There Be Trophies !

Just finished off the trophies for this weekends Southern League FoG:R competition - using some spare figures and trees, and one of the Empress Miniatures Naseby Battlefield Trust Special Figures (£1 from every sale goes to the trust) This chap is the "Cromwell" figure.

Empress Miniatures Cromwell

A Redoubt Miniatures infantryman who came with 2 officers on foot, who are now Great Commanders for my 15mm armies.

No idea where this chap is from I'm afraid !

For added interest I include on each base a replica English Civil War era coin - another late night eBay purchase from Warstore Flags webstore along with the bases from JP Designs.

I'm quite pleased with them - let's hope there are some worthy winners!

A new desk lamp!

My old trusty Ikea lamp finally gave up the ghost about a week ago, with the lampshade bit basically falling off the arm as the heat of the bulb over the best part of the last decade had caused the metal to crumble!

So, a search on Amazon drew me to a lamp with a proper bulb (rather than a tiny, hot halogen one) .. which in turn allowed me to go for a daylight bulb as well. And here is the result

This the the Lloytron L1120WH - Swing Arm Hobby/Desk Lamp in White, only £26 from a seller on Amazon and delivered in a couple of days. Unlike my old lamp it comes with both a big heavy base, and also a screw-on clip thingy which I've ended up using here to fasten it to the edge of my desk, making some extra desktop space in the process. 

I then also picked up a Ecozone Biobulb, Energy-Saving Daylight Bulb, Screw Cap E27, This is a very bright 25W modern eco bulb, which is equivalent to 100w but is not as hot ! The clever bit is that it is a full spectrum daylight white bulb, so gives a very good "daylight" effect for painting - the shot above was using the "daylight" setting on the white balance on my camera. So in future you may well be seeing more pictures with natural colours...

This is a Forged in Battle Tiger I  that has been waiting to be finished since the Newbury show last year..

One of a set of three - photographed in "daylight"

And these are 2 bases of rather exuberantly painted XVII Century carbine armed cavalry from Essex, probably destined to join the "I already have too many to ever field" roster of horse as the 2 Elite bases in my always not quite successful enough Louis XIV French army.

Sunday afternoon...

The end of the saga of the Pirates doesn't mean that painting has stopped. This weekend I've been doing some finishing off, and a bit of upgrading.

First up are the Scots Highland infantry - a mix of Minifigs, Essex and Peter Pig figures to give me 2 x 8 bases of Highlanders for the upcoming Central London round of the Southern League. Here the chaps are, half Army-Painter'ed (the Dark Tone one, which is quite black - good for the grey coats they often wear) and half yet to be varnished.

I also then got tempted to "upgrade" a load of Medieval spearmen by adding a wash of Dark Tone on some fairly well travelled figures - these are mostly a Mirliton army I won at the Worlds in Rome almost a decade ago. There are also three Forged in Battle Tiger I's, and a handful of other spearmen and crossbowmen from my Teutonic army, which I've been toying with inking for several years. Still haven't done the knights though - but no hurry as they are almost unusable as an army in FoGAM

There are even 2 bases of XVII Century French horse who sneak into the bottom left of the photo. Just waiting for them to dry so I can spray varnish them in Dullcote

The Pirate Ship is now finished...

The Old Glory 8 Gun Barque is now finished... completing the Pirate army

I must admit to being quite pleased with it. Admittedly the rigging is a bit, well, jerry-rigged, but it does allow me to take the masts down for transport and storage - and it allows you to see the deck and crew very well too.

Lots more photos on my Facebook page

Thoughts on Salute 2013

I went along to Salute at the weekend, and was very impressed. The massive numbers of attendees alone would tend to refute any idea that the hobby is struggling or that the internet is taking away from trade shows!

Warlords do a very good job of putting on an event which has a very short set-up time and cannot really afford to put in many of the creature comforts of "proper" events held in a space like ExCeL - for example, carpet would be nice, but would probably add more than 50% to the cost of hall rental, and hence admissions, and a second day of opening would double the costs and also the costs to exhibitors of staying down at the show.

A few people on TMP have whinged about ExCeL, however it is the only place in London with space and availability to host a show of that size, and those who complain about the catering are missing the point - the range and selection of catering is far better than any other equivalent venue, as long as you are prepared to walk along the central boulevard at ExCeL to find the outlet that suits you. Salute also benefits from the presence of the Marathon alongside in this respect, as all the catering outlets are open - this might not be the case if Salute were the only event in the venue that weekend.

