ITC Lisbon

I'm at the ITC in Lisbon this weekend, and as a consequence my twitter account @madaxeman has been hijacked by Hannibal.

If you are on Twitter, look out for the hashtag #NASTYHANNIBAL to see Hannibal's thoughts on the progress of the competition over this weekend!

6mm USMC Infantry - lying down !

Here's a load of photos of the rather clever Mainforce 6mm infantry from Magister Militum.

They are modern infantry which are a lot more bulky than most of the other manufacturers in this scale, but uniquely they have been cast mostly laying down - which makes them a lot more robust than any other infantry out there.

This lot are part of the repaint job I'm doing for someone with lots of 1990's USMC - including the helos

Manufacturers Directories Updates

I've just updated a few manufacturer details in the Renaissance and Ancient figure listings:

• Two Dragons Samurai and Vikings ranges are now manufactured by Caliver Books
• Rebel Minis have a range of Pirates (including a mermaid...)

Ottomans at Roll Call 2012

The Ottomans take on Roll Call 2012 and face Caroline Imperialists, Tatars and Irish in their pursuit of a level of competence that matches the colourfulness of their clothes.

All the usual critiques from Renaissance Hannibal, comments from Al Shearer the Turkish Sultan, videos explaining the army lists and inappropriate captions on the photos as well..

NB - the army lists are probably NOT in the wiki as yet, mainly because I appear to have lost them....

6mm USMC

Photos on the Madaxeman.com Facebook page of some more 6mm stuff - this time US Marines using the rather cute Mainforce infantry. I don't think you need to login to view the pics.

More Free Renaissance Flags

Just added a link to Wargames Designs free ECW and other Renaissance flags page to the 15mm Renaissance Suppliers Directory list of flag sites.

Wargames Designs appear to be a painting service who have decided to offer free downloadable flags as part of a plan to drive more traffic to their website. I think that's quite a cute idea - and they are really great flags as well, which always helps !

First Ever CWC battle

The Polish army I trailed here a couple of months ago has finally had its first ever outing in a game at the club last night. Fortunately I managed to grab a table with sufficient light to take a few half-decent photos and the results are already online in a one-off match report of Modern Polish vs Modern Brits

I even managed to squeeze in a bit of post match analysis from the worlds coolest Pope !

15mm Suppliers Updates

I've just added a listing for the (very nice) new Blue Moon 15/18mm Gauls and Romans to the 15mm Ancients Suppliers index, and updated the latest status (that I'm aware of) on both the Testudo and Venexia ranges to the 15mm Renaissance Suppliers page as well.

Inking 1/300th scale models..

I'm in the middle of doing a highly complex trade in which I've agreed to tart up some 1/300th scale USMC for someone, in exchange for a whole set of 1/300th West German tanks (that of course I don't really need).

This gives me a chance to show some "before" and "after" photos which I reckon are quite interesting..

This is an AAV7 which has been based and sprayed in an overall sand colour. I've then "manually" painted the tracks - fairly roughly - in a dark grey.

I used the same dark grey which I picked for the wheels of the Humvee's in this force, on the basis that painting "black" tyres creates a visual effect that is a lot less forgiving should you be unable to paint perfect circles (like, erm, everyone), or where the models castings are a bit indistinct. By painting them in grey any wobbly-hand syndrome mistakes seem to disappear as if by magic at the next stage.... which is:

..the now traditional Army Painter Quickshade Dark Tone wash. Quite a difference eh? But still not really table-top ready. 

How about doing some detailing, then drybrushing with GW Bleached Bone and adding some sand for basing next ? 

OK, this is a slightly different model, but after a coat of Testors Dullcote varnish I think this is not at all shabby for a 4-stage process.

Here are some infantry (from Magister Militum) done the same way. 

And here they are together..

Right, time to get back to the painting table... ! 

PBI on the South Coast

3 match reports featuring WW2 action as I take a trip down to the coast, close to Peter Pig HQ and renew acquaintance with the game "Poor Bloody Infantry".

See how the Germans and Americans fare against the Russians, French and Polish Partizans ins ome intense company-level action

Modern Stuff in 1:1 scale

Just published, a set of photos of brand new, "box-fresh" modern equipment in 1:1 scale !

