Achilles & The Myrmidions in 15mm

 Having been reasonably succesful with a Mycenean army at Warfare in 2022, and then getting my hands on a proper Trojan Horse at the Alicante event some months later I am now of course tempted to wheel out the Myceneans again at a future event.

At Warfare one of the star units in my army was Achilles and his Myrmidions - but to be honest the figures were not especially "Myrmidion", being mostly these old-style Museum swordsmen sculpts with fairly generic shields.

 So, when Museum came out with a range of Myrmidions, and also Trojan hero figures in their new Z-Sculpts that suddenly seemed like a must-have addition to give me two new units of spiffy Myrmidions with very obvious Included Generals (aka Achilles) leading one of them. 

And here they are - most of the Heroes of the Trojan Age are clustered on the stand on the left, with standard Myrmidions on the right. 

The Heroes are slightly, but noticably bigger than the normal rather slim Myrmidions, and all have unique poses and equipment.

This front-on shot shows the size difference clearly. 

They are nice figures, but I did find them harder to paint than I had hoped as the detail on the figures is really very shallow, which makes spotting which areas to paint, and painting with washes and speedpaints much harder than it really should be.  

There are also some hard to understand elements in the design, especially the "woolly hats" which seem to have horns projecting though them - which to my mind would surely sit better on a metal helmet? 

Perhaps though I've not done enough research and the Myceneans actually had tea cosies over their helmets? 

Here they are from the rear - you can see where I have had to use layered shading to get some texture into the clothing as the figures didn't really do much for the Holy White ArmyPainter speedpaint on their own. 

So, all in all I think they have come out OK - but perhaps not as well as I initially hoped, partly as the detail on the figures isn't as deep as I would ideally have liked, and partly as I found that lack of detail frustrating and as such maybe didn't try as hard as I needed to to adopt the right painting approach for these guys. 

Having painted up a fair few of the Museum Z Sculpts in the last few years I am actually starting to look more critically at them in general, as my experience with these figures is starting to feel like a common thread across all of the others I've painted before now as well. 

Museums Z Ranges look great in the renders, they are nice poses, there's a whole lot to like about them, the price is good, the metal they use has a great pewter-like good quality too - but with so many of us increasingly relying on washes, Contrast and Speed paints to paint our figures, deeper slightly exaggerated details such as those seen on Xyston, or Forged in Battles' ranges are much easier to paint. Their deep details really do come up a treat - whereas some of the details on these Museum Z Sculpts almost seems to disappear even with just an undercoat. 

If only the raised details and undercuts on the figures could just somehow be (I guess digitally?) "dialled up" a little, and perhaps some of the spears thickened too then the Z Range would be as good after people like me have finished painting them as they look in the 3D renders on the Museum site ! 

Indian Chariots from Museum's Z-range

 Museum's annual January sale is always a good opportunity to buy something I don't really need, and this year was no exception. 

Amongst the bits and bobs to round out existing armies I picked up 2 more Indian Chariots - this time from their new Z range to go with the original sculpts of the 2 I had somehow acquired through complete accident in previous years. 

And here are both of the chariots together - all done in contract paints (of course) for the bright colours and also giving great texture for the crew's skin as well.  

I sort of got mixed up with which crewmember went with which chariot, and I'm not entirely sure where the guy with the palm leaf is supposed to go - but as he is so much fun I squeezed him on the base anyway!

The commanders chariot head on - I used ArmyPainter Speedpaint Holy White for the pale grey horses here 

The ringed effect on the brolly is just an artefact of Contrast Paints - not painted by me at all. The color is Magos Purple.

I now have all 4 Heavy Chariots for an ADLG Indian army - whether I will ever use them in anger is another question entirely!

Totally Unarmed Slaves!

 OK, so you probably remember the Spartacus army that I finished earlier this year?

Well, actually it turns out that it wasn't entirely "finished" after all.

The L'Art de la Guerre Slave Revolt army list has an option for a couple of Mediocre Levy - totally unarmed, totally combat-ineffective bodies of peasants who just provide a smidgeon of moral support through their sheer mass. 

