Welcome to the Madaxeman.com Wargaming Websites own Blogger-powered Blog. It carries updates of all the latest Ancients, Renaissance, Malifaux, Saga, WW2, Ultra-modern, ACW and other wargaming periods and projects as soon as they are added to Madaxeman.com.
Yep, finally the mega-project is done and dusted. Or, matt varnished more accurately.
That means an "all options" ADLG Generic Arab Dynasties army in 25/8mm plastic and metal is now ready to be used, whenever that may be.
Here are the final set of full-army photos;
As the festive vaccination season looms large in the minds of wargamers around the world, the Madaxeman podcast team are back with an honest to goodness actual discussion about a topic which seems to be on everyone's Christmas list, why are so many wargamers seemingly more obsessed with the price of a figure than the quality?
The core premise of the discussion is that for the rules we all play, a typical 15mm army comes in at 120-odd figures. That means the price difference between buying an army of the most expensive figures on the market today (50p each = £60) vs the cheapest (31p each = £37.80) is just £22.80.
Given figures are at the heart of everything we do as gamers – playing, painting, collecting – and we all keep our collections for years (decades even), we spend loads on paint, terrain, gaming mats (heck, even box sets of naval games from Warlord Games that we've still not assembled and which we all know that we'll be lucky to play even once) – in what part of our collective psyche does it make sense to spend ages calculating how to ‘save' £22 on 120 figures we'll spend months painting and play with many times if that means we are compromising on "quality" by not just buying the figures we like the most ?
Why don't we instead spend the same time simply choosing the figures we like the best and then buying them, whether they are 31p, 40p or 50p a pop?
There is also all of the usual painting, gaming and Gallic techno-driven military themed obscure general knowledge to fill your early December weekends and evenings as well as a quick diversion into airbrushing, a cough-assessment section (no, not like that..), a fairly comprehensive listing of those world museums displaying collections of "stand alone" military legs, many admissions of accidental purchasing, and a lengthy almost-feature on how to make an old rusty skip look like an old rusty skip using hairspray and fake rubble.
Podcast Link to Podbean , or search for "Madaxeman Podcast" using any of your usual podcast providers.
(The "price vs quality" chat starts around 43:30 if you want to skip the rest)
The topic has already stirred up some discussion on TWS - here's the thread and on Twitter
That project that's "nearly" done... we all have one, and mine is the interminable Arab 28mm army which continued to threaten to last into next year.
The latest non-self-inflicted delay is an inability to get outside to do some matt varnishing, so I've just taken some photos anyway of the infantry who are waiting on a bit of Testors and thrown them online with pics of all the other infantry I've done so far.
The Madaxeman.com Podcast has covered the vexed topic of list design for quite a number of L'Art de la Guerre army lists in it's time, and, after a suggestion from a listener I've now pulled a set of links to all of these list-specific discussions together onto one page.
This listing includes both "dedicated" list-specific podcasts, and also the "Lockdown" series of podcasts where individual lists were compared and evaluated by the team.
The "Lockdown" Podcasts sometimes stretched to over 2 hours, and covered a lot more than just ADLG army lists, so for those just interested in the lists I've included approximate timings for when in each podcast the list-related discussions start, so you can skip straight to the list chat if you so wish.
Lists covered include: Late Imperial Roman, Uratu, Ugaritic, Later Byzantine, French Ordonnance, Achaemenid Persian, Later Assyrian & Sargonid, Ottoman Empire, Medieval Scandinavian, Late Imperial Roman, Fatimid Egyptian, Nikephorian Byzantine, Jurchen Ch'in, Later Carthaginian, New Kingdom Egyptian, Lydian, T'ang Chinese, Yuan Chinese, Venetian Condotta, Ghaznavid and Sassanid Persian.
With the UK gripped in a weird interim world of pseudo-lockdown the entire team reconvene again for the Madaxeman Podcast this week to chat through the usual mix of painting and gaming, before running riot with a freewheeling exploration of the different basing techniques they all deploy to try and make their figures look better than they really are from "wargaming distances".*
As well as enticing talk of flocking and slathering on gritty emulsions there is a potentially dangerous liason with the entire concept of Assyrian Relief, a rare and unusual mention for Nigella Lawson, further consideration as to whether size actually isn't everything when it comes to tiny toy tanks, a diverting foray into YMCA with the Imperial Roman Artillery Corps before ending with a bit of "oh la lah" to the Sound of Music in Andy's Quiz.