My impressions of the exhibitors was that;

•  Historical, and especially 28mm historical skirmish gaming seems to be having a bit of a renaissance at the moment,
• Vendors are selling, and gamers are keener to give a try to "one box" solution games where you can get everything you need (rules, figures etc) from one supplier for sub £100 - of course you end up buying more!
• The market for resin-cast buildings and scenery is shrinking rapidly as the number of laser-cut pre-painted MDF ones explodes. I felt quite sorry for some of the resin scenery exhibitors as their stands looked deserted.
• Osprey will soon publish every rulebook in the market,
• Plastics are a now given, to the point of almost a default for some new ranges, and the debats has moved onto whether pre-paint is now starting to be a serious option,  
• Figure design is really moving onwards and upwards - again like the resin/MDF split some of the companies I once considered "old stalwarts" like Essex Miniatures looked out of place and their stand wasn;t that busy - they may end up being the Hinchcliffe of 15mm without more pzazz injected into the lines and display cases,
• I have no idea what Foundry are up to right now - for all the talk of a new era of product, branding and marketing they had a rather confusing and low key presence,
• Traders take note - having a banner to advertise your stand location is a must - there is almost no other directional signage at the show other than the catalogue, and with no reference points it was sometimes hard to see where you were even with the plan in front of you,
• The Bring and Buy was such a scrum that I didn't even consider going near it. I know the B&B is a staple of wargamiong shows, and makes money, but whether a show like Salute still really benefits from having a downmarket melee in one the corner it is something I'd question - using the space for more traders might now be the sensible option,
• Turn up at 11am, not 10am - the show is still open for another 6 hours, and it avoids the queues !

I only spent around £50 all in all, but that was mostly because I didn't want to buy anything - I think the £50 went out of my wallet through a form of wargaming osmosis which seems to afflict me at many shows...

   

The Pirates are Here!

My much-heralded Pirate army is now finished - just some ship rigging to finalise and then the whole thing will be ready to take the field in a rather ineffective yet amusing manner.

The whole process of painting them can be followed on my Facebook photo album (Facebook access not required).

The ship is almost done as well, and will make it's appearance online hopefully this week.  

The Maratha In The Southern League

Don "The Don" McHugh organised a round of the Southern League one-day FoGR competition in chilly Clevedon recently and this encouraged me to field yet another new army (made up of rather dubiously morphed old figures) - the Maratha.

Now, in 3 fully detailed and historically accurate match reports you can see how the Renaissance Indians did against Samurai, Jin Chinese and finally full widescreen Technicolor Aztecs.

The reports also feature expert critique and analysis from a new member of the Madaxeman.com Pundits Panel, our resident expert on Indian armies, the legendary General and Indian King Hannibalipuripathi

28mm Renaissance Manufacturer Directory

The latest manufacturer directory on Madaxeman.com is for 28mm Renaissance manufacturers.

I've loosely defined "Renaissance" as C15 to the beginnings of the Marlburian era, and rolled in Samurai and Central Americans too so it should cover most people's definitions, although I have left out the non-Ottoman "Arabs" as they can tend to morph across Ancients ranges (which is maybe another project for another rainy day ..or three).

I'm sure there are some manufacturers I've missed so please let me know if you spot them.

The page has the usual voting buttons on it so you can rate the individual manufacturers, as well as descriptions of what ranges they carry and links to their websites. If I've got something wrong please let me know and I'll fix it!

Pirate Baggage

I've added a load of photos of my Pirate Baggage base to the Madaxeman.com Facebook Photo album. You don't need to be on Facebook to see the pictures - just follow this link

Here are some of the photos of the baggage anyway for those of you too lazy to follow a link!

28mm TYW Warfare at Central London

A handful of photos of a 28mm game against Don "Not The Don" Avis on Thursday evening this week. My chaps are a parliamentarian army, fighting here against the dastardly French.

Parliamentarian armoured Carbine horse close in on the French guns. Bold, but effective !

The Parliamentarian infantry were waiting between two fields as the better quality French advanced towards them. The Parliament forces are almost all Warlord Games figures

The two lines of troops close to shooting distances.

The Parliamentarian attack on the right starts to break down.... and so did my ability to remember to take more photos unfortunately.

