Fireforge Feudal Knights

I've been gradually building out a Feudal Spanish/Taifa army from the basis of my existing 28mm Arabs, a handful of Norman-style spearmen and some bring and buy metal knights, but what's been missing has been some "not all fully caparisoned" knights to distinguish the Elite from the Ordinary.

So, when shopping at SELWG, a box set of the Fireforge Templar Knights ended up being the solution, and here they (already) are:

I recycled some very old Space Marine waterslide transfers for these, as my painting isn't neat enough to do sharp-edged crosses

The guy (or as they are a kit, the arm) with the flail is pretty cool. The sprues come with more than one of these so my next Almughavar base may end up with a guy armed with this too!

More upcycled Space Marine graphics - I very roughly painted in some extra texture into the white-only transfers of the Pegasus and the stag's head to give them a bit more depth.

This guy doesn't have a weird helmet - its the mace of the guy in the middle (who also has a GB Arab head to make these feel a bit more El Cid "Spanish Reconquista" era) 

The painting-in is more visible here on the barding

Every time I do it I regret starting a check pattern, but this one is not too bad IMO

A jolly nice set which have painted up quickly and effectively! 

Elephants Sir! Faarsands of 'em!

 In the margins of the recent SELWG show in Picketts Lock a well-padded BHGS Teams event took place with sets of three players contesting ADLG glory in three well-themed pools - including Maximum Elephants!

This was where I deployed the might of the Delhi Sultanate for the first ever time in an army packed with grenade-throwing skirmishers, top-drawer Mughal Guardsmen, Abyssinian Melee Specialists and of course three full-fat Armoured Elephants.

Read on to see how this hodge-podge of combat capability fared in 5 lavishly illustrated Madaxeman battle reports aginst the Timurids (twice), Alexander The Great, The Seleucids and also an Indian army from an earlier era.

Swoon as the elephants charge forward into the jaws of melee!

Gasp in awe and delight as brightly coloured warriors engage in mortal tabletop combat

Groan at the endless poor puns and irrelevant animations gratuitously stuffed into the narrative!

I even throw in some very old holiday snaps for you as well !

All 5 reports are now on the Madaxeman.com Website

3D prints - The Greeks

Those of you who listen to the Madaxeman Podcast will have heard us talking about 3D prints a fair amount recently - and in the lastest episode ("Huge Grenadier Hat Malarkey") we even committed to the idea of Tamsin printing off some figures for us all to have a go at painting as well. 

These are the 3D Breed "free" models (STL files to be precise I believe) that are given away as tasters to their range, and come in both 15mm and 28mm styles. Tamsin printed them off for all of the Podcast crew and I've now managed to finish prepping and painting the Greek Hoplites I ended up with, and have taken a few photos of them here:

  These are the beasties in their au naturel purple plastic form, with "supports" still in place. This looks a right mess and a faff, but using a sprue clipping tool (a necessary investment for anyone making plastic figures these days IMO) they did clean up eailly easily and quickly to then undercoat for painting.

And here are 2 of the finished 28mm figures

They are chunky fellows, but I think that is entirely down to the style of the sculpts, as the Reconquer 3D prints were much finer (although made using different technology too)

The figures weren't printed with bases so I glued them to a Commander's 40mm round base and also glued them together as a pair to give them more stability and usability 

The spear of the guy with the red shield is printed, the blue one I cut out, drilled the hand and added a wire spear.

These are the 15mm versions, tucked into some metal figures as extras on commander bases. Again they were glued both to the base itself and to the other figures.

We'll be talking more about these figures on the next episode of the Madaxeman Podcast which is out now and can be reached directly here

A few more bits and pieces

The lead pile clearing continues with the following, some of which have actually been done for a while but haven't been photographed before now.

These are Blemmye cavalry from 15mm.co.uk - possibly to feature as African Kingdoms or even top quality Numidians at some point in future. 

They are (typically for 15mm.co.uk) rather small as this comparison to some Old Glory/Exxex Numidians shows

An Essex scythed chariot, made bold (and done easily) with Contrast Paints

Forged in Battle Numidian foot, given slightly bolder shields than my first pass at this lot had ended up with

These are I think Donnington, and were some of the refugees from Clive's collection that didn't go into a complete army 

 

3D printed chubby Samnites, upscaled from 10mm 

 

Xyston Ancient Spanish - a spare few figures I didn't paint when I did my Spanish army some time ago 

More of the 3D chaps 

I also have repainted an old Mirliton Late Feudal army - these are now mixes crossbow/spear militia, with printed shields/pavises. The crossbowmen may have some Essex dudes in there too 

Another couple of units with printed shields. I mean, who could expect me to paint THAT ! 

Teutonic Brother Crossbowmen with printed pavises   - these are Gladiator Games figures. 

Random bits and pieces

 With 2 full armies in the paint queue, I finally got around to tidying up some of the odds and sods that had been cluttering my paint table for, well, in some cases, many years!

The ends results are eclectic, and not all done in Contrast Paints either (to make a nice change!) 

First up, some dynamic falling knights from Donnington's 100YW range, based up as exuberant hit markers 

Next, and the main batch, some 28mm metal knight figures of unknown (ie unpainted on a Bring & Buy) origin.  

I've used waterslide transfer paper and my home printer to make the symbols for the heraldry so that's why they look so precise - my painting hasn't suddenly improved !

Irritatingly a bit of ink wash seems to have congealed on this guy's shield.

They are done up as Spanish Knights, with Castile and Leon heraldry 

And a few other cities and statelets too

I really like these figures - they came with separate hands to mix and match weaponry

One unit is in non-Spanish colours

I've had this guy hanging around for ages, but drilled out his hand and added a Valencian flag 

More weirdly, these are some sort of random armoured horsemen on what I am pretty sure are old Essex Han Chinese chariot horses, painted up as African Kingdoms mounted warriors or cataphracts

The padding really helps create a bright and unusual looking unit. 

I did also add some cotton as  horse-hair style pennants to differentiate the Elite from the Average ones. 

More random stuff to come soon!