Almughavars!

 As the UK has been recently basking in weather more suited to the beaches of Barcelona, it seems a good time to share some "test painted" Catalan Almughavars from the Lurkio range, now being produced by Gripping Beast.

I'd always had a vague idea of getting myself a Catalan army at some point, mainly as it's a fairly unique army with the unique troop type of Almughavar. 

However the large number of Almughavars needed (of course...) don't really morph into anything else, so it had stayed on the back burner for ages - until a Lurkio "almost closing down sale" a while back tempted me  to grab a bargain with 3 sets of 24 Almughavars at a discount price giving me all I could ever need and more. 

And these are the jolly little chaps - rather "hobbity" if I may say, but not without their own charm and looking somewhat similar in style to some of the Baueda ranges too (so maybe the same sculptor?).

A I wasn't entirely taken with the sculpts, rather than paint all 72 in one go I decided to just do 24 of the more static-posed ones, and to experiment with a mostly contrast paints style to see if I could bang them out quickly and be done with them.  

As most of my other Medievals are traditionally painted with black undercoat, I wasn't sure if doing these in Contrasts would work well together with some of my existing Knights and other morphed troops who make up the rest of the Catalan army.

Having tidied them up, matt varnished them and added basing they look OK - this lot are a bit hard to judge in some ways as these are all the static poses, so there isn't much dynamism.

  

From the back you can see the quite nice way the Hardened Leather Speedpaint has worked for the belts to pick them out and do a bit of almost blacklining for me. 

I ended up overpainting some of the contrasts with "highlights" of normal paints too in the end to try and beef up the otherwise rather washed out colours. 

There are people out there who swear blind that Almughavars shouldn't have shields, but there are just too many of these guys with shields to leave the shielded ones out. 

Painting them was a bit of a dilemma too, as the shields are too tiny for me to even attempt any sort of heraldic pattern, so I just went for some simple "Catalan" stripes in the end. 

I'm pleased with how they have come out in the end, as I didn't have high hopes for these guys after seeing the castings - buyers remorse for not just spending the extra dosh to buy the far better Eureka ones I think - but they are decent enough given the price point they were at in the "closing down" sale. 

At full price from Gripping Beast these guys are now about 68p a figure, with the Eureka ones not much more at 75p each, making it a bit of a no brainer to go Eureka IMO

Either way, at 67p or 75p, I doubt I'd have ever bought an army's worth of Almughavars, so these hobbity chaps are as good as it's ever going to get for an army I may only use a handful of times!

Some "Yuge" War Wagons !

 Having sold a few of the textbook Essex War Wagons in recent years, I've accidentally drifted back into owning more than I will ever probably use as a result of picking up some because they looked interesting, and more latterly being given some 3D prints as giveaways along with competition entry. 

Mixing metal ones from different manufacturers, 3D prints in resin and even an MDF one does however lead to some serious variations in scale, or perhaps more accurately, "size" between the different ranges - and that is very much reflected here! 

This one was a 3D print handed out to competitors at the Akra Leuka Tournament in Alicante in January 2025.  I've added some Essex & Mirliton crew who are sort of randoms, all picked out of the bits box. The wagon is enormous and I needed to sit the crew on 2 lolly sticks to give them the extra height to see out. 

This cute little box on wheels is the Fireforge MDF kit of a 15mm war wagon. The wheels are a bit "Fred Flintstone" and it comes without the oxen, again from the bits box (I think Mirlitons Carroccio wagon comes with 4 which was too many to fit on a base) so these have at least got some wagon-pulling experience in a previous life

The lid of the Fireforrge MDF kit does however lift off, and they supply this folded-out lid that becomes a pavise shield thingy too. Even so its a huge blocky wagon.

Here is the 3D print and the MDF kit side by side. 

And, for a contrast, the 3D printed wagon and a Museum wagon side by side. 

I guess I know which one I'd prefer to be defending!

From the other side the sheer scale of the folded-out roof on the 3D print is even more striking.

Here is the front-on view. No room for horses or oxen on an 80mm long base with the 3D print.

This is the Museum wagon. They are ridiculously good value, especially in the annual Museum sale when you can pick them up for under £4 each.

Having draft horses as well is a bonus - my bits box is only so deep after all!

This is the 3D print again - the flag is one I Googled looking for a Hussite Flag

The imposing wall of defence - ideally they will only attack from this side!

I haven't glued the crew in though, so if needed they can turn around as a block of 4 and fight over this side too.

All in all a real mix - I suppose there is no reason all "wagons" would be the same size (unlike say, people or horses) but if I do get these all on table at the same time I am sure some eyebrows will be raised nevertheless!

Grab a Toblerone and head to Farnborough!

 Yes, after a somewhat lengthy delay the 5 battle reports from the L'Art de la Guerre competition at Warfare 2024 have finally made it to these pages, allowing you to see the Swiss army in all its glory!

