Wiglaf Dark Ages 18mm Figures

I'd seen and heard a lot about the new Wiglaf Miniatures range from Dan Mersey, the rules author of several Dark Ages era games.

The range is nominally for The Age of Penda, designed for the wars of the seventh century AD Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their enemies and is sculpted by Mark Copplestone, but with more than enough Viking/Saxon/Norman etc figures in my collection already to field a substantial European civil war, never mind a single army I'd been dithering for a while whether to pick some up mainly for comparison purposes.

Then, on Instagram, Dan popped up and said he has some sample bags available, so a quick Paypal transaction later and I soon had a set of 7 of the guys to have a go at painting them up. 

As you can see they are sharply cast models, nicely animated and with some non-generic poses. 

The figures with spears have been cast with open hands, which is always good now that so many of us have cottoned onto the idea of using wire spears or plastic broom bristles !

And here they are painted up and based - I did a kind of slap-chop approach on them in the main, with black undercoat and white drybrushing to give highlights to the paint, but with so much chainmail there's still a lot of drybrushed gunmetal on black anyway.

The chap with the fur cloak gets the wolfskin treatment in this lot.

And from the front at ground level. 

I'm not really all that satisfied with my efforts on the shields as the black lining is a bit sloppy in these closeups however all of the shields have multiple bosses, nails and metal strips designed into them which did rather cut across my simplistic painting approach, 

The big question with any new range of figures like these is "how do they compare to XXX manufacturer", so with that in mind here are the Wiglaf guys next to some Essex Feudal East European spearmen.   I think this pretty much nails the "are they really the 18mm they are marketed as?" debate with a resounding "yes". 

A few more manufacturers to compare - these are my Two Dragons Norman spearmen

Some Corvus Belli (now Plastic Soldier Company) 100YW dismounted knights

Figures from Xystons "biggest ever" (size wise) range of Roman-era Theurophoroi are about the only figures I have that stand up to the Wiglaf guys for size.

Bauda Carolingian spearmen.

So, all in all some very nice figures which are very characterful - and which I probably haven't managed to do full justice to with my painting either (althought with Steve Dean doing the brushwork on Dans own website that's also a pretty high bar to fall short of!). 

But, what is clear is that they are absolutely 18mm in height, so be careful which ranges you are looking to mix them with - or just go ahead and buy a whole army full from North Star!  

Alicante! The Berbers Try To Conquer Spain Again

In the dark and cold month of January an intrepid band of Central Londoners set off very early one morning to head to Heathrow, and then onto the sunshine of Southern Spain to take part in the annual Akra Leuka ADLG tournament in Alicante. 

Of course, going all that way just to play toy soldiers would have been daft, so the trip had long since developed a frightening degree of mission-creep by adding in a couple of nights in Valencia, a visit to a mountaintop castle, much Iberian gastronomy and quite a few different types of alcoholic refreshment.

But, at the heart of it remained one of the biggest ADLG gatherings of the year, with 68 players drawn from all over Europe coming together for a marathon 6-game competition themed where every army list had to be led by one of its greatest historical generals ("Strategists" in L'Art de la Guerre terminology).

After much consideration I had ended up plumping for the Berbers, mainly as they had successfully invaded Spain (and most definitely not because I thought they were a "good" army under ADLG). 

The event itself then saw this somewhat scratch Berber host taking on the Ghaznavids, Timurids (twice), Byzantines, Feudal English and also the Ottoman Empire, and all of us taking on some extra pounds no doubt in the tapas bars and restaurants of Southern Spain too. 

With 6 games, a lot of tourism, a range of opponents from across the continent and an account on ChatGPT I've ended up absolutely throwing the kitchen sink at the whole "writing up the match reports" thing this time around, including video analysis, stats and odds charts, randomly generated Berber oaths, somewhat spurious pen-pictures of the Great Generals involved in the fighting, AI-generated poetry and army list analysis as well as the usual terrible jokes, irrelevant captions and other badly written nonsense you are probably already well used to. 

So, put the kettle on and brew yourself up a Sangria as now is your chance (as long as you are sitting comfortably..) to share that epic experience in the Battle & Tourism Reports from Alicante 2023. 

The Idlers of March : a new podcast episode lands!

After a lengthy hiatus (since November last year!!) the Madaxeman Podcast is back with a new daffodil-sprouting episode recorded earlier this week at the very start of March 2023. 

Despite the absence of any badger-related content, we do manage to cover shopping expeditions (online and in real life), take a diversion into discussing the merits of Siocast/Warlord Resin/"I Can't believe It's Not Called Airfix" plastic figures, get into a bit of Spartacan slap-chop via an azimuth spray disaster, go all Judge Dredd, barely mention cricket nets, explain to Adam what he's been missing all this time as a sidebar to the great "Amos vs Drummer - Who's The Expanse's Greatest Ever Character (and why it's obviously Drummer)" debate, talk about castles in Spain and why the second most successful Berber invasion of the Iberian Peninsula landed in Valencia instead of Alicante, have a peek at Andy's trophy haul and (eventually) learn how he ended up out of pocket after accidentally buying his own birthday presents from his wife.