Website outage

Apologies for the website outage over the last 24 hours - apparently I'd set something up wrongly which was breaking my ISPs servers! All fixed now and normal service is resumed...

Prague Military Museum

I've added around 40 photos from a trip to the Prague Military Museum - which gives a useful and interesting overview of the origins and history of Czechoslovakia, and the Czech Republic. Pretty much everything there has captions in English, and whilst there are some gaps to piece together it is generally well presented with some interesting bits and pieces.

Not that much armour unfortunately, but it is free to enter !

1/300th Scale Modern Warsaw Pact

A huge newly refurbished 1/300th scale army of Warsaw Pact tanks, IFV's and air support is now rolling across the tabletop under the influence of the Cold War Commander ruleset - The army can be seen here, including details of how I refurbed and based them up.

FOUR voting and rating systems now online..

Madaxeman.com has gone Voting Crazy with FOUR separate online interactive rating systems now operating, for 15mm Renaissance Figures, 15mm Ancients Manufacturers, 20mm Moderns and now, 10mm ACW Manufacturers.

All these pages feature comprehensive manufacturer listings, links to their sites, an online rating system you can vote in, and details of what ranges they carry (apart from the ACW one, where of course they all have both Union and Confederates - and you don't need me to tell you that I suspect...).

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Rate Modern 20mm figures at Madaxeman.com

I've added a full manufacturers listing and voting buttons to my 20mm Modern Infantry "Force on Force" page, so you can now compare and rate all the manufacturers via this site.

Salute 2012

Everyone likes a bit of gaming yummy-ness, so here are a handful of pictures from Salute 2012 today. My shopping list and thoughts are at the bottom - click here to see the full post if you are viewing this from Madaxeman.com. All of these images link to a full-sized version, so just click them to see more.

A one-page ruleset ACW game using Kallistra hex terrain

The game also featured some (new) 10mm ACW troops from Kallistra - I think I need to update the list of 10mm ACW manufacturers, as it suddenly seems to be all the rage !

28mm Romans hide behind a wall - one of the many games using the plethora of new Ancients rules to be published recently 

It's a big old shed at ExCeL - but full of gamers ...

Even with some of the widest aisles ever seen in a show, it looks busy (this was around 11am)

The FoW team were running demo's of the rules on their stand (booth in American). At least this time no-one was in WW2 uniform.... 

The GW stand was branded Forge World .... 

A Captain Scarlet (I think...?) road rage game

Someone had been scouring eBay for all of those vehicles methinks....

Monsters in the City

A stunning modern Baltic game, Russians against the locals...

20mm I think - very impressive

The traditional massive Napoleonic game ...

A futuristic take on a historic harbour

One for the kids - Lego Daleks & Cybermen !

Donnington's impressively painted Agincourt game in 15mm

Somewhere in a corner of Japan...

All of these images link to bigger versions - just click them for the full size picture. 

My shopping list extended to a load of 15mm Pirates, from Blue Moon and Peter Pig for a FoGR Buccaneer army (I also got tempted into buying a load of naval cannons, as they were so cute. I hope they have some in the army list!), 30 Old Glory 25mm Swiss Arquebusiers to help early-ize my existing 28mm Renaissance army, a 20mm Force on Force media crew from MJ Figures (another outfit also getting into 10mm ACW by the looks of their catalogue), a 20mm FoF truck from Britannia and some 15mm Woodland Indians, again from Blue Moon, to go alongside the Pirates. 

Blue Moon seem to be releasing stuff like crazy at the moment - their Napoleonics looked really good, even though I have no interest in the period, and the will apparently soon start releasing some Ancients too (Gauls, Romans, Germans and Parthians). 

Each year there seems to be slightly fewer 15mm Ancients manufacturers represented there - I'd been hoping to pick up some Lancashire Games Boxer Rebellion Chinese to use as "Chinese blokes with arquebuses" for any number of random FoGR armies, and maybe get some more Pirates and Indians from (I think) Museum, but neither were there - maybe the higher margins required to underwrite exhibiting are to be found in anything Flames of War related, and 28mm Historicals, SciFi and Fantasy as pretty much all the manufacturers I could think of in those ranges and scales were present. 

Still, a good day out all round, and some nice eye candy to boot. Now I just need some time to catch up on my painting so I can even start to think about undercoating this latest lot of figures ..

