And now for something a smidge different : The Battle of Trebbia

 This website is unashamedly a bit competition-gaming orientated (no sh-- Sherlock!) but occasionally I do play other sorts of games, and with Dan H from the US putting out a series of Punic Wars scenarios on the ADLG Facebook group using pretty standard sized armies, the opportunity to do a club-night refight using some little-seen classic Roman figures was too good to miss out on.

Just to prove it happened as much as anything else, I also brought along my camera and took a load of photos to cook up a battle report as well.

The battle features a Roman army with lacklustre leadership and questionable morale against Hannibal, who has the advantage of choosing his ground, laying an ambush, and having a full head of thick luxurious hair (resulting in a post-match analysis from him delivered in the style of a Pulp Fiction era Samuel L Jackson).

In this game I commanded the inexperienced, wet and tired Roman legions in a game where setup was entirely pre-scripted and the first turn saw both sides pictched straight into battle - meaning I was hoping from the off that the martial skills of the Legions would help me change history and confound Hannibals cunning plan!

Read on for the report 

Limerick 2018 - The Emerald Isle's first ever ADLG competition!

There once was a man with an axe,
Who played ADLG to relax.
A comp in Limerick Town,
Would see much Guinness go down,
On the plane was a Chinese army he'd packed.

That Keith Duffy bloke was nowhere to be seen,
But the chap from the Hobbit - yes, he'd been!
The Emerald Isle suits this game,
You can drink as yer' playin',
Which in Limerick makes everyone keen!

There were five games that went down in two days,
Although hangovers made most just a haze,
Many dice they were rolled,
And when the final bell tolled,
Well.. you must read on to see what Hannibal says!

(if that all makes no sense, there are 5 new ADLG battle reports now on Madaxeman.com featuring Han Chinese in action in Ireland!)

ADLG in London - 3 Reports with Hannibal in command

The inaugural Central London ADLG 1-dayer saw Hannibal commanding the Carthaginians in 3 games of L'Art de la Guerre, against the forces of India, Rome and Macedonia.

See how Hannibal fared in three fully-photographed match reports, including the usual mix of rules hints and explanations, dubious captions and withering post-game analysis from Monty Hannibal, Pirate Hannibal and Viking Hannibal

15mm Ancients - ADLG resurrects the painting urge..

Having become increasingly enamoured of ADLG, I finally got around to buying and painting up some proper Carthaginian cavalry and elephants recently, have fudged both types with dubious Greek proxies and morphs for pretty much the best part of, erm, mumble mumble years.

The 200 point format of ADLG means you have an army with just 20-25 elements (around 35-40 bases in old DBX/FoG money, with infantry being 2-bases and cavalry, elephants and psiloi being singles), so adding an odd element here or there to an existing army is a simple way to tart it up a bit.
The pictures of both are now included in the 15mm gallery - sadly Corvus Belli are no longer being produced, but I think that Martin at Vexillia still has a handful of the elephants on sale.

Both will be making an appearance this weekend at a 24-player ADLG event at Central London - how long they will appear for in the battle reports is an entirely different question!.

4 Ancients Reports from Lisbon 2012

After a rather long break from the pre-gunpowder world, Madaxeman.com is pleased to bring you 4 new reports from the 2012 ITC in Lisbon, in which Hannibal himself takes command of a Carthaginian army and take on Alexander the Great, two lots of R*m*ns, and some Seleukids

The reports can be found here

They include all of the traditional rubbish, some new bits from Twitter and a short video analysis of the Alexandrian army strengths and weaknesses too.

As Hannibal was actually commanding the Carthaginian army, I have been forced to draft in some almost-as-tough-as-Hannibal hard men to give the post match analysis and attempt to critique the perfection which was Hannibal's battle plan. So get ready for insightful comments from Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, Clint Eastwood and Jason Statham as well...

The Shop is Back!

In a development welcomed by literally some people, the Madaxeman.com merchandise shop is back! Yes,your chance to buy t-shirts and mugs with FoG and other wargaming-themed slogans and graphics, wherever you are in the world.

The range of products will grow steadily as and when I come up with any ideas (if you have ideas of stuff you'd like designed and produced just email me and I can create them for you), and so keep checking - navigation to The Shop has been added back into the top menu on the main site.

This might not rock your world, however let's face it - where else can you buy a t-shirt bearing the slogan "Morally Bankrupt? Moi? Surely some mistake Centurion!" ? 

Become a Fan of Madaxeman.com on Facebook

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Merry Christmas

Madaxeman.com and Festive Nasty Hannibal wish everyone a Happy Christmas & New Year. As a Christmas treat you can send this image as an eCard to all your friends - just click the link, register for the 15mm photo gallery and e-mail away (by clicking the envelope icon in the top right corner of each image page!