In a series of 5 consecutive High Medieval battles the Gnome of Zurich leads his cheese-eating, cowbell-donging merry band of men with (long pointy) sticks into action against the Scottish Schiltrons, the Reconquering Medieval Spanish, the pecunious mercenary Free Companies, the even more monetarily-focused Condottieri, and finally the highly efficient Medieval Germans.

  

In each battle the highly complex and over-engineered Swiss plan unfolds in full Alpine Cinemascope, accompanied by ferocious yodelling and a faint whiff of burnt fondue

All battles come complete with speech bubbles, bizarre captions, and a series of FACTS to educate you about the lesser-known aspects of the Swiss Pikemen of the Medieval era! 

  

Pull up a Toblerone, log out of your secret bank account and take aim at the apple-on-the-head delights of these 5 full Madaxeman battle reports featuring a 15mm medieval Swiss army in all its technicolour glory! 

Taking Germans to Germany - whatever next?!

 A few weeks back a brave band of CLWC gamers hopped in a car and headed across Europe to take part in the ADLG German Team Tourament in Braubach, on the banks of the mighty Rhine.

On our journey we encountered many strange sights....

..including a trip to the museum in Mons in Belgium...

...some heavyweight tank action at Bastogne barracks...

..a bfrief history of medieval torture in Trier ...

...which was also the capital of the Western Roman Empire for a while...

..before finally engaging in 5 games of ADLG using a Medieval German army ...

..with what admittedly was mixed success... 

..under the expert leadership of the Kaiser Gnome ...

..before heading home via a rain-soaked, beer-soaked 800 year old 4 month long drinking festival!

For a full set of military tourism, gastronomic and liquid intake excess, musical weirdness, the Gome Kaiser trading insults with Hannibal, and the occasional spot of reportage of 15mm scale Medieval wargaming head on over to the Battle & Tourism reports now ! 

Bring & Buy .. & Rebase and refurb!

At the recent Attack! show in Devizes I sort of accidentally managed to buy a 15mm Feudal/Medieval Russian army scaled for L'Art de la Guerre.

It was a bring and buy purchase, and I thought it looked close enough to my own painting style to be compatible with my other Eastern European armies, and also that it looked like it was great value - something I immediately rushed off to tell Jason, who I'd travelled to the show with.. only to find that it was one he'd put on the Bring & Buy himself! 

So, with a transaction which could have taken place in the boot of my car managing also to financially support the DDWG club fund, I now owned a Medieval/Feudal Russian army from Essex minis that only needed a bit of rebasing, a few dabs of paint and the addition of some paper banners to become quite an impressive complement to my existing  Hungarians.

And here they are:

Commanders on 40mm round bases

Heavy Cavalry 

Spearmen

"Guard" cavalry - the elite of the army

Follower cavalry - less well armoured than the others

Light Horse javelins or lancers - these will also appear as Serbian Hussars in other armies I think? 

Steppe horse archers

Russian army infantry bowmen

Axemen (foresters)

The cheering peasants who follow the army

Lesser armoured Medium cavalry.

The flags mostly come from Martins Vexillia site plus some from Alex Flags site

I'm dead chuffed with them, however you’d perhaps be surprised at how little I’ve done to them. 

The main visual differences are adding a few flags, and repainting the spears and bows in a much paler) Vallejo Ochre Brown 70.865, then adding a little black line to delineate the metal and wooden parts of the spears, plus the rebasing.

For some reason (that I don’t quite understand), making the spears and bows really stand out with a pale colour makes a big difference - the spears stand out against what are generally darker figures, and the effect of making them "ping" that results is wildly disproportionate to the fairly limited effort involved.

I've already gone back and done this to a good few of my own armies that originally had dark or dull brown “wood” colours for spears and in every case the visual impact is far more than it feels like it should be.

 

Medieval Baggage

 I can never resist a chance to get some more baggage elements, and my 28mm armies are now starting to be the main recipients of this habit (as I honestly have way too much army baggage in 15mm!).

Earlier this year at the PAW show in Plymouth I picked up these couple of vignette sets from John at Athena Miniatures - as a trade for a Russian hat I had originally planned to sell on the Bring & Buy. 

They are "Vignette 7 Nobles and Merchants" and "Vignette 8 Drunk Soldiers" on the Athena website - I  did however mix one of the Merchants into the Drunkards base to give the happy fellows some context and dissapproval.

"You bring shame on our army with your drunkenness  - especially you Sire, a Priest!" 

The figures are a tad stylized compared to some ranges, but the animation and entertainment value of these little sets is still top notch IMO!

Begging for alms...  or perhaps just begging ?

All done in Contrast Paints, based up on 60x60mm square MDF with tufts from Warpaint Miniatures.