25mm Late Romans still underway...

With Christmas just around the corner, here's some not particularly festive WIP shots of my Patrician Romans for ADLG in 25 (8?) mm.

They are a mix of the Gripping Beast plastics, some Old Glory mixed barbarians (that I think might be mostly Scots from a slightly later era, but seem to do OK as generic Gothic foot types) with a few Foundry and Footsore figures sprinkled in to make the variety greater.

 Romans prepare to take on the (as yet un-Army-Paintered) barbarian hordes

12 units of barbarians.... let;s hope the Romans are Elite!

Auxilia, with obligatory LBMS shield transfers

The man holding up the shield is one of the "far too many in the pack" Gripping Beast archers, but converted to hold his shield up to cover his colleague from archery

Some of the "far too many" archers acting as, well, archers. I went away from the textbook red colour scheme to make them more exotic.

Still awaiting Testors Dullcote varnish on this lot

A Degenerate Legionary unit with an old-school standard

I think the officer may be a Footsore Miniatures Romano-British figure

Cloaks at the ready...

Foundry armoured cavalry. Probably able to play as Cataphracts as well at a pinch. I used some spare GB plastic spears as their lances, as they are pretty robust and the Foundry metal ones are far too bendy. They don't yet have Army Painter on them

More LBMS shield transfers....

Warlord Games 'Unleash Hell' General and Dog

Again, needing a coat of Dullcote. His skintone is just a wash with Peat Brown ink.

Hopefully I will find time to put a big dent in getting them all table-ready over the festive break...

Playing Wargames with Kids

One of my erstwhile Doubles partners has recently started a blog in which he will be chronicling his attempts to teach his young son a variety of different warganes rules.

The general idea is to share his experiences / thoughts with people that are also looking for games to play with children.

He's also a teacher and runs a games club at school, so there is a bit of a 'professional' perspective to his thoughts as to how to get youngsters into playing wargames which may also be helpful and as this whole "encouraging more people to play wargames" thing is generally A Good Idea I therefore thought the blog link was well worth sharing.

The first game he played was One Hour Wargames – specifically the Ancients rules. So if you are looking for a game to play with people of a younger persuasion, or want to know how One Hour Wargames works for ancients, or indeed just have some time to kill, please take a look.

Aaah-oooh - it's the Dacians of London Again..!

Fresh from drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics, those barbarian scallywags from the land of Dracula, the Dacians, touch down in Central London for 3 games of Roman-period themed L'Art de la Guerre goodness.

Marvel at how this usually somewhat underpowered army performs against Mithradates, Rome and the Germanic Tribes in three punchy and to the point match reports, complete with the usual smattering of captions and other tosh.

Be warned though, it's not going to be subtle... !

Results from the 2016 "Central London Invitational" ADLG Tournament

With 31 participating players what may well be the biggest single pool Ancients Singles event held anywhere in the UK this year took place today at Central London Wargames Club.

This was a 200 point 3-game 1-day Roman themed L'Art de la Guerre tournament, and congratulations are in order for Hubert Bretagne, Ian Mackay and Mike Bennett who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

A good time appeared to be had by all - here are the full results and some photos from the event.

ADLG in Estella, Navarre - What's it to you !?!

Buono Estente!  An intrepid team of Central London ADLG players continue our pre-Brexit World Tour by taking ourselves off to Estella in Northern Spain, the gateway to La Rioja, and also home to the wines of Navarre (which are of course just as good if not even a little better than those of Rioja, especially if you are playing ADLG with the good gamers of Navarre, like we were).

In the resulting 5 ADLG match reports and gastronomic and touristic reviews, as well as the accompanying immediately-post-event episode of the Madaxeman.com Podcast (this episode entitled Dear Catastrophe Tapas Waitress) you can see how a classic DBx army, the Patrician Romans, fares in ADLG.

This was a deliberate attempt to create a wall of barbarians and overwhelm the enemy by sheer hairyness after this tactic, impossible to do well in most other rulesets, had caused me so much trouble when I had encountered it in several previous events.

The Patrician list that emerged was far from Reigate Standard in all senses of the word, but did they manage to "tapas" into a vein of success in these 5 L'Art de la Guerre battles in Spain, or was their "tinto" spilt and were then instead left like so many huevos rotos on the floor by the pride of Navarre?

Read on to find out more ....

