Oh My God! It's a POD!

 After an unfeasible hiatus a new edition of the Madaxeman Podcast has just dropped ! 

In this new episode titled "Melksham? Don't mind if I do!" a part new, part old crew head down to the West Country for a bit of Hard Rock, a lot of beer, pubs and food, and (eventually) some rather eclectic analysis of a variety of unsuccesful army lists used by us all at the recent ADLG competitions held at the Attack! show in Devizes.

The cast are me Dave from The Podcast, Another Dave (technically "the Dave formerly known as Pants"), Jason and Steve, and all of us can now take you on an audio journey way down Melksham Way. 

• The lists we discuss are available on the ADLG Wiki
• The ADLG Army list content starts about 22.45 into the audio version, or a smidge later on the special YouTube "Talking Heads" edition, so if you aren't interested in pubs and the Avebury Stone Circle (really?) you can either start, or stop listening around then as you choose.

Listen on Podbean:

View on YouTube:

The Plastic Crack Podcast

 I was kindly invited onto the Plastic Crack Podcast on Monday night as a guest, and had a great time chatting nonsense about all things wargaming-related to the guys.

During the chat quite a few "Madaxeman" and also "Britcon" things came up, so I thought it might be handy to try and pull together some links here so that anyone who hears or sees the podcast and then stumbles across this site will not have to rummage around in the metaphorical bits-box that is Madaxeman.com's menu structure to see what on earth I was taking about!

In no particular order therefore:

28mm Successor Phalanx, a painting and building guide

A recent battle report, featuring the army of Spartacus, plenty of speech-bubble soldiery, and with commentary from Hannibal as well at the end of each report

A mercifully short "highlights package" from the Madaxeman Podcast in which we run through an episode of "I'm Sorry I think You're An Arse" while discussing whether GW paint names have just gone too damned far.

Who Played What, the 2023 review of the UK Ancients competition circuit

A link to the Madaxeman YouTube Channel 

Evidence that I do base AFVs in 10mm and below, (in what was also perhaps my last ever Arrowhead order..)

Rigging Hell! , the Windy Ships starter set and a lot of black cotton

Victrix Galatians, with waterslide transfers from Battle Flag

The BHGS/Britcon stuff is also here:

• The Britcon Web Page on the BHGS site
• Gaming Systems on offer at Britcon 2024
• If you are interested in having a chat about bringing your game or group to Britcon, email me via the BHGS 

You can also listen to the episode on Spotify or watch it on YouTube as well: 

Enjoy!

Alicante 2024 : The Army Lists Video Podcast Thing

 Disproving the old adage that the best things in life are worth waiting for, the 100th episode of the Madaxeman Podcast thunders onto the airwaves with an epic, 6-handed special all the way from Spain, as myself, Dave From The Podcast & Aussie Simon are joined by Gordon, Revolutionary Dave and Mark to discuss and digest the lists we all used at the recent Alicante competition. 

This whole podcast is also available on the Madaxman YouTube channel where you can see pictures of the lists, some of the games and troops, as well as our tourism and eating exploits too.

The list covered are : Ancient Britons, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Mithradatics, Warring States Chinese and the countless  hordes of Aztecs, and all of this vague insight is shoehorned in among some tourism discussions, culinary observations, and frightning expose's of the contents of Spanish motorway service station vending machines - plus the first ever advert break to ever feature on a Madaxeman Podcast!

The video version allows you to see not only the lists as we discuss them, some of our holiday snaps, and in a Madaxeman first, little video windows of the people on the podcast actually talking (so you may prefer the audio only version...)

The army lists can all be found in the ADLG Wiki on the Madaxeman Website 

The Idlers of March : a new podcast episode lands!

After a lengthy hiatus (since November last year!!) the Madaxeman Podcast is back with a new daffodil-sprouting episode recorded earlier this week at the very start of March 2023. 

Despite the absence of any badger-related content, we do manage to cover shopping expeditions (online and in real life), take a diversion into discussing the merits of Siocast/Warlord Resin/"I Can't believe It's Not Called Airfix" plastic figures, get into a bit of Spartacan slap-chop via an azimuth spray disaster, go all Judge Dredd, barely mention cricket nets, explain to Adam what he's been missing all this time as a sidebar to the great "Amos vs Drummer - Who's The Expanse's Greatest Ever Character (and why it's obviously Drummer)" debate, talk about castles in Spain and why the second most successful Berber invasion of the Iberian Peninsula landed in Valencia instead of Alicante, have a peek at Andy's trophy haul and (eventually) learn how he ended up out of pocket after accidentally buying his own birthday presents from his wife.

