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

Some more stuff from the painting queue

With the Arab Infantry currently proving to be too much of a task to get started on finishing right now I've been diverted by some small-scale painting tasks that had been hanging around for a while waiting to force their way intro the queue. 

I also bought a small turntable from eBay (affiliate link to eBay here), which shipped from China incredibly quickly and (after getting 3 rechargeable batteries) seems to be working fine and gives a different option for showing off figures when I'm taking photos with my lightbox. 

The end result is this eclectic collection of models and videos :

1/300th T55's from Butlers Printed Models

Dr Andrei Sokolov - a Special Edition Malifaux figure

"New" Victrix 1/144th scale Sherman 

15mm Essex Sparabara, rebased and refurbished a little. 

I've got too many bases of these for what I need to field the army in ADLG, so I decided to rebase in an effort to pack the rear ranks with a lot more archers than the usual 3 or 4 in a "second rank" to give a more "biblical horde" effect.

You may also remember these Perry plastic Afghan warriors being made up a while ago - well, they are now painted and make absolutely fantastic Arabs !

The shield design at the front is a waterslide transfer made from a downloaded image of a real Indian shield in a museum somewhere!

These are the Kings of Kitbash - Fireforge Mongols, Perry Afghans and Wargames Atlantic Persians with some Fireforge Russian heads and a few Gripping Beast Arab bits as well.

I've ended up using the large pavise-like shields to give me a few bases of mixed spear/bow Arab troops for the handful of armies that have these formations. 

A very colourful bunch in their contrast paints!

And, to wrap up, a few more videos of the 28mm Arabs, including the second elephant from Gripping Beast in all it's glory

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 

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 

The Kitbashed Arab Cavalry - Part II

 After a brief hiatus here are the rest of the 60-odd kitbashed Arab cavalry to complete the mounted component of my 28mm Generic Arab Dynasties army:

There's a bucketload of photos on the full page (which you can access here) where you will also find some details of the Contrast Paints I used on them, but anyway here is a taster of the photos. 

The full set of photos can be accessed here. 

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. 

The Black (Templar) Abbasid Guard

In my ongoing series of experiments with Contrast paints, I've just about finished these two units of Abbasid Black Guard spearment using Black Templar as the main colour for their cloaks. They are yet to be matt varnished (as its been too chilly outside to spray) so they are a smidge shiny, but are pretty much done.

The figures are mostly Artizan Designs Black Guard from their Moorish range - a fairly small range but fantastically cast with deep, bold details for taking this sort of paint. 

The Artizan figures come in packs of 4, so there are also a couple of Gripping Beast-based plastic arab infantry padding out the rear ranks on each base. 

At 6 figures, each 60mm x 40mm base is a little light on figures for "Spearmen" in ADLG, but these are big solid guys so they more than fill the available footprint with a very solid looking line of men and shields. 

These are just painted with Black Templar on a flat white base coat. No additional shading at all. 

The padded armour is Vallejo Beige Brown with an ink wash of Armypainter Strong Tone 

The Templar Black has something of a green verdigris tone to it - the best way I can describe it is that it seems to be the perfect colour to paint Ring Wraiths from LoTR in!

This sword is I suspect one from the GB Late Roman infantry set

I also had a couple of commander figure - either Perry or perhaps Footsore - who I had intended to squeeze onto each base but in the end they didn't fit and were also too static in their poses to go with the footsoldiers so I have created a stand alone Generals base for them instead

The chap in the middle of the back row unfortunately shows where I didn't do enough to fill the joins in the arms of the GB plastic figures., 

A great colour indeed. 

(The links to the paints are "affiliate links". If you buy something after clicking on them I get a small kickback from Amazon)

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.