Modern Army Uniforms

It's inevitable that somewhere out there in wargaming land there is someone, right now, trying to work out the best possible colour match for their ultra-modern infantry cammo patterns.

Well, fear not as Madaxeman.com has the solution - a series of photos, all taken in quick succession, in identical conditions with even lighting and the same camera, comparing many of the worlds sets of current battledress. 

Covering armies across both Europe and Asia these photos will be invaluable if you actually care about this sort of thing, otherwise they will be at best a bemusing sideshow to your main area of gaming. 

Visit the Uniforms of the World gallery to find out more.  

Gripping Beast Plastic Romans

I'm gradually working my way through 2 boxes of Gripping Beast plastic Roman infantry, and in the process adding some LBMS shield transfers which cost almost as much as the figures.

Here's a unit of armoured Legionaries based for L'Art de la Guerre, with one added Foundry dart-throwing chap sneaking into the front line for added variety.

 

All of the images are clickable for larger pictures.

Malifaux Rollercoaster!

Last weekend I took part in a Malifaux event in Chessington - but was it a World of Adventures, or a Steaming Pile of a Shambles?

Read the 4 small yet perfectly formed match reports (yes, 4 games in one day - ouch!) of how my Arcanists (4 different masters in one day - ouch again!) took on Ten Thunders, including the new Asami Master, and Neverborn in a variety of high-octane tasks and challenges

Derby 2016 - The Kalmar Union in FoGR Action

A frantic effort not to retain a trophy that needs engraving comes to a cattle shed near an airport next to a busy motorway near a town with a great ring road!

It's almost as glamorous as Charleroi, but it's in England and it's Derby again!

The Mighty Kalmar Union are pretty medieval, but despite the clue being in the name, they are from Scandinavia, not Greece. Either way, will the army be pitted like olives or enjoy a smorgasbord of success in these 4 FoGR reports against a range of in-theme opponents.

Horizon Wars!!!

Yes, Osprey's new "skirmish+" scale Sci Fi rules have finally proved to be the justification for all of the mad mini-mechs and stuff you will have seen creeping, scuttling and hovering onto this website in recent months with no real purpose.

As classic wargamers, the first on-table test of the rules involved bespoke terrain, and far too many figures and pieces to be sensible - but hey, what's a tentacle between friends eh?

This 1-page match report features hordes of pictures, legions of inappropriate video clips, some rules hints and a little bit of a glowing review at the end (and a glowing nuclear reactor in the middle too).

It also features snippets of back-story embedded throughout the report - something not really previously necessary in historical gaming reports!

See how the battle-bots do in the first of what may well be several more outings for the SF wonderkids in Horizon Wars, The Beginning

Post Industrial Decay & Fruit Based Drinks – Madaxeman.com plays ADLG at The 2016 Worlds

“The Worlds” – not the one in Derby, but the global historical multi-ruleset gaming tournament that traces its’ lineage back over a decade and which now was occurring up in its’ most glamorous location ever – Charleroi in Belgium.

This year an intrepid team of Central Londoners made the hazardous journey into post-Brexit Europe by trains, planes and automobiles to take on the world in the biggest and most multi-national competition at this year’s event – L’Art de la Guerre, featuring almost 50 players drawn from France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the USA (and us...).

In 6 lavishly (or should that be laddishly?) illustrated match reports you can be astounded by the local architecture, amazed by the quality of painting of the opposition’s troops, puzzled by the near-complete absence of success for the 15mm Condotta army list that did do well in their previous 25mm outing at Devizes, and enlightened by the usual flurry of ADLG hints, rules explanations and insights.

With over 10,000 words, and opponents ranging from as far afield as Han China to as close as a Condotta civil war, these 6 perfectly formed match reports make compelling and convincing reading for anyone considering ADLG, especially those looking for evidence that a game with around 35 DBx bases per side has enough variety in list composition, tactics and general play style to offer repeated playability.

At the end of each report Hannibal is quite rude about my tactics (as usual), a few of the speech bubbles have swearing in them as well (which always goes down well on Frothers), and there is even multimedia accompaniment in the form of a post-event Madaxeman.com Podcast for you to download and listen to whilst painting your next army!

Read on to see how the Condotta did in teeny tiny 15mm scale playing The Worlds Most Popular Competition-grade Ancients Ruleset - ADLG at The Worlds 2016.