There's also a return for Andy's Quiz, with a brand new Two Ronnies-style twist this week as we accidentally give you the answers to the questions from the episode before last.

The pod can be listened to on Podbean, or by searching for The Madaxeman Podcast on any of your usual podcast providers' platforms

The Army of Spartacus in 15mm

 A few years ago (2019 to be exact) I won an unpainted army in a raffle at the L'Art de la Guerre Worlds in Rome. The figures were from Italian manufacturer Strategia Nova, and the prize was actually an Arab army, however as I have Arab figures in abundance I asked the guy who'd provided them if I could swap for a different army. 

And, of the ones he had, the Slave Revolt army of Spartacus looked like the best bet!

I've now finally finished painting the army (almost 4 years later!), and have uploaded them all to my website in their full Cinemascope glory, complete with an added YouTube video so you can watch the pictures that are already on my website flash past you in a matter of minutes as well. 

Some highlights are:

Basing underway

The Slaves

The better armed slaves 

Slaves in captured Roman equipment 

Spartacus leading his Gladiators

Big Spartacus 

More poorly armed rebelllious slaves

The Work in Progress.

You can see more shots of the finished and part-painted army on my website via that link, or watch a YouTube video of them too. 

3 Video Reports of the Celtiberians at Oxford

 At the end of 2021 a Lockdown-painted Ancient Spanish army had mixed (OK, hardly any) success at the Brixham Classic, so a year and a bit later I attempted to rehabilitate them in a different incarnation for the Oxford round of the Southern League One day ADLG Tournament circuit. 

This time they were playing in a theme of armies valid in the reign of Mithradates of Pontus, a 15mm period

The army I used in Brixham had relied on Sertorius and his Roman turncoat legions, but this one was a more traditional crazy warband version with Heavy Infantry Celtiberians (a part played by these guys pictured below) and an ally of Lusitanians for rough terrain.

The cavalry contingent in this version was however purely nominal, relying on the punch of the infantry to carry the day, Even so, the Burning Cart of DOOOOM made a welcome reappearance anyway.

At the event the Celtiberian Spanish were drawn against Mithradates himself, the Ptolemies of Egypt and finally the Chinese steppe nomads of the Xiong Nu, all of which are covered in 3 mercifully short video reports in which I attempt to talk you through what exactly went right, and what also went wrong with this somewhat flawed plan!

You can watch the reports on my website, or on the Madaxeman YouTube Channel - each one is about 15 minutes long.

A Printed Wooden Horse

 At the recent ADLG competition in Alicante, all competitors received a free gift of a 3D-printed Trojan Horse (following on from the little fort given out last year).

Having used a Mycenean army only a few months ago at Warfare, such an accessory was very welcome and so I've managed to give it a very quick paint job and base it up on a 40x80mm ADLG baggage base. 

  And here it is - in the first picture shown next to a base of Museum "pre-Z" Mycenean warriors in Dendra armour, and in the second shown next to the mess on my painting desk. 

A few grass tufts and it'll be ready to take the field next time I use the Myceneans.

Valencia Military Museum

 On our recent club expedition to an ADLG competition in Alicante we managed to spend a couple of days (and nights) in Valencia, including a trip to it's surprisingly good Military (aka Army) Museum.

I've now uploaded all of the photos from that trip to a Gallery in the Museums section of this website, which you can access here 

There is also a YouTube video of the photos posted on my YouTube Channel 

The Tibetans go hunting fish and chips

 Just after Warfare last year almost 40 people congregated in the heart of Torbay for the Brixham Classic ADLG competition, including a rarely used Tibetan army under my somewhat ham-fisted control. 

The plethora of cataphracts concerned had been consigned to a Bisley drawer for many years so a chance to bring them blinking and screaming into seaside wintertime daylight was an occasion for celebration, and for these 5 video match reports of how they fared against the Conquistadores, the Goryeo Koreans, the Khushan Empire, Ilkhanid Khanate and finally the Tupi Indians of Brazil  

There are also some slightly disturbingly animated pictures of the losers prizes from the event 

WW2 coastal batteries also make a brief appearance too

But mostly it's about me talking through how the 5 games went for the Tibetans on a series of short YouTube videos

I'm Spartacus!

 I've finally given into the inevitable and started painting a Spartacus Slave Revolt army that I won (in a raffle) at a competition in Rome way back in the summer of 2019 

They are 15mm, mostly Strategia et Tactica figures from Italy supplemented by some Forged in Battle chaps and no doubt all sorts of odds and ends from the bits box too by the time the army is done.

