It's New Year.. but he's still Spartacus..!

With the dawn of 2024 still fresh, it's time to wheel out an army that I picked up way back in 2019 (pre pandemic!), and only got around to painting at the start of last year - and which first took to the tabletop at the very end of 2023, at the 3rd Devonian Classic competition in always-sunny Brixham.

Yes, this is Spartacus! is now appearing on your small (ish) screen in full polychrom cinematic glory (OK, they are almost all painted in Contrasts..) in 5 battle reports where the Slave Revolt struggles for freedom against the oppressive hegemonoies of the Greek City States (twice), the overweening imperialist ambitions of Alexander The Great, the Eastern Empire of the Comfy Kushans, and the Francophonic stylings of the Gauls. 

There is oodles of  additional irrelevant content shoehorned into these 5 reports, including some dubious "facts" about Spartacus' links to Torbay,and some very strange AI-generated images of poorly armed kitchen workers and gardeners leading the charge against oppression

There is also loads of commentary and analysis from all of the usual suspects, including of course the final word in critique from Hannibal, and an array of non-sequitur captions which occasionally veer into philosophical musings on whether rodent-scat-based segregation criteria are good for military discipline and morale. 

Go on, let this happy chap brighten up your hangover this New Year's Day with his tales of derring-do and liberation from oppression and servitide achieved through the aggressive deployment of kitchen equipment in a hitherto unforseen combat context in these 5 Madaxeman battle reports! 

    

The last few Arrowhead 12mm WW2 vehicles

With Arrowhead selling up (and hopefully finding a buyer for the business), I recently picked up a small set of Late War British vehicles to round out my army for BKC.

It's two Cromwells (giving me a troop of 3 in total) and a fabulous scene-stealing Staghound

 The unit markings are a bit of everything really, just to get some colour onto the models - which are really great little kits. Vallejo Bronze Green is the go-to colour (of course) 

Fingers crossed someone picks the range up and carries on with it.

Ships in the, erm, winter..

 I finally cracked, caved in, conceded defeat and bought some more ships from Warlord Games for Black Seas ..

Yes, having said for almost 2 years that this was a beer and pretzels game, and that having more, bigger ships would not add  anything to the experience... well, of course, that was all lies anyway. 

So, here are a couple of 3rd Raters - one done as British, one as French. I do also have the third that comes in the set but haven't rigged it yet. 

The painting style and technique was exactly as the previous sets , as was the swearing while doing the rigging

And, just to prove they are different to the Brig and Frigates I already have, here are all three, ready for Goldilocks to steal their porridge !

Here's all my Blogger Black Seas content:

• First Steps
• The full how-to guide with tips and tricks
• Third Raters
• Adding a resin-hulled First Rate, and some extra rigging ideas 
• A whole page of these, together with some info on how they were painted and some tips I picked up on how to do the rigging as well.

28mm Successors: Gallic Cavalry

 The Successor armies all tend to get 1-2 units of Gallic cavalry, and as I have the bones of a Galatian army anyway now (OK, 3 bases of infantry) adding some Victrix Galatian cavalry seemed like a great idea.

And, here they are: 

These as usual have a combination of Battle Flag waterslide and some LBMS sticker shield patterns. 

I did also somehow manage to fit them on 60x50 bases in a way which means they can stand side by side as 2 units in a block - which was quite a challenge!

I stll have sprues for 6 more cavalry to make - its just a shame they don't have unarmoured and armoured torsos on the same spue really, but maybe that's a conversion job for the future?

28mm Successors - some more Galatian infantry

 As part of the latest batch (before I dive into doing 48 pikemen!) I added another base of Galatian infantry to the army I'm assembling. 

These Victrix guys come out so well that I really don't see how I can resist getting a whole army. 

I probably have enough Thracians to make an ally for them, and having seen that you get 3 chariots in a set from Victrix too the temptation may be too strong to resist for long! 

The Huns - One Steppe forwards, two Steppes back ?

Three Hun-tastic battle reports from the Southern League Round 4 at Entoyment last weekend now posted, which see the Huns take on a variety of other Steppe-based nomads in some swirling and dramatic horse archery-rich encounters

You know the drill by now - nonsensical captions, vaguely related videos, commentary from Nasty Hannibal..

This time around you'll also no doubt be delighted to hear that I've also managed to sneak in a lot of references to saddle-fermented cheese, horseback flatulence and even to conjure up some AI-generated images that tie in with these historically dubious themes as well. 

Reports now online at https://www.madaxeman.com/reports/Southern_League_Bournemouth_2023_1.php

28mm Successors: The Companions

Adding to the set of mid-range Hellenistic/Successor cavalry from my 28mm mostly-Victric project, here are some top-of-the-line Companions to give a cutting edge to the mounted wing of the army.

Being the elite arm of the cavalry, of course they all get purple cloaks 

I also used all of the horses with animal pelt saddle cloths on these - that means all of the horse are the same pose, but I find the figures are so dynamic that you don't really notice the similarities in horses. 

Linen armour is whie on a base coat of Army Painter Speedpaint Holy White 

Spears replaced by more robust plastic rod, as was the case with the other cavalry too. 

Animal pelts are Aggros Dunes from GW with brown spots in the main. 

Again as usual I have done the metal bits after matt varnishing to make then shine. 

The middle guy is the commander, so gets a snow leopard pelt as his saddle cloth. Don't tell David Attenborough though!

My first new Malifaux figure since November 2020

 Having started playing 'Faux again at Bad Moon, I've actually survived a few months before succumbing and buying a new model to add to my already ridiculously oversized "Arcanist" collection. 

This is - of course - one of the "new" cool pieces in the game, a "Reborn" version of the Arcanist Master Kaeris, who enables her crew to be played play in a different way as well as performing differently herself (as in, she runs straight through enemy models and sets them on fire, as opposed to "original" Kaaeris who shoots them from a distance and also sets them on fire). 

Of course, starting with a load of fire after a 3 year absence from painting 32mm one-off Malifaux figures is a bit of a challenge - especially as  my eyesight is not what it was when I started painting this range of figures back in 2014 (!), but for a first go at getting back into it I'm reasonably pleased with the results. 

28mm Successor Light Cavalry

I've now done three units of Successor Light Cavalry, all using the Greek Light Cavalry sprue from Victrix 

These are javelin-armed cavalry, of course using LBMS shield transfers.

There is a great range of heads on the Victrix sprue, allowing me to have some with the floppy hats and others (probably of a higher grade) in metal helmets.

The white (or grey..) shield on the back guy is a healthy reminder that LBMS transfers really do need an imacculate white background - this one was off-white as the white spray undercoat had landed lightly on that part of the model, and I foolishly didn't overpaint it before applying the sticker. End result - an off white rather drab shield.

I've started doing the metal on my figures after matt varnishing them - it really means it does shine, especially when using Game Colour Brassy Brass 

Annoyingly I noticed that I'd missed the back of one shield on this guy - it's now been painted over! 

I made up one unit s Promodroi light lancers - again using the same Plastruct rod as on the previous cavalry. 

I think the shield colour is actually Iyanden Yellow, which has pooled nicely to gve a burnished  bronze effect before applying a waterslide transfer.

This arm looks at a funny angle in this shot, but is OK in real life (honest) 

Gryph-Hound Orange makes a great and distinctive "posh" tunic colour to really make these guts stannd out as a unit to watch on-table I think !

More horsemen to come soon...