Kitbashed Arabs... the project at half way through

During the rolling, seemingly endless series of lockdowns and partial lockdowns in 2020 followers of my blog and website will know that I've been gradually building up an "all options" set of Arab troops to make up armies for L'Art de la Guerre in 28mm. The aim is kinda to mirror the 15mm Arab armies that I've enjoyed using in various competitions over the last few years, but also to try a couple of new things along the way - kitbashing and using GW Contrast paints. 

Having - of course - bought far too many figures for the army I decided to start by mainly concentrating on the cavalry first, with a few excursions into infantry for variety.  This set of 50-odd photos you can now access on my site is the first tranche of all of those figures, made up from 5 boxes of plastic figures all mushed together.

What you can now see here is a set each of Gripping Beast's Arab Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry, a Fireforge Mongol Cavalry set and two boxes of Gripping Beast's latst Gothic Heavy Cavalry - which are basically armoured lancers on cataphract-style fully barded horses.

Over the next few weeks you will see more of the cavalry on display - and perhaps more of the infantry as well if I get cracking on finishing them too.

Link to the page with all the photos here:

Listen to the 48th episode of the Madaxeman.com Podcast in which I talk about these figures a little (as well as other stuff)

Hungary vs Spain in Medieval Tabletop Simulator action

 Another Tabletop Simulator battle report, this time in full HD with a 200 point L'Art de la Guerre matchup featuring List 238 Medieval Hungarian vs List 228 Medieval Spanish is now on my YouTube channel. 

The gameplay has been speeded up around 8-fold to allow the whole battle to be watched in just over 20 minutes, and includes a running commentary describing the action from the Hungarian sides' point of view. 

There are also photos of the 15mm Essex Miniatures Hungarian army I painted during lockdown, and a review of both army lists being used as well. 

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... 

Video walkthrough : Vikings vs Carolingians on TTS for L' Art de la Guerre

My second video walk-through of a 200 point game of L'Art de la Guerre played on Tabletop Simulator has just gone live on the Madaxeman.com YouTube channel, this time featuring the Carolingians of Charlemagne vs one of their main historical foes, the Vikings.

The video includes some snippets of "real-figures" eye candy and also a brief demonstration (at the start - you don't need to watch the whole thing!) of how you can very easily customize existing units in TTS.

Arab WiP - starting to get the first few done

 As well as experimenting with contrast paints on infantry and horses I have gotten a few bases close to completion already - I find finishing some of them early helps motivate me to do the rest production-line-style, as it gives me an idea of what I'm looking to achieve:

The first lot are a couple of sprues of Perry Sudanese infantry, here representing the ADLG "Impetuous Swordsmen" Tribal or Indian troops that many Arab armies have as a cutting edge to their infantry attack.

They are sprayed with Army Painter Leather, then the flesh has been inkwashed twice with ArmyPainter Dark Tone. The clothes are a base of white with diluted Softtone, GW Contrast Skeleton Horse or Nazdreg Yellow.

The Sudanese haircuts are a lttle distinctive on these, so I tried to use as many bald heads as I could from the sprues instead.

From the back you can see a couple of colourful "belts"to give them a smidge more colour. 

This is a finished Commander base - the horse is pale grey with a white wet-brushed coat on top, the armour is drybrushed ArmyPainter Gunmetal over black, and all of the cloth has been done with Contrast Paints.

The Talassar Blue on the cloak is a fantastic colour. 

The shield was cast-on this metal figure so I sadly couldn't use transfer and had to improvise this half-hearted peacock style thing

He's now ready for sand to be added to his base.

 

More adventures in Contrast Paints

 Now the Arabs are starting to come together I've test-done a few infantry figures to see what difference undercoat makes to the GW Contrast Paints that I'm looking to use for this army.

These are WiP figures - undercoated either in matt white (Halfords car undercoat) or Army Painter Skeleton Bone, and then painted with the same GW Contrast colour.

This is Magos Purple

The guy on the right has a Sudanese head from the Perry sprue

Talassar Blue

Iyanden yellow

I'm pretty sure these are Perry metal figures

Space Marine Red

This is perhaps the most "solid" colour of the lot that I've tried

Warp Lightning Green

Iyanden yellow trousers

Aethermatic Blue

This is perhaps my favourite of the colours so far - but I have a fair few more to try! 

28mm Plastic Arab Kitbashing - continued

Just before I rush outside to spray undercoat I thought I'd take a few snaps of the kitbashed Arab riders and infantry to highlight where the various arms, legs, hands and weapons had ended up. 

These have been glued together and then you'll see some white and yellow patches where I've used polyfiller and wood filler in an effort to make the joins between glued components disappear. After it dries I sand it off with a small round hobby file. 

These are all Gripping Beast plastic Arab bodies with a range of different heads, and the odd different arm added. The armoured heads are from (I believe..) the Fireforge Russian infantry sprue which I think look quite "Arabian Nights" when added to a dishsash-wearing body, and the bald head is a Mongol horseman one from Fireforge's  Mongols cavalry set. 

These are more of the added-skirt armoured Medieval Russian and Viking bodies with a mix of mostly "arabized" heads from the GB Arab infantry and cavalry ranges, and metal shields from Footsore. 

