearly somewhat lacking the exuberance of his boss.. but he does have an LBMS transfer for his flag, so it's not all bad.

Usual Army Painter technique with matt varnish to finish and a very light pale drybrush.

Here they are with some Later Roman/Byzantine infantry from Strategia et Tactica

Leading from the back in textbook style

Or from the front, making the standard bearer even more unhappy... and showing off the LBMS transfer on his bosses shield as well.

(unusually, these pictures are all clickable and give you a much bigger version)

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!

25mm Late Romans still underway...

With Christmas just around the corner, here's some not particularly festive WIP shots of my Patrician Romans for ADLG in 25 (8?) mm.

They are a mix of the Gripping Beast plastics, some Old Glory mixed barbarians (that I think might be mostly Scots from a slightly later era, but seem to do OK as generic Gothic foot types) with a few Foundry and Footsore figures sprinkled in to make the variety greater.

 Romans prepare to take on the (as yet un-Army-Paintered) barbarian hordes

12 units of barbarians.... let;s hope the Romans are Elite!

Auxilia, with obligatory LBMS shield transfers

The man holding up the shield is one of the "far too many in the pack" Gripping Beast archers, but converted to hold his shield up to cover his colleague from archery

Some of the "far too many" archers acting as, well, archers. I went away from the textbook red colour scheme to make them more exotic.

Still awaiting Testors Dullcote varnish on this lot

A Degenerate Legionary unit with an old-school standard

I think the officer may be a Footsore Miniatures Romano-British figure

Cloaks at the ready...

Foundry armoured cavalry. Probably able to play as Cataphracts as well at a pinch. I used some spare GB plastic spears as their lances, as they are pretty robust and the Foundry metal ones are far too bendy. They don't yet have Army Painter on them

More LBMS shield transfers....

Warlord Games 'Unleash Hell' General and Dog

Again, needing a coat of Dullcote. His skintone is just a wash with Peat Brown ink.

Hopefully I will find time to put a big dent in getting them all table-ready over the festive break...