This weeks episode also comes with a teaser mni-video, which can be accessed on the Madaxeman Video Channel.
You can access the podcast in a variety of ways:
With the Arab Infantry currently proving to be too much of a task to get started on finishing right now I've been diverted by some small-scale painting tasks that had been hanging around for a while waiting to force their way intro the queue.
I also bought a small turntable from eBay (affiliate link to eBay here), which shipped from China incredibly quickly and (after getting 3 rechargeable batteries) seems to be working fine and gives a different option for showing off figures when I'm taking photos with my lightbox.
The end result is this eclectic collection of models and videos :
In this week's podcast the full team trot out again onto the pitch for a wholesome kickabout that starts with a rapid application of nail varnish, moves seamlessly onto (in possibly the closest we've ever come to a proper review) the merits of small plastic tanks, floats a long ball out to the right wing under somewhere between 2 and 3 bars of pressure, crosses it back into the middle to yell "Margaret!" in a note-perfect tabletop recreation of the Pirate Memory Game, nodd it into the 6 yard box with a bit of ADLG:R and ends up slamming it into the back of the net whilst gardening at sea in an entirely unusual addition to Andy's Quiz.
As well as all this nonsense we even have time to fit in a lengthy and lateral-thinking discussion of a topic that most other wargames podcasts covered several weeks ago - Are Big Battles a Thing of the Past?
You can listen to the Madaxeman.com Podcast on Podbean, or search for The Madaxeman Podcast on any of your usual Podcast platforms
The 50th Madaxeman.com Podcast is now out in the wild, and with the half-century now achieved the regular team opt to celebrate this milestone by completely forgetting to plan anything different at all to the usual chat about what they have painted, what they might be thinking of painting, and dads-dancing along on Zoom to Andy's quiz music.
This week the topics covered include Wurttemburger fashions in collars and cuffs, the use of biological agents as strippers, how discounts at Victrix can cost more than they save, whether 8 units of legionaries are too many, what might happen if the Franks are ever finished and if the world is truly ready for painted badger shields in 15mm.
In addition, this week's episode includes an "in memoriam" section in which we share stories of our CLWC clubmate and long-time wargamer Clive McLeod, who sadly passed away last week at the too-early age of 64.
Clive's family have suggested the British Heart Foundation as a suitable charity for those of you who knew Clive and may wish to make a charitable donation in his memory.
This weeks Podcast is available on Podbean, and through all of your usual Podcast platforms
After a brief hiatus here are the rest of the 60-odd kitbashed Arab cavalry to complete the mounted component of my 28mm Generic Arab Dynasties army:
There's a bucketload of photos on the full page (which you can access here) where you will also find some details of the Contrast Paints I used on them, but anyway here is a taster of the photos.
The full set of photos can be accessed here.
With a proper Lockdown sweeping the UK, the Madaxeman team return after a 2-week boiler-related hiatus with a typically rambling episode combining painting chat, Andy's Quiz and a barely in-depth look at the history behind the Late Imperial Roman army, and which are the best manufacturers to choose when cooking one up on the tabletop.
In between these vitally important topics we also cover the ethics of using an elephant brush on a horses' ass, how to wargame the long-awaited Schwarzenegger-Dredd crossover movie, how Dave blagged his way into UCL by claiming to speak fluent Barkerese, we hand out some freebies from Martin at Vexillia, and finally the much-trailed Australian Love Egg expose is, erm, exposed.
In my ongoing series of experiments with Contrast paints, I've just about finished these two units of Abbasid Black Guard spearment using Black Templar as the main colour for their cloaks. They are yet to be matt varnished (as its been too chilly outside to spray) so they are a smidge shiny, but are pretty much done.
A great colour indeed.
(The links to the paints are "affiliate links". If you buy something after clicking on them I get a small kickback from Amazon)