Same guys from the back

These mounted figures are based on torsos from the Gripping Beast Gothic Elite Cavalry set, which has three rather nice fully armoured (or barded) horses and a rather paltry 3 different poses of  riders, all of whom are thrusting with lances or actively charging with swords. 

This pose does however just about work for mounted archers if you snip off the left hand and replace it with a snipped-off hand holding a bow. Luckily there are plenty of these hands spare in the GB infantry and cavalry boxes!

There are loads of bowcases in the GB Arab cavalry and Fireforge Mongol sets so I've also been able to do a load of the Lance/Bow cavalry holding lances and with bows stowed, as well as leaving some just as lancers.

Simply replacing the heads makes a massive difference, but this set of Gothic torsos really does need quite some kitbashing as otherwise the limited number of poses would be, well, quite limiting. 

More of the "Arabian Knights" style bowmen. The GB plastic bowmen are pretty bland so mixing them up with some extra heads and even arms from the mounted boxes (and these Medieval Russian armoured heads too)  really helps make them more interesting as a set.

Here are some "Turkic" - style bowmen using Mongol heads. The one on the left looks to have acquired a Fireforge Mongol arm too, as these are exceedingly (weirdly!) long..

More Mongol and turkic heads on GB Arab bodies. 

Back into (figure painting) gear...

After a month of sporadic holiday (and interior decorating-type painting) I'm finally now starting to think about getting back into gear for some proper painting with the start of my long-promised 28mm 'genric' Arab army for ADLG.

Its a real mix of metals and plastics, with a bit of half-assed conversion going on as well. Here are some of the figures in WiP:

These figures are I think a mix of the Fireforge Byzantine Infantry sprue, with some Gripping Beast Vikings as well to give me a load of armoured bodies to which I add Arab heads from the GB Arab infantry and cavalry packs. 

Here I'm using the trusty favourite of wood filler to create longer robes for them, building up over most of their legs and leggings and then adding in metal Dailami shields from Footsore so I can use the amazing Dailami shield transfers from LBMS for the couple of bases of "elite" Dailami infantry in a number of Arab armies in ADLG 

I will also be making a whole pack of GB plastic arabs, but like many of the recent GB plastic packs (Late Romans.. looking at you here..) they don't have all that much variety so I have added metal figures from North Star, Gripping Beast (I think) and Perry (in order of left to right after the plastic figures) to mix it up a bit. 

I'm also going to make a load of cavalry - these are the GB Gothic Elite Cavalry horses, which are the same as their Roman cataphract pack as well with three poses. Instead of metal armour I've used GW Contrast Paints as a base (with extra detail from normal paints) to create colourful horse barding for the elite horsemen. 

These are some of the GB Gothic riders with "arab" heads and bowcases added 

And from the other angle.. very much WiP, much of the detail isn't added yet.

More riders - one of these at least is I think a Fireforge Mongol body and arms.

Elite mounted bow cavalry!

Here are the Fireforge and GB horses from the Arab Light and Heavy Cavalry boxes which most of the rest of the cavalry will be mounted on. As with the 15mm Hungarians I did the horses all first. 

These have all been undercoated white, painted with a bit of a watered down semi-wash Coat d'Arms horse colour then inked with various layers of ArmyPainter browns and dark tones. 

More to come now I've restarted painting again post-summer!

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!)

"Pre-Covid Sassanid" Persian Match Reports from Cold Wars 2020

Arriving from the distant depths of pre-lockdown history with less warning than a new Taylor Swift album release, these 3 Madaxeman.com "Doubles" match reports finally emerge into the light of day blinking as furiously as an Amish buggy's indicators with a flat battery.

The mighty forces of Persia ride across the North American plain and engage in wanton warfare in the bowels of the Cold Wars 2020 auditorium at the very dawn of the age of Covid against the Classical Indians, the 100YW French and Alexander the Great.

There are beers, maps, pizza slices and almnost certainly a foot-long hotdog in these American-tastic 3 widescreen 20 Floz match reports with a side of fries and a portion of salsa.

Let's make Wargaming face-to-face Great again with these 3 Madaxeman.com "Doubles" match reports

More War & Empire Sassanid Cataphracts

Painted up at pretty much the same time as the Carolingians are three more units of War & Empire / Forged in Battle Sassanids Cataphracts. 

I'd already got 3 units worth, which isn't quite enough for a proper Sassanid army (you kinda need 4 at least I think) so rather than stick with using Roman-style ones, when I saw a pack on eBay for a tenner for 12 mounted figures I dived in and doubled the force.

These chaps have a lot of variety in the pack, and handily come with 13 riders, one of whom is a standard bearer and one an officer/General type with a mace so you can choose whether to have a standard-bearing officer in one of the units or not. 

They paint up super-easily, with simple cloaks and just enough variety to keep them interesting.

 You can also comfortably get 4 on a 40mm wide base by staggering them slightly front and back

I chose to give just a few of them cloth (or cloth-covered) armour, the rest are in full metal again to get a smidge more colour into the block. What's not to like, especially for just a tenner post-free ?!