Brazilian Artillery

Just added 44 pictures from Fort Copacabana in Rio, the Brazilian Army Museum. Some interesting artillery, and mannequins in period uniforms from Brazilian history, from the European colonization to WW2.

Farnboro 2012 - 4 Match Reports

4 comprehensive reports from games using an Imperial Spanish army, compiled at a recent 500 AP, 4-games-in-a-day FoG:R competition held in Farnboro.

This was quite an unusual format of event, as we used 40mm movement distances,which certainly meant the action started pretty quickly ! I was initially a little concerned that 500AP might be too few, but again, most people seemed to be able to eke out 10+ unit armies, and the table didn't seem that sparsely populated, or certainly not to the extent that LH or mounted armies dominated in any way. 

All in all a good format, and fitting 4 games (or 1&3/4 hours each) into a single day was also a very good use of my time, so many thanks to Richard and the club at Farnboro' for organising it - looking forward to the next one already ! 

FoW stuff ending soon...

So far, only 3 watchers for the Brits..? Really? Even with this cool signpost..?

It's a bargain waiting to happen by 9:10pm Wednesday evening UK time....

Infantry Aces

15mm FoW goodness with some pictures of the Flames of War Infantry Aces set, and yet more of the inexhaustible supply of German Motorcycle combinations posted up on the site

What on earth have I been up to...?

With a month or so since the last post, here's a random selection of the many painting projects that have been filling my time instead of adding content to this site.

As diverse as WW2 Japanese, TYW Germans, Italian Wars Swiss and Falklands-era British, there are a bunch of photos of figures to prove I've actually been doing some gaming related stuff recently...

(PS - the Links Page on this site has been updated and tidied up too) 

Chinese on Chinese Action

Promoting pages which are not even on this blog, here's a report of a game in our current club competition featuring my army comprised of 650 points of Han Chinese against a somewhat different composition of the same army. My stuff is the least well painted !

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!" ? 

1/144 Scale bombers for BKC anyone ?

I've added a new page which has constantly updated eBay listings from the Altaya range of 1/144 scale planes, which seems to have grown rapidly recently, and come down in price - both of which are good things for 12mm and 10mm WW2 wargamers wanting bombers for BKC. There are some obscure planes - for example, the early war French Marcel Bloch MB 210 and the Liore et Olivier LeO 451 - as well as some mad Italian stuff and the like. You could even get a Lancaster or a Wellington and use it as a downed plane as a bit of scenery I guess?

Usk Doubles 2012

A Huguenot army takes the field in un-sunny South Wales for matches against Austrians, Muslim Indians, Early Danes and some fearsome Imperial Spanish Tercios.

See all 4 glorious battle reports from Usk Doubles 2012 , complete with Hannibals commentary, and 2-minute video summaries of all the armies strengths and weaknesses from Madaxeman TV's new presenting team, Phil and Fernando.

FoG:AM after a 1-year break! Thoughts and observations..

I played a game of FoG:AM last night, for the first time in probably over a year (Warfare 2010 was my last competitive game of Ancients). Having been deeply submerged in the world of FoG Renaissance for the past 12 months it was a very interesting experience to get back on the Ancients horse again, and try and compare the two sets from the perspective of FoG:R.

Firstly, it wasn't a "standard" game - instead it was in our club competition which involves 2-hour 650 point games played out on a 4x3 playing surface. My pick for the competition was Han Chinese, selected as I own the army but I don't remember ever using them in FoG Ancients at all (well, certainly not as Chinese... I think some of them have pretended to be Koreans or similar!).

My opponent was a Classical Indian army, with rather a lot more units than me (13 to my 8) and who had (also) selected the "Regular" (or is it called "Drilled"?) option for the 9 units of foot bows and warriors in the army. Another interesting angle to the competition is that it is a league, with the same choice of army throughout but the opportunity to change the list each game - so you can pick an army to match up against your opponents choice each game. Knowing I was facing Indians I had therefore elected to take 6 units of armoured foot, 1 skirmishing foot and the compulsory 4 Cavalry - and an IC, giving my army a shield of invulnerability to shooting. I had also picked some portable obstacles, but then found out they had no effect against Elephants (doh!) so that was 27 points wasted straight away!

