Totentanz Miniatures - 15mm Renaissance comparison shots

I've just finished painting up 2 units of TYW miniatures, from Spanish manufacturer Totentanz.

Aside from the now-obligatory use of flowers on the bases, I actually think that they have come out pretty well - more a reflection of the figures rather than my painting!

As this is a new manufacturer I have also posted a load of comparison photos so you can compare height and stature against around a dozen different manufacturers.

(Testudo by Khurasan vs Totentanz)

Dead Man's Hand - Cowboy Name Generator

Yes, you heard it right - over a quarter of a million randomly generated Cowboy names are ready for you on this site, simply at the click of a button....

That also means you can generate over 11 million (!!) Wild West short stories (well, one sentence each ... so pretty dammed short)!

Just follow this link to the Cowboy Name Generator !

The English Civil War - 3 FoGR Match Reports

The plain-as-bread Parliamentarian army take on three opponents in a 1-day competition in the heart of the Kings Country - Oxford.

See how Renaissance Hannibal and Oliver Cromwell square up in the post-match reviews, and scratch your head as to how many Youtube videos that do not feature members of the Sealed Knot can be shoehorned into the three reports of some of the most vanilla armies every to take the field.

And, potatoes on bases... Say no more!

Rasputina and Kaeris

Two more sets of eBay purchases, one of which was (mostly) painted and the other of which I did myself.... see Kaeris and Raspy added to my 3 existing Arcanist Crews for Malifaux!

Lots of photos of the painted models, with details of how I painted them;

Review of Salute! 2015

Yes, a comprehensive review of the stuff I saw at Salute! 2015, with loads of photos and some actual analysis and commentary on industry trends and stuff as well...

Feel free to share this review on your chosen web forum  and chew over my thoughts ...

Spring Showdown - Malifaux match reports

4 more almost incomprehensible Malifaux battle reports, with a big pink flying baby with a bad case of piles, hot chicks in leather with big swords, re-animating snipers in a childs playroom and a cast of thousands of mechanical spiders all creating confusion in deepest Essex.

The only thing you will probably recognise and understand is the crushing incompetence, the bitter taste of defeat and the withering analysis from Steampunk Hannibal

Some Saga Warbands - being sold off on eBay

I've recently listed 4 Saga Warbands on eBay - they are figures I was selling for a friend, so you probably won't recognise the figures from previous disastrous match reports!

The eBay listing included 2 Norman/Christian armies, one Viking-type Warband and an Arab Warband that can be most any of the Arab factions. As they have now departed my possession I thought it worth sharing the photos here.

All I have done is re-base them, and also photographed them with my new model-railway-inspired backdrop - which I think adds a surprising amount to the pictures.

Dead Man's Hand

After accidentally buying lots of Wild West figures, terrain and buildings for Malifaux, the inevitable has happened and I have expanded into the Dead Man's Hand Wild West game.

I know it's been out for several years already, but this is my first game of it, and I must admit that it was a real hoot! Easy to play and learn, very simple but still delivering a cinematic cowboy experience as well.

See what the hand of fate dealt me in a 3-linked-games match report that is also a review of the rules and walk-through of the key mechanics as well.

Unusually not all of the pictures have captions, but that's because I've tried to play with some different effects to make some of them look "old" - see what you think!

Gertfaux - a Malifaux Competition!

After almost 5 games ever, Mei Feng and her Rail Crew take to the competitive table at Gertfaux in Bristol!

It's all on the turn of a card as Giant Robots take on resurrected Irish Labourers, Little Green Men try to avoid falling into an industrial threshing machine, and a 4-legged man wearing a dress tries to avoid being run down by a big a metal horse with it's own colony of self-detaching sub-zero temperature haemorrhoids with bad attitudes.

There is also Steampunk Hannibal, and some silly captions. As if they were needed...

This site, reviewed in Miniature Wargames!

Some nice words from Henry Hyde at Miniature Wargames about this site, as Madaxeman.com is the "Blog of the Month" for February 2015!

"This month, get yourself over to the Madaxeman site at http://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.co.uk

which is rammed full of excellent stuff. One aspect that I really like is where he tests various rulesets, such as a recent tryout of L’Art de la Guerre Ancients rules at http://www.madaxeman.com/reports/

Art_de_la_Guerre_review.php. There’s a lovely sense of humour underpinning the site, with lots of variety, recently including a photo report of a Field of Glory Renaissance tournament complete with comic strip speech bubbles! Great stuff. "

Fame at last!! 

New Rules, Same Incompetence? Romans take to the field under ADLG

The Legions of Roman take part in what is probably the first ever UK event for ancients ruleset L'Art de la Guerre. They play Indians, Middle Romans and Palmyrans in three tightly themed standard sized games in one day.

The rules are translated from French, but did the Romans find it was all Greek to them ?

Find out for yourself in a series of 3 reports with lots of rules-learning tips in there too

Photo Galleries back online

The 15mm Ancients, 10mm ACW, 10mm WW" and "Real Vehicles" galleries are now fixed, upgraded and secured...

If you are using Chrome as a browser you may still see a Google security warning before accessing the 10mm/Real Vehicle galleries, which I've requested be removed now I have done the update - so it should hopefully be gone in a few days.

• 15mm Ancients Gallery
• 10mm WW2 Gallery 
• 10mm ACW Gallery
• Real Vehicles Gallery

(I also managed to "find" a lost database with more information that was originally included in the 10mm Gallery, which it now appears I managed to lose by making a typo in one upgrade cycle... so, if anyone out there knows about how to merge the contents of two SQL database tables, do let me know!) 

Photo galleries offline

Both the 10mm and 15mm photo galleries on this site appear to be a bit knackered at the moment - it seems as if they have been subject to some sort of rogue code attack.

That does however have the positive benefit of rendering them unreachable, so you are safe from any risk of stumbling across something dodgy... however, as they do link to a lot of other pages on this site you may well find that "normal" pages just stop and cut off half way through, or are covered in gobbledegook. I'm working on an upgrade, so fear not, they will be back as soon as I work out how to fix it ...

Mei the force be with you - Malifaux Battle Report

In the 2nd ever Malifaux report on this site, Evil Steampunk-magic-using Marxist Drug-runner Mei Feng takes on a man on a horse and his big fat Edward Scissorhands best friend in a strange urban cowboy landscape as two players struggle again to get to grips with what the hell they are up to ..

There is kung-fu, there are dogs and eagles, there is a Sikh with a machine gun and there is a lawyer (sending guns and money..?).

Who knows what it all means - but as long as everything gets set on fire, it will surely all be good in the end!

The Danes at Warfare 2014 - top table action!

The last event of 2014, and the Early Danes get yet another outing at FoGR down by the banks of the Thames in sunny (cold and dark) Reading.

In four thrilling match reports they take on everyone in the world, from the Indians to the English, all whilst doing their very best to shoehorn references to bacon and Carlsberg into the narrative at every opportunity....and end up doing surprisingly well !

Lots of pictures, some barely-relevant YouTube videos and some very odd things to buy from Amazon as well all grace the reports - so, grab yourself some pancakes and maple syrup, pull up a chair and dig in!