My intention was to do mostof them with a black undercoat and then try a zenithal (ie from above) white spray to try and pick up highlights before actually painting. 

The zenithal spray didn't really work as planned, I suspect because a can of spray paint doesnt eject the paint fast enough to "miss" the undercuts. This meant that they ended up part highlighted and partly undercoated in grey - probably an airbrush would have been better.

To compensate I added a white drybrush to them to really pick up the highlights so I could then aim for a mostly Contrast Paints approach

This is the first test batch taken to completion - I think I have (at last!) managed to make a half-decent job of putting faces on the little blighters as well, with a Darkoath Flesh undercoat and picking out the noses, chins, cheekbones and brows of these well-cast figures with a normal Vallejo skin tone flesh paint.

There are however many more to do... so watch out for them over the next few weeks and months!

Homeric Poetry in Linear Motion - Warfare 2022

 After freezing our nads off at the Ascot racecourse last year, the 2022 edition of Warfare turned up the heating significantly with a trip to the desert in a Biblical-themed competition at the all-new Farnborough venue. 

That meant the Linear B tactics of an improved and enhanced Mycenean army got to have a run out in five games of L'Art de la Guerre, all laced with dreadful poetry, terribly inappropriate speech-bubble captions, almost no tactics and even a smattering of your best quality American Ska-Punk in a series of reports punningly now known as Homer's The Silly-iad.

The Review of 2022

It's now very much 2023, but I've seen a number of "What did I get up to in 2022?" posts recently so thought I'd try and do the same before everyone has consigned 2022 to the dustbin of history.

So, in 2022 I manged to achieve the following:

Painting:

Most of the painting I've done has seemed to be bits and pieces to add into existing armies, with the most notable additions to the painted lead (and plastic) pile being:

• 10 1/700th ships for Black Sails
• A full 15mm Carolingian Frankish army for ADLG
• Some 15mm 3-D printed Etruscans, making up almost an armys worth 
• Quite a few 28mm Medieval Spanish, including some 3D printed infantry, Knights in both metal and plastic, and some Fireforge Almughavars too
• A 3D printed 28mm Macedonian elephant (so I do have to make and paint the rest of the army now!)
• A 3D printed 15mm fort 
• 3 Armoured Elephants in 15mm
• Some 15mm African Kingdoms cavalry, upcycling some Han chariot horses in the process
• Refurbishing, rebasing and adding to a large 15mm Hittite army    

Gaming

I also managed to fit in a few games - OK, more than "a few" perhaps! 

In fact, I played in..

• 14 L'Art de la Guerre competitions
• ..10 of which were in the UK, the others being in Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy
• ..in total those events saw me playing 63 individual games
• ..using 13 different armies
• ..and playing against 51 different opponents throughout the year

The range of armies I used was eclectic to say the least - starting with the peasant rabble of the Peoples Crusade, contrasting with the small but tough mounted army of the Medieval Hungarians, the shooting power (and heavy metal armour) of the French Ordonnance, the inestimable Swiss doing what Swiss do best, a pseudo-Roman Palmyran army with bolt shooters and cataphracts, the endless shieldwall of the Dark Age Rus, some well-padded elephants and dangerously explosive artillery in the Delhi Sultanate,  a double-helping of Khurasanians (playing singles and doubles), the mounted archery, Immortals and hapless wallpapered battle towers of Cyrus' Achaemenids, their predecessors the Assyrians in 28mm falling like wolves upon the flock, the Rolls Royce-like combined arms spectacle and colour of the (28mm) Ghaznavids, the Homeric Heroics of the Myceneans and finally (and probably least succesfully!) the high Steppe fully armoured horsemanship of the Tibetans to round out the year.  

Outside of ADLG events, I've also played club and friendly games using O Group (in 10mm), Chain of Command (20mm), ADLG Renaissance, Cold War Commander (6mm), FoGR (15mm) and Blitzkreig Commander (10mm). 

 

Other Stuff 

2022 also saw the Madaxeman media empire churn out;

• 32 blog posts on this blog (aka new items on the front page of Madaxeman.com) 
• Half a dozen episodes of the Madaxeman Podcast, 
• The Podcast also saw 4,500 episodes downloaded during the year
• The most popular Podcast episode was one entitled "Oh My Aachen Nuts!" where we talked about a road trip to a competition in Germany. This was downloaded 477 times in the last 12 months.
• The Madaxeman YouTube Channel had 12,150 views in the last year, adding up to 1,600 hours of watch time (!!) 
• The most watched video of the year was a report of games at the Beachhead competition, which totted up some 1,675 views and over 300 hours of view time.
• I somehow also managed to send 994 Tweets from the Madaxeman Twitter account (!!)
• ..and make 56 posts on Facebook as well.

Not bad eh...?

Lets see what 2023 brings !