The 4x3 board (with 8"/12" deployment zones and only a 4" "zone of fear" near each edge) certainly reduced the amount of messing around before we got stuck in, although both armies had brought only one unit of skirmishers along anyway. It certainly added weight in my mind to the argument that 800 AP and 6'x4' is not the optimum mix of troop numbers and table size for 15mm FoG:AM games. 

As a comparison to FoG:R the biggest thing that struck me right from the off, and again and again throughout the game was  was just how incredibly maneuverable both sides units of infantry were. With all that drilled medium foot on table, the 1-base sidestep, forming columns, turning and moving sideways and expanding out either side. At times it seemed like we were playing a mega-sized DBA game in which we could just pick up and move the individual bases as we wished, as there seemed to be nothing that these highly trained circus performers could not do!

The upshot of this was that in the (rather limited) pre-combat manoeuvring phase of the game I was able to almost totally reorganise my army so the mix of units when the two lines clashed was almost entirely different to that when I deployed - again reminiscent of that bit in a DBx game where a good set of pips allows you to do a huge element-by-element matchup reshuffle just prior to combat. My opponent also did a fair amount of this too, and was only constrained from doing more by the physical logjam of 13 units on a 4' frontage and of course the futility of swapping one 8-strong Bw/Sw infantry unit for another !

Overlaps - counting both ranks - were also a bit of a nasty surprise, as I found myself assuming wrongly that my better quality troops would win out against wider formations of enemy bases. 

With my own shooting being almost useless (1 rank of crossbows at best...) my game plan relied on doing everything I could to survive the enemy shooting (placing my IC in the right place, working hard to ensure rear support and especially to narrow my units frontage as they charged home) and crossing my fingers, as the opposition rolled lots of dice and hoped for me to fail the Cohesion Tests. The IC played a huge part in surviving the enemy shooting (which is still odd really when you come to think of it) but ultimately this phase of the game was a lot more one-sided than FoG:R as it was all about my opponent rolling lots of dice and hoping I would fail a test - my role was kinda passive.  

Then, once I had committed my forces to combat it was all about the dice, winning by small margins and hoping to force the enemy to take lots of cohesion tests. This is what decided almost all the combats, as in a mutual destruction (yes!!) I can only remember one (or maybe two?) units breaking from base losses, which is again a massive difference to FoG:R where I suspect most of the broken units in the games I have played in break through base losses rather than three consecutive Cohesion test failures. 

What was the biggest difference to FoG:R? Out of all the things I've listed, the biggest one I keep coming back to is the extreme, nay, ridiculous ability of (drilled) units to hop,skip, jump and shimmy their way around the table. In FoG:R infantry simply don't do that - formations stay as fixed-width formations (by and large), infantry don't move as far anyway, and they certainly cannot turn and move. That to me makes FoG:R a far, far better game for recreating the look and feel of a historical battle. 

Having the ability to redeploy pretty much at will (Drilled MF + an IC means you can turn and move on a roll of 5 or more) was kinda fun, but it also meant the rules would have worked almost as well if the bases were representing squadrons of X-wing and Tie-fighters clashing around the gravity well of a rogue planet somewhere in deep space, rather than Han Chinese Close Combat infantry charging home against Indian Longbowmen on the edge of a forest on a battlefield somewhere presumably in the Himalayan foothills!

Playing AM at 650 AP on a 4x3 is a lot more fun than chasing LH around a 6x4 - but I think I'll still be sticking with FoG:R for any full-weekend competitions the foreseeable future ! 

Godendingdag FoG:R Lists

5 lists from Godedingdangdag 2012 now added into the "still in beta but you can try it" FoG:R Wiki. They include Hugenot, Early Imperial Spanish, Hindu Indian, Early Danish (which came 1st) and Later Imperial Austrian

Oh Wallenstein, what a big ...... you've got!

Big Boys Toys in action at a 25/8mm FoG:R Competition, Wallenstein 2011 - see Thirty Years War Germans actually do quite well indeed.

Warfare 2011 Match Reports

See the theoretically unbeatable TYW Swedes disprove a theory in grand style in 4 reports featuring opponents such as Later Swedes, Imperial Spanish, TYW Swedish Civil War and Dutch.