Peter Pig ECW Scots

Just in time for the club competition I've snuck in a couple of units of Peter Pig ECW Scots. Here they are being painted in various stages

Based up, figure bases hidden by some wood filler, and sprayed with a Halfords matt white spray (that's a car and bike parts retailer for those of you not in the UK) 

After the undercoat, the figures have blocks of colour added at random across the two units. Here Brown and Green have been added - usually my stuff is a mix of Coat d'Arms colours and some other bits and pieces such as Vallejo

Here I've also added a lot of grey, as I found a good picture online of some Scots units and thought it was worth copying... 

 With most of the colours completed, the Piggy guys are almost ready to varnish and tint

 I paint the feet/shoes and also look to ink them before painting the earth colour on the bases so I can paint over the inevitable messy bits. But it's still a simple looking blocky paint scheme at this stage.

And moments later with Army Painter Dark Tone here they are. Normally I'd use the middle Army Painter tone, but I didn't have any to hand, and with the grey tunics on these guys the darker one works quite well

Not bad for wargaming standard

 Here they are with some colour on the bases, and a few bits of static grass added

And with varnishing - not as good as Testors Dullcote, but I'd run out. I will have to re-spray them later once I order some more.

Close up on the commanders

Peter Pig's Drums of Scotland!

The pikemen - one has a fairly simple bit of tartan

Musketeers - the shine on the bonnets makes them look like they have some sort of yellow patch on the bonnet, but it's just a trick of the light

I added some swordsmen to make the infantry into Musket/Sword infantry... pretty pleased with them for a rush job.

And here is my step by step "Tartan for tiny soldiers" guide:

Start with a plain blue background

Add a cross-hatching of yellow stripes

Finish with a thinner red line in the middle of the yellow

This is with a green background

Then yellow...

And finally red. Simple, but effective on 15mm figures. Nothing too scary ....

15mm Comparison photos for Renaissance

I've just added a load more comparison photos to my site showing the scale/height/bulk of Peter Pig figures against a lot of the other manufacturers - like this one...

(Peter Pig and Old Glory)

Acies Edizioni TYW Generals

I've actually finished some of the massive lead mountain that has been clogging my desk for a while - and Much to Martin at Vexillia's delight no doubt, the first things to be done are from his newly acquired/distributed range of Acies Edizione TYW figures.

These are at the bigger "18mm" end of 15mm - they tower over some Peter Pig figures I am also painting right now - and whilst they look a bit bland in the bare metal they have actually surprised my by how well they finish up and take a coat of ink.

These are a combination of the infantry and mounted command sets, although I had to drill out the flagpoles for all of the figures as the metal that they come in is quite soft making the cast-on flagpoles totally unworkable. The drilling was pretty easy to do - well presuming you have a Mini Drill

The mounted command set includes Wallenstein and Tilly apparently - however these two chaps are generic mounted trumpeter and flag carrying blokes

This looks more like a famous person. The infantry have been painted in yellow with a red sash, probably when I was thinking I might have them finished to be commanders for a Spanish army I used in a competition earlier this year....

This flag is one of my favourites from Alex Flags 

The inking is using Army Painter Dark tone - I bought it accidentally as I had used Strong Tone before. It seems to me more "black" rather than just being a darker brown compared to the Strong Tone - not ideal for these figures, but it does work well on white/grey horses I think.

This is a Saxon flag from the Grimsby Wargames Society site 

Slightly shiny finish - I ran out of Testors dullcote halfway through the spraying session 

This chap looks very much like my 28mm Tilly figure

I base the figures before painting them - unusually these were undercoated in white, largely to bring the yellow colours up more strongly than compared to a normal black undercoat. The base is painted in a matchpot tin of  emulsion from Homebase - much cheaper than buying real paint !

For some reason everyone in the TYW had a moustache

and finally...

Here they were just before being Army Painter'ed and varnished ..

Venexia's free Louis XIV and Italian Wars flags..

... are still online at the old Venexia site - some great little flags and also uniform guides for Savoy and France in the Louis XIV era - used as the basis for this army seen here in action at Britcon 2011..

Best to grab them while they are still around - perhaps Venexia's new owners Sgt Major Miniatures will repost them, but who knows...!

Painting table, or dogs breakfast ?

Do you ever find yourself wondering if you have too many projects on the got at any one time?

Well, try and spot some of the bits and pieces clogging up my workbench at the moment...

28mm Old Glory arquebusiers, Warlord Games horses and harquebusiers... and a half-finished 20mm modern British Afghan truck and container for Force on Force lurking in the background. And some 15mm pirate cannons in the foreground. Of course.

6mm modern Heroics and Ros Americans (and Russians), 15mm Old Glory Three Musketeers, 15mm Forged in battle Tiger 1's, 15(ish)mm Museum Gendarmes, 18mm Vexillia TYW command figures and some modern aricraft and a Cobra helicopter. And a 28mm ECW general won as a trophy... and an odd 10mm German 'shreck man part way through being rebased.

15mm Streltsi, Polish and Russian foote from Old Glory, various Avar foot from Khurasan, Mikes Models Winged Hussars, plastic Caesar Miniatures women in short skirts with Uzi's, a 20mm modern Russian from Elheim, some 20mm Modern British from S&S, a bit of baggage from Donnington

28mm mixed manufacturers Landesknechts - and a 15mm Peter Pig pirate boat !

More 1/300th Modern stuff

This time it's Taliban infantry and softskins (including some scarily good GHQ "Technical" models) and a Syrian army as well - all refurbished using some ArmyPainter tinted varnish from an original base colour of a spray coating of dark sand.

A handful of 10mm BKC photo's

A change from 15mm competitions, here are some 10mm WW2 BKC photos on the Madaxeman.com Facebook page (login not required)

4 Ancients Reports from Lisbon 2012

After a rather long break from the pre-gunpowder world, Madaxeman.com is pleased to bring you 4 new reports from the 2012 ITC in Lisbon, in which Hannibal himself takes command of a Carthaginian army and take on Alexander the Great, two lots of R*m*ns, and some Seleukids

The reports can be found here

They include all of the traditional rubbish, some new bits from Twitter and a short video analysis of the Alexandrian army strengths and weaknesses too.

As Hannibal was actually commanding the Carthaginian army, I have been forced to draft in some almost-as-tough-as-Hannibal hard men to give the post match analysis and attempt to critique the perfection which was Hannibal's battle plan. So get ready for insightful comments from Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, Clint Eastwood and Jason Statham as well...

East Riding Miniatures

Sitting here at the computer rather amazed - I ordered some figures from East Riding Miniatures on Sunday evening,and by Tuesday morning here they are !

What fantastic customer service - If only I could paint as fast too....

Lisbon Artillery Museum

A load of fairly random photos are now posted on the Madaxeman.com Facebook page from a trip to this museum: You don't need Facebook access to see them !

Britcon 2012 - 6 Match Reports

Yes, the epic widescreen version of Britcon 2012, with 6 separate reports as the Thirty Years War French (and Geermans, and Dootch) take on all comers, most of whom turn out to be Swedish. 

10,000 words, 250 photos, the same old crap jokes and irrelevant picture captions .... it's all still there in one of the most well thought out and easy to follow sets of battle reports ever published on this site! 

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.