Forged in Battle make a nice little pack of 15mm Legendary "Dark Age" Commanders, and one of the most legendary is Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra.
5 Jun 2024
28 May 2024
Successor Hit Markers in 28mm
In a rocket-science level bit of planning I use 3 shields for 3 hits, 2 for 2 hits and a single shield for one hit.
I always give them a few thick coats of liquid poly varnish before finishing in matt varnish, as they will inevitably get chucked in a bag somewhere - so a few coats of poly tends to make them pretty scuff-proof
21 May 2024
The Anglo-Saxons invade .. Southend!
The first ever Southern League ADLG event to take place in Southend on Sea took plce recently, and was appositely themed around the year of the Battle of Benfleet, in which the Anglo Saxons kicked the Vikings out of Essex - at least temporarily - and so I decided this was an omen worth embracing by taking an Anglo-Saxon army myself!
The army was made up of a load of 15mm Anglo Saxons/Vikings/generic Dark Age geezers that I'd rebased during lockdown, and a 3-game event where they would be thematically appropriate was ideal, especially as they were not likely to be all that good.
The event being at Southend also gave me an opportunity to inflict multiple references to both Billy Bragg and Danny Dyer on an unsuspecting wargames population and viewership - a gift that keeps on giving throughout the 3 videos in this competition report.
Having decided that a night out in Southend on Sea was unmissable, there is also some local tourism involved in the reports
(You'll also no doubt be pleased to know that the Essex branch of the McHugh Carpet Empire also get a welcome plug).
Enjoy the videos!
18 May 2024
Pisan Baggage
I finally got around to buying some 3mm buildings from Brigade Models recently, and paired them up with a tourist tat Pisa tower that I originally bought way back in 2004 (!) after the Pisa team DBM tournament.
Turns out they fit really well together scale-wise, and now I have an ADLG camp element on a 40x80 base.
Better get looking at that Pisan Italian City State army list I guess !!
14 May 2024
ADLG Renaissance: The Basics
I've finally gotten round to recording a few ADLG-R videos with Simon LeRay-Meyer, in which we look to work through the basics of the system with a particular focus on explaining the differences to ADLG Ancients.
They are now all posted on YouTube and also here on my website
The main areas covered are to do with how double-width bases for infantry formations in the Renaissance version actually work.
This is all pretty simple once you get your head around how they work but can trip up someone who is familiar with ADLG Ancients if you are not mindful of what and why they are deemed necessary in Renaissance ADLG
The videos are a bit of an experiment using my webcam and recorded very simply on Zoom, so the quality isn't exactly top notch - but hopefully we manage to be chatty and engaging enough to carry you through that, and in so doing manage to get across the key ways in which these double units actually work and operate on the battlefield.
Here's hoping you make it at least half way through !
12 May 2024
Camelphracts
Is it even a real word?
Who knows in all honestly, but surely every Ancient wargamer will have considered adding a few Parthian Cataphract Camels to their collection at some point in their life?
Well, at Warfare last year I had a voucher to spend and not all that much I actually wanted, so Forged in Battle ended up being the lucky recipients of my virtual cash and I became the owner of a pack of Camelphracts - which have finally been painted and added to the Bisely cabinet of shame.
They come in a pack of 8 models, which is readonable compared to the normal FiB sets of 12 cavalry as they are much bigger beasts than regular horses.
I then managed to obtain a couple more figures from Dave, as he had some spares allowing me to paint up the 3 bases that you'd need to field a max-sized Camephract force in a 300 point Parthian army for ADLG.
7 May 2024
Medieval Baggage
I can never resist a chance to get some more baggage elements, and my 28mm armies are now starting to be the main recipients of this habit (as I honestly have way too much army baggage in 15mm!).
Earlier this year at the PAW show in Plymouth I picked up these couple of vignette sets from John at Athena Miniatures - as a trade for a Russian hat I had originally planned to sell on the Bring & Buy.
They are "Vignette 7 Nobles and Merchants" and "Vignette 8 Drunk Soldiers" on the Athena website - I did however mix one of the Merchants into the Drunkards base to give the happy fellows some context and dissapproval.
28 Apr 2024
It's all Greek To Me!
Back in February of this year, when the weather was chilly and damp (unlike this balmy almost-May Springtime we're getting in the UK right now...?) I headed off to Athens to take in some local gastronomy, hit a few museums, drink some local beer and wine, attend a Greek Super League football match ... oh, and play a bit of ADLG at a "Crusades" themed event held by the Strategikon Club in Athens too!
The gaming parts of this epic weekend saw a rather unusual Later Crusader army take to the field, based around the army commanded by Richard The Lionheart ("Coeur du Lion") at Arsuf and other rather defensive battles, taking on a variety of Feudal opponents across 5 games over 2 days.
24 Apr 2024
The Plastic Crack Podcast
I was kindly invited onto the Plastic Crack Podcast on Monday night as a guest, and had a great time chatting nonsense about all things wargaming-related to the guys.
During the chat quite a few "Madaxeman" and also "Britcon" things came up, so I thought it might be handy to try and pull together some links here so that anyone who hears or sees the podcast and then stumbles across this site will not have to rummage around in the metaphorical bits-box that is Madaxeman.com's menu structure to see what on earth I was taking about!
In no particular order therefore:
- The Britcon Web Page on the BHGS site
- Gaming Systems on offer at Britcon 2024
- If you are interested in having a chat about bringing your game or group to Britcon, email me via the BHGS
7 Apr 2024
Roll Call 2024 - The Hittites and their opponents
This weekend I took part in the 15mm L'Art de la Guerre competition at Roll Call, finishing in a creditable 7th place with a Hittite army which was salvaged from the last knockings of Clive McLeods' collection.
The army was painted pretty well originally, but had suffered a LOT of battle damage so the end result I think was somewhat of a demonstration of the power of repairing and especially rebasing. More of them can be seen here on this site in an article from a few years ago.
Over the weekend I played against:
- New Kingdom Egyptians (won)
- Assyrian & Sargonid (won)
- North American Forest Indians (mutual break)
- Mayans (mutual break)
- Achaemenid Persians (narrow loss)
I was always prepared to commit the troops at evens or sometimes worse odds to pin an enemy in place so the Chariot strike force had enough time to arrive. With only 4 skirmishers in an army of 24, there is more staying power than it looks.