The Sassanids are Coming!

For what might well be the first time in almost a decade I've just ordered myself a whole "new" 15mm Ancients army - Sassanid Persian - for ADLG.

To be honest I thought for a short while about just getting some Levy Spearmen, as I have plenty of "Arab" cavalry who could do service as Clibanarii at a pinch, as well as generic Light Horse and Light Infantry, and even some elephants who could be re-crewed easily enough... but a combination of really, really wanting some figures in those a-historical lightbulb hats, and the fact you can cook up an ADLG army in far fewer figures than it takes for FoG made me decide that now was the time to add one of the few truly distinctive armies to the collection. Having said that, I'll be recycling my Greek/Makedonian Cataphracts, or possible the Tibetans ones and also some of the other LF with javelins from other armies. Why go too crazy...?

The shopping list I was working to was based on being able to copy the lists currently in the ADLG Wiki (plus a bit more), which came out as about 8 bases of Clibanarii, 3 Elephants, 4 bases of Levy (going with 7 figures to a base so they can be 2 ranks of spears or 1 of Mob),  a couple of bases each of LH with Bows and Javelins and 3 Generals. So, a whole new army in about 20 bases!

After a bit of searching I have decided to go with 3 main manufacturers:

• Legio Heroica for most of the Clibanarii, Generals, and some LH and LF
• Irregular Miniatures for the Levy, the LH with Javelins and some different Generals
• Donnington, for the Elephants

I did also toy with the idea of Lurkio and Eureka as well but that would have involved splitting the order into too many small chunks - and also there is a finite amount I'm prepared to pay for Levy Spearmen figures, which Eureka, nice as they are, somewhat exceeded!

The orders are now all in, and hopefully the figures will be back and ready for priming in early October (after Derby when I pick up the Elephants from Donnington).

Painting progress will be reported here...

The War Memorial of Korea Museum

I was recently fortunate enough to go to the very impressive Korean War Memorial Museum in Seoul, which has an unsurprisingly large amount of Korean War and post-war Korean stuff in it, as well as some pretty solid ancient history, with uniforms, artifacts, armour and some impressive paintings of the Goguryeo and Joseon eras.

These are the nearly 100 pictures I managed to take before my phone ran out of juice, starting in the grounds with Korean War and post war aircraft and AFVs, then moving inside to the uniforms and kit from the Goguryeo Korean and Joseon Korean Dynasties era.

Some of the Ancient photos can be clicked to give you a marginally bigger but higher resolution original image.

Here's just a taste of whats in store...

A West Country Monster! 25mm ADLG from Devizes

With the purchase and painting of far too many Perry 25/8mm medieval figures having been successfully concluded in less than a year - racing ahead of many other odds and sods on my painting table in the process - the time came to let the rabbit see the carrot and head down to the glorious West of England to take part in a hastily arranged but still over-subscribed 25mm ADLG competition at Devizes Attack! 2016.

The Perry figures were duly packed into the box and the car, and soon the 6x4 table was graced with the first ever Madaxeman.com 25mm ADLG competition army - an "all the toys" Condottieri affair.

The results were a visual feast as the 60mm x 60mm multiple-rank basing format (or 60mm x 40mm for some stuff) of L'Art de la Guerre appeared to work really well in giving a sensible balance between having enough moving pieces on table (around 20-odd), with enough figure density (2-4 ranks for everyone) but still leaving space for a degree of maneuver which prevented the games descending into the sort of head-on table-edge-to-table-edge slow motion crash that has bedevilled unit-based 25mm games in the past.

Glory at the eye candy, be mildly entertained by the usual crap captions and inane post-match analysis, and educate yourself with a host of rules hints, tips and explanations for the Most Popular Ancients Competition Ruleset In the World Right Now.... in full-on plastico-vision Big Toys widescreen !!

ADLG Army Lists from The Worlds 2016

After The Worlds this weekend, a number of the players have been kindly sending me their army lists for inclusion on the ADLG Wiki. Some who are even kinder have registered and added their list to the wiki themselves (!!) but even so, I now have a number of lists from the event available to see.

The lists I have so far are on the relevant wiki pages and are linked from these final standings for the ADLG event - hopefully its right, as I've had to guess some of the names from email addresses.

I'll update this post if / when I get more.