How to use the Wiki - a video walkthrough

YouTube now features a short walk-through video of how to add an army list to the Wiki's (AM or R) on this site.

Presented by regular Madaxeman.com TV host Philip, it takes you through all of the steps needed to copy an army list from the MS-Excel army list builder software and drop it into the Wiki.

Once you've watched this short video you will be all tooled up to become a regular Wiki contributor!

"Do you do requests...?"

In a development that might either be quite clever indeed, might be a damp squib, or may even be something that I live to regret I've responded to a request by a newbie gamer via Madaxeman.com's Facebook Fan Page (don't laugh..) to come up with a FoGAM army list for a Communal Italian army.

Now, given I haven't played AM at 800AP for the best part of 2 years, and I haven't played V2.0 at all this may not exactly be the best army in the world, but it did make me add a brand new page to the FoG Wiki, which as been a little neglected of late.

o, now there is an Italian Communal page and list on the Wiki, and it has been generated in response to a request on Facebook... which got me thinking. Can I encourage any of you, the 4,000 people who land on Madaxeman.com every month, and who visit 7,000 pages on the Wiki to join in answering this request?

That's the theory. Let's all improve the Communal Italian Wiki page. Do you fancy helping ?

If so:

• This is a link to the Wiki Page for the Communal Italian army. 
• If you are registered for the Wiki, just login and contribute something to this Communal Italian page - maybe an army list, but anything will do really as long as it adds to what is already there. 
• You can register for the Wiki here if you aren't already a member (you need to use the passcode, but if you can't work it out you are on the wrong website anyway). Then you can contribute too
• Unsure of how it might work? There are some instructions online here 

 Go ahead and add something !

Pirates!

My Pirate (well, Buccaneer) army is gradually taking shape - keep up with the progress on my Madaxeman.com facebook page, as I add photos to a gallery of "work in progress" Pirates...

Britcon 2013

Full details are now on the BHGS Website for Britcon 2013, and for those of you who want to to just go ahead and book your place you can do here:

I'm on the organising team and we've listened to feedback from last year's survey where many players told us how unwelcome Britcon's two late night games can sometimes be, and so for 2013 there will be an option to drop Friday or Saturday night's game and just play 5 games in the larger gaming periods. This also means that each of the "traditional" 6-game main periods will now be decided by counting player's best 5 scores over the weekend.

What Else To Look Out For in 2013?

• New Periods - including a 10+ game "Epic Saga" competition for the runaway success that is the Saga ruleset, as well as the debut's of two further 28mm rulesets, "War and Conquest" (supported by the author, Rob Broom) and WW2 skirmish game "Bolt Action" (supported by Warlord Games - TBC)
• Prices Frozen - we know there is a recession out there, so through careful negotiation with the venue there will be no increase in entry fees in 2013.
• Accommodation still optional - we've also negotiated some great rates at UMIST for a variety of standards of rooms, starting as low as £33.50 for Bed and Breakfast - all still in stumbling distance of the venue and bar as usual.

15mm Napoleonic Auction pages

Following up on the Supplier Directory I've now added two sets of pages with listings from "live" eBay Auctions of 15mm Napoleonic troops - covering the UK and US versions of eBay.

Both sets of pages cover all the Napoleonic troops currently listed, as well as separate pages for the "Big 5" of France, Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia.

The UK pages can be reached through this link, and the US pages are online here.

Looking for 15mm Napoleonics?

I've just finished pulling together a new Manufacturers Directory, covering the Napoleonic period, and the completed page in all its glory is now up and running on this website via this link.

So, if you are looking for 15mm Napoleonic wargaming figures to use for FoG:N, Lasalle, Shako, Piquet, To the Sound of the Guns, Grand Armee, Volley and Bayonet, Empires and Eagles, General de Brigade, L'Empereur, Napoleonic Principles of War, Black Powder or any other Napoleonic ruleset you've come to the right place, as my new 15mm Napoleonic Manufacturers Directory page has information about all of the ranges carried by ALL the 15mm Napoleonic suppliers.

Each manufacturers individual listing has details of the nationalities they make, taken from the list of nations explicitly mentioned on their websites - these include: French, British, Prussian, Russian, Austrian, Spanish, Polish (including Grand Duchy of Warsaw), Bavarian, other minor German states (Saxony & Rhine Confederation, Wurttenburg, Hannovarian, Hessian, Saxon, etc) Italian/Neapolitan, Dutch/Belgian, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, and Turks. Many also have generic equipment and dead and wounded ranges too.