(And, at only 2 points each, they can help spend any left-over points up to the standard 200 point army limit in a list where everything else has a minimum cost of 4!).

So, having forgotten this when I based up the full army I ended up buying a couple of packs of Xyston Civilians from Donnington, and also some of Donningtons own new-casting Classical Civilians as well - and here they are:

OK - so I have 4 bases worth, not two. 

Well, I wanted some variety of figures, and it seemed a waste to only order 2 packs when there's minimum postage .. so, it sort of happened that I made up 4 bases worth. I guess that means they can look forward to being a hostage screen for the Timurids someday as well?

The Xyston and Donnington packs were surprisingly compatible - I'd been concerned they might be different in height or stature, but they actually integrate really well together with the Xyston folks having a lot of "women and children" and Donnington having some almost Senatorial Romans in togas.

As with the rest of the army these bases were a slap-chop + Contrast Paint project, in which the main challenge was to not go too crazy and upmarket on the colours of their clothing whilst still trying to make the figure's arms and faces stand out from what could easily be some very "beige" clothing options suitable for their low social status. 

All in all I'm very pleased with them - however if they ever end up featuring in a battle report you'll know something has gone badly wrong on the tabletop for the rest of the (fighting components of the) Spartacus army! 

Roman Clibanarii

At Warfare last year I accidentally placed in the 15mm ADLG competition, for which part of the prize package was a blister of Forged in Battle 15mm Roman cavalry.

These chaps were Clibanarii on half armoured horses and armed with Kontos, bow & shield, from the Early Imperial era - a troop type I rather unusually didn't really own (unless you count my repeated and shameless morphing of Early Byzantine cavalry to fulfil that role when and if they were called upon to do so!).

So, I decided to paint these guys up, and to do so with ADLG specifically in mind, as in I painted all 4 bases in slightly different liveries so they could be used as units that would be easy to tell apart if they were in different commands. 

With the EIR and LIR armies only having a couple of these in each list the round dozen were also slightly overkill, so I managed to find some spare unarmoured horses to make one base up without horse armour to play the role of an Average unit, two as standard half-armoured Clibanari and one as a half-armoured unit with a commander figure for an embedded General.  

FiD do seem to throw in extra figures to each pack so I also have 2 spares left over, which are being baked into a separate Commander's base as we speak. 

They were done mostly in Contrast paints on a white base, using Snakebite Leather for the really visible shoulder and skirt leather armour, and (of course) drybrushed Gunmetal on a black base for the actual armour. I spent extra time with a magnifying glass doing some of the detail on their straps and uniforms (if you note the reins for example, they even have two layered colours of leather brown on them for extra depth), which I think has paid off pretty well given it's a level of committment I rarely approach with 15mm figures !

These also look a little more spiffy than usual in these photos as I took the pictures before matt varnishing them, so they still quite literally have a little more sparkle. 

I'm really pleased as to how they have come out, as these FiB figures really do take paint extremely well. The shields are the only "meh" bit, as I was lacking in inspiration and they are so small that it seemed like it would be both too hard to put any design on them. I also feared that any design I did conjure up might just look odd at that small a scale and size anyway.

The set is listed on the FiB site as a Random mix of 12 cavalry, including command. Figure code WE-RM09 Roman Clibanarii, 3rd century

The Normandy Landings : Battle Reports and More from France

Yes, two sets of battle reports in a single week as the CLWC team take another international excursion, this time to storm the beaches of Normandy and visit Bayeux, Le Havre, several seaside gun positions, Pegasus Bridge, Rouen and Dieppe whilst also finding time to fit in a bit of Norman-themed ADLG competition action too!

We also manage to undertake numerous bouts of eating, drinking, discussing former Fulham players of the last decade, and indulge in many other regionally appropriate activities as well, all of which are recorded in loving gallic detail in these 5 battle and 2 tourism reports.

To top it all off there is even a rare in-the-field podcast episode in which a team of 3 (me, Dave from the Podcast and Mike) record our progress throughout the long weekend in glorious Normadie!