There's also a return for Andy's Quiz, with a brand new Two Ronnies-style twist this week as we accidentally give you the answers to the questions from the episode before last.

The pod can be listened to on Podbean, or by searching for The Madaxeman Podcast on any of your usual podcast providers' platforms

3D prints - The Greeks

Those of you who listen to the Madaxeman Podcast will have heard us talking about 3D prints a fair amount recently - and in the lastest episode ("Huge Grenadier Hat Malarkey") we even committed to the idea of Tamsin printing off some figures for us all to have a go at painting as well. 

These are the 3D Breed "free" models (STL files to be precise I believe) that are given away as tasters to their range, and come in both 15mm and 28mm styles. Tamsin printed them off for all of the Podcast crew and I've now managed to finish prepping and painting the Greek Hoplites I ended up with, and have taken a few photos of them here:

  These are the beasties in their au naturel purple plastic form, with "supports" still in place. This looks a right mess and a faff, but using a sprue clipping tool (a necessary investment for anyone making plastic figures these days IMO) they did clean up eailly easily and quickly to then undercoat for painting.

And here are 2 of the finished 28mm figures

They are chunky fellows, but I think that is entirely down to the style of the sculpts, as the Reconquer 3D prints were much finer (although made using different technology too)

The figures weren't printed with bases so I glued them to a Commander's 40mm round base and also glued them together as a pair to give them more stability and usability 

The spear of the guy with the red shield is printed, the blue one I cut out, drilled the hand and added a wire spear.

These are the 15mm versions, tucked into some metal figures as extras on commander bases. Again they were glued both to the base itself and to the other figures.

We'll be talking more about these figures on the next episode of the Madaxeman Podcast which is out now and can be reached directly here

Podcasting Live from The Winchester !

OMG! I've just found out that some people do actually leave reviews on Apple Podcasts and other platforms for the Madaxeman Podcast!  

I'd always suspected this might be the case, but had never looked them up or stumbled across them before until a new stats package came along :-) 

And, as well as the, well, just quite "nice" comments, there are some absolute solid gold belters in there too - here's just a few of them.   

(extra points for the Shaun of the Dead / Minder reference here!)

Thanks again to everyone who's left a comment or clicked for a review - wherever it's been left. We all really appreciate the feedback, whatever it is 

You can listen to the Madaxeman Podcast on Podbean or by searching for it on pretty much any podcast platform 

Madaxeman.com meets The God's Own Scale Podcast

This week I've made an appearance as a guest on the (increasingly scale-agnostic) Gods Own Scale Podcast, spending about an hour and a half chatting to Sean about all manner of things "madaxeman" and "ancients competition gaming"-related - and great fun it was too.

Sean is an exceedingly amiable host, and in the course of our chat we covered the dim and distant origins of Madaxeman.com (and how cobbled together it actually all is), the back story of how the Madaxeman Podcast came to be, some of my own personal wargaming history, and finally managed a bit of a shallow dive into the hoary old subject of "competition wargaming" - which, given both Sean and Ken "Yarkshire Gamer" Reilly had both put competition gaming into their own "Wargaming Room 101" on Kens last podcast, was kinda interesting to chew over to say the least.

Sean even managed to spring an "I'm Sorry I Think You're An Arse" topic on me at short notice, so that feature can now claim to have been syndicated to another podcast

You can listen to the episode on the Gods Own Scale Podcast on Podbean, or search for it through your regular podcast provider.

WiP stuff, and a podcast full of (cheap) Aztecs

 This week has been another eclectic one for painting - and podcasting. 

The only stuff to get finished has been this unit of Arab Clubmen ("Lutyat Macemen") from one of the Arab armies - I forget which one, sadly!

They are pretty niche, but are such nice figures from Legio Heroica I sort of had to add them to my last order!

The padded armour is Skeleton Horde Contrast paint on a white base coat 

The orange turbans and red and blue cloth bits are also contrast paints.

Contrasts also feature in this 10mm WiP of the infantry from the Apocalypse Minis kickstarter 

And more Skeleton Horde on these Mirliton and Essex Medievals - part of a whole army I dipped in Biostrip and am repainting, as the original paint job didn't really do these excellent figures due justice.

