The Devonian Classic - 5 Tapas & Pasty Match Reports

Another 5 Madaxeman L'Art de la Guerre Battle Reports from The Devonian Classic, a competition in the west country that was straight outta Brixham - a small town in Devon, packed full of pasties, pirates and, erm.. pubs ? 

But, more importantly home to an eminently rentable community hall, plenty of cheap off-peak off-season accommodation (and of course the new venue for the fabulous Steve Price Towers), and more fish and chip shops than you can shake a stick at - all making it an ideal location for hosting an ADLG competition of the large but perfectly formed variety!

To this event the newly-minted Spanish army of Sertorius came, singing sea shanties and burping chorizo and garlic at all and sundry, towing behind them the legendary BURNING CART OF DOOOOM!!!. 

These five resulting L'Art de la Guerre match reports are your chance to see how an Iberian army does against the Early Arabs, Seleukos, the Mitanni, the Might of Rome, and the rest of the Successors in 5 full-definition, seagull-targeted battle reports full of the usual stuff and nonsense.

Brand New Battle Reports!

Yes, after a near-18-month hiatus I have actually played in a real live competition and almost-immediately written up 5 all-new battle reports from the recent 3T's competition held in York ! 

This means that the commentary alongside the photos might actually bear at least a passing resemblance to what actually went on on the tabletop during the games - and I may even remember some of the results as well. 

The reports also feature many references to roadside retail establishments on the Great North Road, as well as the usual animations, captions and speech bubble nonsense. 

The matches in question feature a lockdown-painted Thracian Army taking on all comers, in the form of Carthage, Palmyra, Sassanid Persia, Triumverate Rome and finally the Seleucids.   

The road to the competition also saw us visit the Newark Air Museum, and there's a separate gallery of photos from that trip now online too.  

Finally - of course - there are TWO Podcasts, one featuring the Madaxeman Podcast team trying to predict the winners from the event (before it happened) in a Euro 2020/21 style, and then a second , subsequent Podcast in which the Thracian list and four others are all discussed and evaluated. The List Pod is available on both Podbean and YouTube. 

Read the reports now!

Rome vs Phyrrus Battle Reports - from every angle!

As we all know, in the real world the winner is the one who writes the history after the event, but in the world of wargaming it's simply the gamer with the fastest-published blog site who usually gets to spin their side of the story.

Well... that has always been true... up until now..

That's because, in a brand new innovative international experimental virtual online collaboration (apologies if this is now starting to sound like a tiresome Zoom conference you've had to endure at work...) both  Madaxeman.com and the fabulous Phil on Ancients Blog have gotten together to roll some Tabletop Simulator dice in a textbook Classical battle featuring Phyrrus vs Rome... and both generals have created mirror-image battle reports of the same game!

The Madaxeman Video Report is on YouTube on The Madaxeman Channel 

Phil's blogger-format report is online on his Blog 

Then... in a ridiculously recursive and self-absorbed development both of us discuss the game in a totally separate video where we compare both written (or recorded) match reports.

Yes, your chance to watch and read about the same battle, played between the same two people, in THREE vaguely different formats - what more could a wargamer want to help get themselves through the latest iteration of Lockdown?!  

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. 

ADLG Worlds - Al Shearer rides into Rome !

The World Championships somehow managed to shift across Europe, moving from a shed in Birmingham into a 5-star hotel in glorious Rome this year.

That of course means another overseas extravaganza for Team CLWC, and for yours truly another chance to try and craft something out of yet another of the Arab-flavoured armies I have been working through this year.

The Khurasanians - basically a poor man's Ghaznavid/Abbasid hybrid - were the lucky chaps to make it out into the hot, hot Italian sunlight this time, where they took on 6 different enemies drawn from the US, Mexico, France, Spain and somewhere else using Mongols, Han Chinese, Carolingians, Alexandrians, French Ordonnance and the Seleukids.

To track the games (and the food, and the swimming) there are many thousands of words spread across six fully illustrated, (unusually) map-annotated, kawasaki-riding battle reports in which Geordie General Al'Shearer lands yet again in the commentary position.

Guarantee yourself a Big Night Oot and read away (the lads)..

2019 L'Art de la Guerre Worlds - The Top 5 Lists

In case you've not already spotted it, I've now posted the army lists from the top-placing players in last month's 2019 Worlds from Rome on the ADLG Wiki.

The lists are;

1st - Yuan Chinese
2nd - Timurid
3rd - Communal Italian
4th - Ottoman Empire
5th - Khurasanian

The full placings from The Worlds are on the FIW website, with a complete list of armies on the ADLG forum. The Madaxeman.com Podcast about the Yuan list was published earlier this month - other may follow!

If you are inspired by these lists, here's a couple of very nice looking Timurid/Yuan style elephants from Donnington Miniatures to be tempted by as well.

Derby 2017 - time for the big toys to come out to play!

Having been painting, making and generally faffing around and not quite finishing my 28mm Patrician Roman army for the last 18 months, the annual Derby competition suddenly hove into view and offered up not one, but two opportunities to put the figures on the table.

The end result are 5 well-packed and imposing L'Art de le Guerre battle reports featuring sumptuous imagery of troops that are actually big enough to be able to see with the naked, unaided human eye!

Across the weekend the army from the tail end of the Roman Empire fought its predecessors, its contemporaries, its allies and it's mortal enemies - and even, on one notable occasion, itself - on a series of 6x4 tabletops in an aircraft hangar in the East Midlands.

See for yourself why the fall of the Roman Empire may actually have been FAKE NEWS, and why the 28mm game might well prove to be the absolute real sweet spot for Ancient wargaming with the L'Art de la Guerre ruleset.

Yes, these reports are possibly your gateway drug to mainlining the seemingly almost daily releases of plastic multipose 28mm ancients figures now on the market. Read on with care...

Playing Wargames with Kids

One of my erstwhile Doubles partners has recently started a blog in which he will be chronicling his attempts to teach his young son a variety of different warganes rules.

The general idea is to share his experiences / thoughts with people that are also looking for games to play with children.

He's also a teacher and runs a games club at school, so there is a bit of a 'professional' perspective to his thoughts as to how to get youngsters into playing wargames which may also be helpful and as this whole "encouraging more people to play wargames" thing is generally A Good Idea I therefore thought the blog link was well worth sharing.

The first game he played was One Hour Wargames – specifically the Ancients rules. So if you are looking for a game to play with people of a younger persuasion, or want to know how One Hour Wargames works for ancients, or indeed just have some time to kill, please take a look.

New Rules, Same Incompetence? Romans take to the field under ADLG

The Legions of Roman take part in what is probably the first ever UK event for ancients ruleset L'Art de la Guerre. They play Indians, Middle Romans and Palmyrans in three tightly themed standard sized games in one day.

The rules are translated from French, but did the Romans find it was all Greek to them ?

Find out for yourself in a series of 3 reports with lots of rules-learning tips in there too

Romans vs Parthians on YouTube

If you are really lazy (and like Bob Dylan) you can try the Rome vs Parthia battle on YouTube