Sound quality is a little sketchy in some parts of the podcast, mainly on account of the fact a number of the individual segments were recorded on my phone in (or outside) various bars and restaurants in the Normandy heartland.

The battle reports and tourism photos from this trip can all be found on the Madaxeman website and there is also a YouTube video version of this podcast which also includes all of the photos too. 

Assyrian Beachhead! 5 Video Battle Reports

Back at the start (or maybe even just before) of Lockdown I'd painted up a 28mm Assyrian army, and used it with some success at Roll Call as well - however for Beachhead 2023, in a Biblical & Early Classical period I had initially hoped to field a 15mm Hittite army rebuilt from some of the last knockings and scraps of Clive's Stash. 

Odd numbers in both 15mm and 25mm periods put paid to that idea, leaving the Hittites in the drawer and me floating across into 25mm to even up numbers using pretty much that same Assyrian army that had done quite well in 2022. 

The army list I used this time was however a little different to the one that I had used at Roll Call 2022, as I was expecting to have to deal with more shooting from my opponents as a consequence of the more biblical-orientated theme - but in essence it was still pretty much the same. 

I also wanted to use more of my Heavy Infantry units, or which only 2 of the 4 had made it onto the  table - these 25mm Newline Designs figures are great, but they are kinda wasted if they only ever get to go on parade in the Really Useful Box Barracks!

To find out how this revised force actually did you now have 5 consecutive video battle reports to watch either on YouTube, or on the Madaxeman Website followed by a video showing all of the Assyrian figures in my collection.

15mm Samurai Bowmen

ADLG v4 introduced some Light Infantry skirmishing archers to the Samurai lists, adding a much needed troop type to the Samurai roster - however the idea of adding in a few more figures to the only army I have ever had professionally painted was a bit of a challenge, as I'd need to paint them to sort of match the professional paint job on the rest of them!

Most of my Samurai army were also Old Glory figures which come in large bags, so even choosing a comptible range was a challenge - but eventually I settled on these really clean Ashigaru archers from Museum as being both the right height, and also simple enough to be easy to paint to a reasonably close standard to the rest of the army.

Being Ashigaru really reduced the level of detail needed

I also took an ADLG-specific approach to this set of 4 bases, choosing to paint them all in slightly different colours and uniforms to allow them to operate as single units of skirmishers in different commands. 

The pattern of 3 or 4 dots on their clohing fits in thematically with the rest of the army, and is a very simple way to generate a bit of a Japanese vibe (at a 3 foot range!) 

 I'll now have to look out for an event where they can be used!

And here's the army they will be playing as part of:

Corvus Belli 15mm Knights

 As well as the Pavise infantry that I posted a few days ago, the main reason for buying the PSC Corvus Belli stuff was to get a new refreshed set of knights for the 100YW period, as my existing set of knights were starting to look rather tired and jaded. 

I'd also seen some of what I think were Corvus Belli castings in Chris Tofalos' army at the Northern League event in Manchester at the end of last year, and really liked the bold and simple painting style, so wanted to see if I could emulate it.

The really weird thing was being able to paint the figures "on the sprue" - not something I'd really done in years, and of course not with 15mm Ancients. The sprue seemed to be cast and connected in "invisible" places on the figure, so that was a good start.

And here they are assembled and based, waiting final touching up (after I spotted the details I'd missed in this photo!)

And here are the finished figures - I've gone for bold, generally single colour quarters for the horse barding, and (slightly counter-intuitively) have chosen not to co-ordinate the shield patterns with the barding. Sharp-eyed viewers will also note the reins are sometimes in colours that clash with the rest of the barding.

Many of the riders and horses are sort of tied together colour-wise, but by mixing it up a bit it I was able to introduce a bit more variety and colour into the unit - sometimes a same-colour shield, barding and tabard combination can look a bit of a wall of a single colour, especially on such small scale figures as these.

 

A couple of the lances were a bit bendy, but I didn't bother with the "straighten them in hot water" thing as frankly any metal lance will bend a bit anyway and none of these were too far off the mark to make trying something as faffy-abouty as straighteneing them in hot water worth even  trying IMO. 