Another experimental paint job mixing contrasts and normal paints are these Museum Mini's Persian archers - I have done the linothorax armour in Skeleton Horde, then painted the "white" bits of it with Vallejo Ivory - a tip from Tamsin on the podcast to never paint anything in actual white!

Finally, another Fighting 15's tie-in on the List Building Podcast this week with a MesoAmerican Special in which some of the lists we discuss are not only available to view on the Madaxeman Wiki, they are also available to buy in the form of ready-made, discounted army packs from Fighting 15's!  

Yes, hear the discussion then - if you like what you hear - there's now a simple one-click way for you to pick up 4 of the lists we cover all for under £40 a pop for 128 figures (thats just 31p each for those of you who don't like taking off your socks this early in the year)

The list we cover are:  

• Aztec x2
• Texcallan x2
• Zapotec/Mixtec
• Chinantec
• Mayan x2

You can see the Fighting 15's ADLG Army Packs featuring lists from this Podcast right here on their website, or just browse Fighting 15's Aztecs & Enemies ranges 

ADLG Army List Podcasts

The Madaxeman.com Podcast has covered the vexed topic of list design for quite a number of L'Art de la Guerre army lists in it's time, and, after a suggestion from a listener I've now pulled a set of links to all of these list-specific discussions together onto one page.

This listing includes both "dedicated" list-specific podcasts, and also the "Lockdown" series of podcasts where individual lists were compared and evaluated by the team.

The "Lockdown" Podcasts sometimes stretched to over 2 hours, and covered a lot more than just ADLG army lists, so for those just interested in the lists I've included approximate timings for when in each podcast the list-related discussions start, so you can skip straight to the list chat if you so wish.

Lists covered include: Late Imperial Roman, Uratu, Ugaritic, Later Byzantine, French Ordonnance, Achaemenid Persian, Later Assyrian & Sargonid, Ottoman Empire, Medieval Scandinavian, Late Imperial Roman, Fatimid Egyptian, Nikephorian Byzantine, Jurchen Ch'in, Later Carthaginian, New Kingdom Egyptian, Lydian, T'ang Chinese, Yuan Chinese, Venetian Condotta, Ghaznavid and Sassanid Persian.

Basing Instinct - Podcast #52

With the UK gripped in a weird interim world of pseudo-lockdown the entire team reconvene again for the Madaxeman Podcast this week to chat through the usual mix of painting and gaming, before running riot with a freewheeling exploration of the different basing techniques they all deploy to try and make their figures look better than they really are from "wargaming distances".*

As well as enticing talk of flocking and slathering on gritty emulsions there is a potentially dangerous liason with the entire concept of Assyrian Relief, a rare and unusual mention for Nigella Lawson, further consideration as to whether size actually isn't everything when it comes to tiny toy tanks, a diverting foray into YMCA with the Imperial Roman Artillery Corps before ending with a bit of "oh la lah" to the Sound of Music in Andy's Quiz.

This weeks episode also comes with a teaser mni-video, which can be accessed on the Madaxeman Video Channel.

You can access the podcast in a variety of ways: 

• Download now
• Listen on Podbean
• Search for Madaxeman Podcast on your preferred podcast listening platform

Podcast Episode 51 : I Like Big Battles (And I Cannot Lie)

In this week's podcast the full team trot out again onto the pitch for a wholesome kickabout that starts with a rapid application of nail varnish, moves seamlessly onto (in possibly the closest we've ever come to a proper review) the merits of small plastic tanks, floats a long ball out to the right wing under somewhere between 2 and 3 bars of pressure, crosses it back into the middle to yell "Margaret!" in a note-perfect tabletop recreation of the Pirate Memory Game, nodd it into the 6 yard box with a bit of ADLG:R and ends up slamming it into the back of the net whilst gardening at sea in an entirely unusual addition to Andy's Quiz.

As well as all this nonsense we even have time to fit in a lengthy and lateral-thinking discussion of a topic that most other wargames podcasts covered several weeks ago - Are Big Battles a Thing of the Past? 

You can listen to the Madaxeman.com Podcast on Podbean, or search for The Madaxeman Podcast on any of your usual Podcast platforms 

Episode 50 - the One for Clive

The 50th Madaxeman.com Podcast is now out in the wild, and with the half-century now achieved the regular team opt to celebrate this milestone by completely forgetting to plan anything different at all to the usual chat about what they have painted, what they might be thinking of painting, and dads-dancing along on Zoom to Andy's quiz music.