For each supplier there is also an indication of whether they are making "15mm" 15mm figures or "18mm" 15mm figures, how they package and sell the figures (singles, packs of 8 etc), details on how you can order from them and a link to their site.

There is also a set of new Auction Pages pulling live auction listings from UK eBay for 15mm French, British, Prussian, Russian and Austrian troops if you don't want to paint your own!

I'm not personally an expert on Napoleonic gaming or indeed the figures so I had some assistance from some of our club members who are - but if there are oddities in the way I have classified and categorized each manufacturers range, please let me know and I can correct them and update the page.

The page is live and online here

Who's been visiting Madaxeman.com?

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone other than me, but just as an experiment here are some extracts from the Google Analytics traffic reports for this website over the past month (7th Jan-6th Feb).

All of the images are clickable, and get big enough to actually see once you click them...

This shows the mix of different browsers Google has detected - unsurprisingly IE is still top, which means that a good percentage of visitors to the site don't see curved corners on the coloured comments boxes that litter the match reports that you would see in a proper compliant browser like Chrome! Quite a few mobile devices being used to view the site too though...

Here are the stats for operating system - again Windows wins (Wargamers are geeks, so we don't buy as many Mac's...?) , but a good sprinkling of mobile devices as well

Where is everybody from? Well, UK, USA and then Australia... Italy and NZ get in there too. All classic Wargaming countries.. 

What's the first page everyone lands on? The main front page (index.php) is not so closely followed by the FoGAM wiki - probably because the Wiki picks up a lot of hits from Google searches, as will the Ambush Alley and 15mm Ancients supplier listing pages. The two match reports have both had direct links posted on various forums over the past month, hence their high placing in this month's figures.

The "Bounce rate" in the last column indicates times when only one page is clicked before the visitor leaves the site. This stat always hovers around 40% or more, which isn't actually that bad for a content site apparently, and there are various technical Google-related reasons why it is at this level - google it if you are that interested! 

These are the most popular pages over the past month - no surprise that the front page (index.php) is - as usual - top of the list, but the 15mm Ancient, 15mm Renaissance and Modern 20mm Suppliers indexes all rank very highly (take note if your are a manufacturer!), and the AM Wiki is still incredibly popular too. The FoG Index is a bit of a hangover from before the Wiki was set up, but it generates a lot of traffic from Google searches so I have left it on the site as a sort of gateway that appears to be easy to find. 

The Godendag match report hasn't yet had enough time to make it into the top 10, but the earlier report from Oxford has been there for three weeks so is at No.6 in this ranking, and near the bottom is one of the many pages to list eBay auctions - which is great, as eBay pays me a small commission for any sales that get made after people click through to eBay from something they see on this site. 

This shows screen resolution - again some stats about mobile devices creep in at the end.

Finally, this shows sites that provide a direct link to Madaxeman.com. The two variants of the Blogger site are both the Madaxeman.com Blogger page - which looks exactly like the main site but is in the Blogger network, which many people use for their Wargaming news. 

TMP and Slitherine are the two big traffic sources - again mostly from match reports and other content I post up there, but occasionally when someone else posts a link to Madaxeman.com without me suggesting it  (which is really great - when it happens!).

Not sure if this is interesting or not really, but feel free to leave a comment on either the Madaxeman.com Facebook page, or the Blogger site to ask any questions or suggest anything I'm missing.  

Field of Glory Renaissance Battle Reports From Godendag 2013

After only 2 weeks it's four more match reports !

The C17 Louis XIV French take to the field in four Field of Glory Renaissance Battle Reports From Godendag 2013

See how Louis' boys take on the Austrians, Swedes, Ottomans and Anglo-Dutch in 4 epic battles with some of the wildest swings of fortune ever recorded on this site !

Click here for the reports 

LEGO The Hobbit 79002: Attack of the Wargs: Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games

Lego Minifigures for LoTR wargaming anyone...?

Lego seem to be on a roll and are releasing ever-more wargaming-friendly sets of figures right now - apparently you can even buy  Urak-Hai army packs - ideal for use with GW's  War of the Ring ruleset I guess?

But the big question must be, Is this the ultimate end-point of the "Will plastic miniatures ever replace metal?" debate?