I did use a couple of waterslide transfers I had kicking around in the spares box on some of them - but only on panels that are visible when the unit is together. The horse at the rear here doesn't have a corresponding transfer on its front right panel for example.

They have - as with the spearmen - come out identical to metal figures, with the only takeaway from putting these figures together being that in retrospect I wish I'd based them all a little closer together on each base, such that I could then have glued the three adjacent knight models together into a solid mutually supporting block. 

This is because they do bend and flex quite unnervingly when you pick them up, especially the horses that are only attached to the base by one or two hooves, so I have a slight concern that this may lead to paint flaking or possibly some of the legs breaking off over time. 

That may be unfounded worry on my part, but if all three Knights on each base were glued together it would make it more of a solid lump to pick up and use on the tabletop without any detrimental visual effect as they are pretty closely packed already. 

So, I now have 7 bases of brightly coloured knights looking for a chance to hit the table!

Corvus Belli / Plastic Soldier Medieval Infantry

At SELWG last year I picked up a box set of PSC's plastic re-casts of Corvus Belli's Medieval range - a set of figures I'd long admired but which had been OOP for quite some time. 

My main interest was in the mounted knights, but the box set on the Bring & Buy I saw was nominally a full 100YW French army, but the composition was a bit limited being about 20 mounted knights, 20-odd foot knights and the rest being a mix of pavise-holding spearmen and a LOT of crossbwmen - which I already had far too many of in metals. 

Whoever had originally owned them clearly didn't fancy the Siocast figures all that much once they'd opened the box though, as this £45 RRP set was on offer for just a tenner - so at that price I snapped it up as I could just use even a few of the knights and get decent value from it!  

Of course, once I got started I decided to have a dabble at painting up some (but not all) of the others too, starting with these Pavise/Spear/Crossbow infantry units.

And here they are finished, in a pavise pattern inspired by the 28mm figures of Tony Rodwell that I faced at the PAW competition in January 2023. 

Once painted they (of course...) look no different to metal figures. These have always been a nice range IMO, and I'm happy to finally have gotten hold of some. 

The Siocast debate does chunter on though, and having painted some up now I am starting to think that it might well be a case of over-selling the features and benefits of the material rather than anything else. 

Flash is the thing that does keep being mentioned, and there was a little bit of flash on these figures, but there is on metals too - because this is a soft (actually surprisingly soft - almost Airfix-esque) material it is a little more tricky to scrape off any flash, especially in hard to reach areas as you are walking a bit of a tightrope between scraping the flash and cutting into the soft material of the figure. 

However on reflection I suspect there's a different technique for removing flash from soft plastic figures to the one for scraping it off metals, so it may be "user error" here as much as anything else - again if this was made clearer then perhaps it's not a "mistake" I'd have made?   

I also primed them in black before painting - I have seen suggestions you can get away without doing so, but honestly why would you want to (or more to the point, why would anyone suggest that this is a selling point of the material)?   

You can of course paint metals with no primer too - it'll work, the paint will almost always stick onto the figure, but a primer coat is just, well, better - for paint adhesion, and for giving a base colour as well, and that's going to be as true for these guys as it is for any metal or resin range. 

Here are some foot knights, again a figure range I have wanted to have in my collection for a while. All these figures have fairly short spears and I didn't seen any of the bendy spear stuff I have read about elsewhere as a result. 

So, all in all once painted (sensibly, with a primer) they end up looking the same as metals - which is no real surprise I guess. 

But perhaps that's the issue - they are "the same" models, but because they are made in a different material we somehow expect them to be "different" (or have at least been led to believe this by some over-enthusiastic marketing). 

I'm very happy with how these guys came out, but there is still a small niggle in that I was surprised how soft the SioCast material actually was - and so for a material that feels "only a little more resilient than 1/72md scale Airfix" it's hard not to feel that they should somehow be on sale at a much cheaper price point than the current "pretty close to the price of metals", no matter how nonsensical that thought might be given the huge differences in production methods and sales volumes between a niche 15mm medieval figure range and a box of Airfix 8th Army.