This week the topics covered include Wurttemburger fashions in collars and cuffs, the use of biological agents as strippers, how discounts at Victrix can cost more than they save, whether 8 units of legionaries are too many, what might happen if the Franks are ever finished and if the world is truly ready for painted badger shields in 15mm.

In addition, this week's episode includes an "in memoriam" section in which we share stories of our CLWC clubmate and long-time wargamer Clive McLeod, who sadly passed away last week at the too-early age of 64. 

Clive's family have suggested the British Heart Foundation as a suitable charity for those of you who knew Clive and may wish to make a charitable donation in his memory. 

This weeks Podcast is available on Podbean, and through all of your usual Podcast platforms 

Podcast 49 - Late Imperial Love Eggs

With a proper Lockdown sweeping the UK, the Madaxeman team return after a 2-week boiler-related hiatus with a typically rambling episode combining painting chat, Andy's Quiz and a barely in-depth look at the history behind the Late Imperial Roman army, and which are the best manufacturers to choose when cooking one up on the tabletop. 

In between these vitally important topics we also cover the ethics of using an elephant brush on a horses' ass, how to wargame the long-awaited Schwarzenegger-Dredd crossover movie, how Dave blagged his way into UCL by claiming to speak fluent Barkerese, we hand out some freebies from Martin at Vexillia, and finally the much-trailed Australian Love Egg expose is, erm, exposed.

Welcome back to Lockdown - especially as you do now know that you have got nothing better to do than listen to this podcast whilst painting figures that you'll not deploy until next Spring. 

Episode 47 - The Lockdown Crew are back in Podtown

OK, perhaps that's a smidge overdramatic, but with the shutters coming down on social gaming across the UK right now it seems like the right time to toss another podcast into the ether for your indoor painting-accompaniment over the coming week.

This episode sees all 7 regular contributors Zooming in, with an increasingly un-rare unplanned guest appearance from Mrs Andy yet again stealing the show early doors. As well as a gallop through everyone's painting achievements, we attempt to dip a disconcertingly long toe into the garlic-infused pond-water that makes up the Bataille Empire ruleset, and of course there is a return for yet another innuendo-laden episode of Andy's Quiz. 

In an effort to ease you back in gently this episode only runs to just over an hour - there will be more next week... 

20 Lockdown Podcasts

 During the Great Covid Lockdown of 2020 the Madaxeman posse (yeuch!) recorded a set of 20 weekly podcasts to keep one another sane, and compare notes on how much painting they had done - and all 20 episodes are now collected here on one single page

Part educational (a very small part), part just some blokes and a girl chatting not at the pub this series developed a cultish following as the series evolved over the 20 week stretch, and now this is your chance to start from the very beginning and hear the concept, the content and the output evolve from it's early Zoom-powered fumblings to the flully-fledged almost a radio show end product by Week 20.

You can listen again to all 20 episodes directly on this page, or by clicking through to your favourite Podcast platform as this Podcast is also available on Podbean, Spotify, iTunes, and Tune In (meaning you can ask for it on Alexa devices) and even Youtube

As a bit of background here's my personal tally of painting in this 20-week lockdown period - all of these get discussed in the Podcast, as well as several thousand other figures, vehicles and terrain pieces from the other cast members;

(All the stuff we talk about we've bought ourselves - there's no product placement, freebies or paid endorsements in here. But if anyone did want to send anything, please get in touch!)

Podcats #12 and #13

If you're already a subscriber via iTunes, Podbean, RSS, or on Spotify or (now) Youtube you'll know tha there have now been 13 episodes of the Lockdown Podcast series, but if you just read the front page of Madaxeman.com (and never glance at the sidebar) you may accidentally have missed the news that episodes #12 and #13 are already out there in the wild. 

At the moment the Podcast is consistently drawing something like 150 listeners per week, which is kinda staggering, so why not give it a go and listen in as background banter for your weekend of lockdown painting.

Lockdown Podcast #11

In another surprisingly lengthy podcast the full team celebrate being back together with a conversation that covers all bases, as well as a few associated basing materials.   

