The Fire Golem!

A bit of variety now, with one of Malifaux's biggest models, The Fire Golem.

This one is from the M2e Backdraft box set, which means I'm short of a couple of apparently so-so extra minions but I do instead have Saboteurs and Fitzsimmons as well (which are all in the painting queue as we speak).

He wasn't the easiest model to paint as the flames go in all directions, meaning there isn't a clear orientation to allow you to start with pale white-ish flames and then shade it through to red and even sooty black

As a result I wasn't really happy with him until I did several more layers and more drybrush-style highlights than I might normally do on a flaming model.

The basic technique was to start with a series of very pale and thin yellow washes using watered down paint, and then start adding highlights in progressively darker oranges and even reds until I was happy with the overall look.

Managing to pick out all of the bits of brazier holding him together was also not the easiest as the metalwork does rather blend into the mass of flames in a way which makes black-edging it tricky.

In the end I ended up with a bit of drybrushing of gunmetal and pale grey onto the brazier elements, and then blacklining them where I could to finish it off. Here is the guy with Kaeris' totem the Eternal Flame.

This is from a dayglow orange Kaeris box that I won in a draw at a competition a couple of years ago. I had a metal Kaeris and so hadn't painted this guy as I wasn't really sure how he would work in M2e - but he's more useful (and free!) now so time to get him done.

All of the orange bits are the original plastic left unpainted

The rest is gunmetal and Peat Brown ink over a black undercoat, apart from the gears on his leg joints which were a pale sandy colour which I know responds really well to Peat Brown ink

I did also pin him underneath as I really wasn't convinced that glueing his very small feet to the base would be secure enough to hold him in gameplay.

The Golem is HUGE - he he is next to fellow firestarter Bansuva.

28mm Landsnechts & Swiss - in GW Contrast Paints!

You know those painting projects that seem never to die? They just drag on and on, staring at you and each time you start trying to move them along the sheer quantity of painting ends up crushing your will to continue?

Well, for me that was a big winged-Keil of Landsnechts in 28mm, bought for FoGR in a series of bring and buy used-figure bags - and then supplemented by a pack of Old Glory arquebusiers.

I had even made a couple of half-hearted attempts to sell them as a part-painted project - but then suddenly realised that they were the perfect project to try the new GW contrast paints (as even a so-so painted unit is better than a unit that never gets painted or put on table, right?

See the full effect in this photo-article..

Ninja Time!

Whist my 15mm Samurai army is already too extensive to really use in one go, that doesn't stop a steady drip-drip of additional units and, well, cool toys being added to it from time to time.

The latest incremental unnecessary items are a Japanese folklore-inspired replacement Stampeding Herd ("Expendables" in ADLG terms), and some good-at-hiding Ninja ambush markers as well.

These all come from Philp Mann's recent Kickstarter project, and were obtained by "ADLG-R" guru "Aussie Simon" on my behalf.

Oni are basically Japanese Troll/Demon things, with a long tradition of being generally unsubtle and violent - and most usually bright red as well ! As such a herd of Oni seemed a great way to represent a more mythic retelling of the use of a stampeding cattle herd in the Battle of Kurikara

The Oni's flesh is all painted with the new Citadel Contrast Paints - Blood Angels Red, Akhelian Green (the blue coloured one oddly enough) and Creed Cammo for the Green ones. There's more Contrast Paint malarkey coming soon ...

Oni typically carry these types of iron clubs called kanabō. In Japan the expression "oni with an iron club" means to be invincible or undefeatable - not something my cattle herds have really achieved all that often it must be said!

The ninja figures are really nice, with a lot of variety but are a smidge large to use alongside or mix in with my Old Glory Samurai -  but being ninjas, they are good at hiding and sneaking around so I have press-ganged some into service as ambush markers. 

 I've colour-coded the three 40x40 markers using the flower grass tufts - each base also has the ninjas with a small bit of the same colour on their inner-garment sleeves

The Red markers above, and below the green ones

Here are the sets of figures next to the Old Glory Samurai for scale comparison.

As you can see, the Ninjas are not too far off, but just a bit too far for using together with the Old Glory figures for my taste.

A fistful of 15mm Swiss

With a one-day Late medieval themed competition looming, it seemed a good time to upgrade my handful of Mirliton Swiss pikemen into a L'Art de la Guerre Swiss army capable of taking to the table.

With the Mirliton ranges no no longer being available in the UK, I decided to try a different manufacturer to round out the 5 pike blocks I owned already. After a bit of browsing I settled on the perhaps unlikely choice of QRF/Freikorps, on the basis that they looked to be a similar heft and body shape to the Mirliton figures, and also as they too had open hands for separate weapons.

The QRF figures are a smidge more frail, and are less "frilly sleeved" than the "a bit frilly" Mirliton figures, but with a good selection of flags downloaded from Alex Flags, compatible basing and similar paint schemes they look pretty decent at tabletop distances to me.

These are 40x40 bases with 12 figures in 3 ranks - an  ADLG Kiel

I chose to blackline these figures - not a style I usually adopt, but with the blocks of adjacent colour on the Swiss and my reluctance to ink-wash a set of figures with so much white on them it helps to make the limited palette of contrasting colours pop a little more 

It can of course end up looking like Mondrian was their official uniform designer.

The bases are painted in a Homebase testor pot - nice and cheap !

The Mondrian effect is very visible from the back

As I've probably posted before, making sure to paint the edges of the flags to remove that unsightly white paper line along their edges is really important and makes a huge difference to the overall look and feel. If you don't do this your eye is automatically drawn to the (white) edges of the flags, breaking the illusion of the figures.

Here are some of the QRF/Freikorps guys next to the Mirliton figures (LKM on the right)

I also based up some halberdier units - these are pretty flimsy and I can see some casualties in the halberd-blade department as soon as they take to the table in battle conditions

Another view of the two types - Mirliton on the left, QRF on the right.

 Halberdiers again.  Not that great close up, but these are painted for tabletop distance viewing.

 Mirliton in the foreground, QRF from Berne behind them

Building the Lancastrians in 25mm for ADLG

Following on from the battle reports of the surprisingly effective Lancastrian ADLG army, I thought it might be interesting to share how the army was put together in terms of figures and basing, and the thought behind the list design as well.

Most - but not all - of them are Perry plastics, making this a very cost-effective army to build. There is now a summary of the figures I used,  how the army was designed and was supposed to work (in theory and then in practice) and also some ideas as to how I painted them up on the main website now. If you wish you can buy yourself a set of the whole lot for under £100!

Full details of the figures are on madaxeman.com

Lambs to the Slaughter! The Assyrians invade Patras in 5 new battle reports!

The much-trailed Assyrian army has finally made it not only onto the table, but onto a plane, and into a 5-round competition in sunny (and rainy) Greece at the 2019 Patras Challenge.

The Winged Lion of Assyria takes on three very different Roman armies, a Classical Indian and finally the Han Chinese in a series of battles fitted carefully in between bouts of extreme eating and drinking across a swathe of the Patrene nightlife's top venues.

Watch as the the newly minted chariots and infantry, supported by archer cavalry do their very best on a number of different playing surfaces to dodge between the cakes, biscuits and pieces of lamb which attempt to prove more problematic than their enemies

 Even goats occasionally get a look in.

Its all there in glorious sunshine, so roll up your Gyros, sizzle up some Spanakopita and chuck a halloumi slice on the bbq to enjoy these 5 consecutive reports !