1 Tortosa Rafa Spain 503  - Yuan Chinese
2 Duthil Philippe France 456 - Communal Italian
3 Tahon Patrick France 442 - Han Chinese
4 Lopez Julian Spain 424 - Later Aechemenid
5 Crotteau Marc USA 419 - Normans in Sicily
6 Diaz Javier Spain 401 Late Aechemenid
7 Teulié Brice France 401 Koryo Korean
8 Tate Hugo Belgium 393 - Classical Indian
9 Lefevre Eudes France 391 - 100YW French
10 Roudil Cédric France 379 - Yuan Chinese
11 Gilles Jean-François France 366 - Burgundian Ordonnance
12 Bricault Mickael France 364 - Italian Condotta
13 Sciangula Christophe France 362 Ottoman Empire
14 Martellacci Massimiliano Italy 349 - Late Roman
15 Maistriaux Thomas Belgium 348 - Ottoman Empire
16 Hazelwood Dan USA 348 - Condotta
17 Lefebvre Patrick France 344 - Medieval German
18 Matagne Jean Belgium 344 Ottoman Empire
19 Maistriaux Jean-Louis Belgium 342 - Thematic Byzantine
20 Docremont Philippe France 341 - Classical Indian
21 Salvaderi Stefano Italy 337 - Italian Condotta
22 Piegle Olivier France 337 - Aztec
23 Martinez Lionel France 337 Italian Condotta
24 Berucci Francesco Italy 329 - Condotta Italian
25 Plouchart Stéphane France 328 Arabs in India
26 Allen David Uk 327  -100YW English
27 Abric Matthieu France 327 - Jurchen Chin
28 Webb Peter UK 301 - French Ordonnance
29 Villaescusa Frédéric France 290 Samurai
30 Gouret Corentin France 278 - Seleukid
31 Lo Moro Carmelo Andrea Italy 278 - Condotta
32 Misson Etienne Belgium 275 - Medieval Hungarian
33 Van Lersberghe Renaud Belgium 272 Warring Kingdoms
34 Sanders Dave UK 268 Condotta
35 Porter Tim UK 267- Condotta
36 Jamieson Gordon UK 263 Warring States
37 Dejoux Bruno France 262 French Ordonnance
38 Marlia Guglielmo Italy 260 Communal Italian
39 Zito Claudio Italy 250 - Warring States
40 D'addino Stefano Italy 240 Italian Condotta
41 Gomez Mattia Italy 238 - Medieval; Scots
42 Defour Florent France 232 Feudal French
43 Suárez Pablo Italy 205 - Nikephorian Byzantine
44 Impair Joueur Terre 188 - Pecheng
45 Morvan Lionel France 173 - Timurid
46 Germain Yvan France 108 - LIR

The registration code for the Wiki is "Alexander" if you want to add comments, or add an army list yourself. 

Here also are some pictures of the armies in action... 

Saumur - Taking bows and arrows to a tank fight...

As L'Art de la Guerre continues it's inexorable advance in popularity right across the world (it's set to be the biggest competition at the upcoming "The Worlds" in Belgium later this month, with almost 50% more players, drawn from more countries than any other ruleset on offer there), the opportunity to take part in an overseas holiday competition was inevitably going to come around sooner rather than later - and where better do do so than the home of the rules, France, and an event held in one of the most amazing wargaming spaces imaginable - the French Tank Museum in Saumur in the stunning Loire Valley.

I had chosen to take an Early Achaemenid Persian army, mainly on the rationale that I had a lot of Sparabara figures that hadn't seen light of day in years as well as some new cavalry from Xyston (very nice) and Forged in Battle (not quite as impressive). The competition mandated an allied contingent too, which for the Persians was an armoured hoplite Greek command.

After a "fantastique" drive down to Saumur (after getting around the brain-bender of crossing the channel and going into Europe the day after the Brexit vote..) the competition est arrive, giving me 5 games in which to see if my ADLG knowledge and skills stood up to the test of playing against French experts, in French.

The end result was plenty of good learning experiences as various French players gave my army some stiff lessons about new and different ways to play (yes, barbarian armies are more than viable in ADLG!), and the even more surprising appearance of the use of "tactics" and "maneuver" by my forces as we battled to hang on in there and not get crushed underfoot

See for yourself how the Persians did in these "incroyable" 5 fully-featured battle reports ...