Its a right Saga!

I've been painting up some 28mm Foundry Vikings to be used as in-game prizes for the Saga Tournament at Britcon 2013, the idea being these couple of units will be fed into the scenarios across the event, and someone (not necessarily the actual tourney winner) will have the chance to go home with them.

See what you think:

They are all undercoated in black, drybrushed in white (to help being out some highlights in the proper painting) then painted normally - finally a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone has been added, finished with Testors Dullcote

I just love the slightly cartoonish aspect of many of these Foundry figures !

I've semi-deliberately not finished the bases, so whoever ends up with them can make them match their existing figures.

The Beserkers are very obviously totally beserk..

Arrrr! Here be Pirates!

In one of the most extensively trailed competition writeups ever seen anywhere on the whole internet, the Buccaneer Army takes to the field at Campaign in Milton Keynes (well, where else would you expect to find Pirates eh?) for 5 games of cutlass-swinging, eyepatch-wearing, blunderbuss-shootin' Pirate-ey action of the most intense type imaginable.

See how me band o'hearties fared in combat in 5 pages, 200 pictures and several thousand words of puns, random links, irrelevant videos and three of the best episodes of Madaxeman TV ever broadcast!

Arrr!

Compare the Pirate (.com)!

Just added a lot of photos of various 15mm pirates to the site, so you can see the manufactures side by side

As a sample, in this picture you have mostly Blue Moon with additional figures from Grumpys (far right) and Peter Pig (2nd from left). The pictures are all online here and searchable by manufacturer

Bovington Tank Museum

Unbelievably, having never been before, I've now finally made it to Bovington Tank Museum!

The results are 270 photos of WW1, WW2 ad modern armour all in small, medium and as-big-as-your-screen sizes for you to gaze at adoringly, or use as inspiration for your latest small scale painting scheme.

So, if you ever wanted to know what colour the road wheels were on a PzIV, or how to paint the spade attached to the side of a Tiger I, this is the gallery for you. 

Enjoy!

The Southern League 2013 - London Round, Full Results

The London round of the Southern League 2013 covered the period of Revolution & Turmoil in the UK 1639-1688, allowing a choice of armies from Early Caroline English, Scots Covenanter, Scots Royalist, Confederate Irish, Early ECW Royalist, ECW Parliamentarian, Later ECW Royalist, New Model Army, Restoration British, Covenanting Rebels, Monmouth Rebellion

The full results and photo's are online now

PBI in Tuckton

The 15mm WW2 itch gets well and truly scratched at Stab in sunny (almost) Tuckton. A small but perfectly formed Japanese army bought on eBay and tarted up takes the stage against Russians, Americans and some more Japanese in 3 PBI battles

See how the boys do in the world of Girls und Panzer...

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 !