Topics addressed in almost painstaking detail include;

• whether ink is just watered down paint with a better PR, 
• if starting a new period by painting the terrain before the figures is a crime against nature, 
• whether if ArmyPainter is good enough for goblins does that mean it's also good enough for the legions of Rome, 
• how long can anyone talk about an army who's uniforms are all white, 
• definitive proof that Eddy Izzard is actually talented at that comedy malarkey, 
• is the choice to paint horses or riders first the wargamers equivalent of the age-old "clotted cream / jam" debate, 
• how invading Egypt might be the ideal way to take a war to the British, 

...and - of course, a timely reminder of the poetic genius of Eric Morcecambe. 

There is also a discussion about that perennial under-achieving arab army, the Fatimid Egyptians in ADLG, another set of questions in Andy's Quiz, and the second triumphant week of Teaching Timmy about Napoleon.

As usual the Podcast is published on Podbean, and is syndicated to all of your favourite Podcast platforms 

Lockdown Podcast #10

With a frightening lurch into double figures (or a proper round dozen if paintbrushes and glue are your thing) the Lockdown team from Madaxeman.com are back yet again with the weekly soundtrack to a weekend of painting and avoiding household chores. 

As usual the podcast is available on Podbean, iTunes, Spotify and YouTube as well as other platforms where you find your pods.

Hot topics for tepid discussion this week include whether the best yellow paint is in fact Plague Brown, the Tau of Fire Hydrant Numerology, whether there was an aftermarket for refitting Egyptian chariots with go faster stripes and pumping stereos, how posh would a Samurai leader need to be in order to qualify for a self flushing toilet, whether Sisyphus would have been daft enough to start painting 28 bases of horses and how many arms per man do you need to make Fireforge's box of Mongol infantry.

The regular feature on ADLG List Building this week covers the Nikephorian Byzantines (in all its various modes of spelling), Andy's Quiz of course returns to help us all disco-down into the weekend, we talk in more depth about playing actual games on Tabletop Simulator, and a new feature is born in the shape (and theme tune) of Teaching Timmy About Napoleon, an idiot's guide to the Napoleonic Wars

Lockdown Podcast #9

As the landmark of a double-figure number of Lockdown Podcast Episodes rapidly approaches, and with almost 1,400 Podcast downloads in the last month under our belts the 9th Lockdown Podcast is now out on Podbean, iTunes, Spotify and (soon) the Madaxeman Youtube Channel. 

This week the team of intrepid wannabe gamers and by-now-obsessive painters luxuriate yet again in the riches of a combined painting queue that stretches all the way from the pyramids of Ancient Egypt to the tower stacks of Mega City One.

In the fleeting moments of the podcast that take place before we reach Andy's Quiz Music a wide variety of debates take place - the best board games for feuding siblings, using the type of garden feature which would raise eyebrows in a parliamentary expenses committee for tabletop terrain, genetic similarities between Vikings and Saxons, whether treatments for 10mm addiction could be made available on the NHS, how to sneak lead through domestic customs inspections, and in a newly trimmed version of the ADLG list discussion we all take a vote on who we think would win in a Jurchen Ch'in-Jurchen Ch'in face-off (hint - the Song Chinese always come off worst...).

There's also a whole load of discussion about how Tabletop Simulator (available on Steam) might actually be the solution we all didn't realise we were looking for to get some (virtual) lead on a (virtual) table in the near future - all of which gets crammed in before Andy's Quiz. 

(I promise I'll have some actual picture-led painting and gaming stuff out this weekend as well!) 

Special Bonus Podcast - Painbrush Special !

In this special one-off bonus episode released in time for VE Day weekend the regular 6-person crew take a deep and typically discursive dive into the complex world of paintbrush procurement and maintainance, and surprisingly discover that at least some of them* even have valid, educated and informed opinions that are actually worth sharing. 

More importantly they all attempt to come to some sort of conclusion to the two key questions of "how much should I spend on a brush, and how many should I own?"

The Podcast is available via Podbean at https://madaxeman.podbean.com/e/the-painbrush-special-a-bonus-podcast-from-madaxemancom/ 

Brush brands discussed and reviewed in the Podcast include : 

• Kolinksy Raphael 
• Windsor & Newton (Series 7)
• Army Painter 
• Cass Art 
• Royal & Langnickel
• The Masters (Brush Soap)
• Broken Toad (Brush Soap)
• Da Vinci Cosmotop 
• Great Art

 (* That'll be Tamsin then.)