Derby 2017 - time for the big toys to come out to play!

Having been painting, making and generally faffing around and not quite finishing my 28mm Patrician Roman army for the last 18 months, the annual Derby competition suddenly hove into view and offered up not one, but two opportunities to put the figures on the table.

The end result are 5 well-packed and imposing L'Art de le Guerre battle reports featuring sumptuous imagery of troops that are actually big enough to be able to see with the naked, unaided human eye!

Across the weekend the army from the tail end of the Roman Empire fought its predecessors, its contemporaries, its allies and it's mortal enemies - and even, on one notable occasion, itself - on a series of 6x4 tabletops in an aircraft hangar in the East Midlands.

See for yourself why the fall of the Roman Empire may actually have been FAKE NEWS, and why the 28mm game might well prove to be the absolute real sweet spot for Ancient wargaming with the L'Art de la Guerre ruleset.

Yes, these reports are possibly your gateway drug to mainlining the seemingly almost daily releases of plastic multipose 28mm ancients figures now on the market. Read on with care...

Derby not Derby, the "Post-Derby" Madaxeman.com Podcast

In this episode featuring regular guests Dave Dave and Aussie Simon, the Central London A-Team are travelling home by car and discussing the merits of the new "Derby not Derby" venue, undertaking a highly detailed pint-by-pint review of the pubs and restaurants of Market Harborough, and get into some actual wargaming-related discussions about army list composition for L'Art de la Guerre and the upcoming UK competition schedule.

You can stream the episode from here, or download to listen later at your leisure...



The match reports for the games in this podcast are not far behind...

Alexanders Companions Go Tilting at Windmills

After an unfeasibly long delay, the 6-game "Worlds 2017" set of L'Art de le Guerre match reports are now released into the wild in all their multi-faceted glory!

Set in the sun-drenched uplands of Salamanca in Western Spain, the biggest event in the world draws out Hannibal's only true rival, Alexander The Greats own army to take on opponents from across the swathe of time, from their own back garden in the form of the Classical Indians all the way to the Middle Ages and the Ordonnance French.

Thrill as Alexander himself narrates in these 6 match reports, stuffed full of videos, inappropriate accents, suggestive double-entendres and all manner of painted lead as it refuses to melt in the Spanish heat, and Gasp as Hannibal skillfully and not at all politely deconstructs it all after each game.

And, in a special ADLG bonus, Even The Man, The Legend, The Hero - El Kreator Herve Caille gets a look-in as Alexander's Phalanx clashes with the authors own concoction of an army in Game 4!

It's a widescreen epic - read all about it here!

Patras 2018 !!!!

Just heard some brilliant news - the Greek wargaming community have now taken up L'Art de la Guerre, and are planning on bringing back the near-legendary Patras tournament in 2018 !!!

It's now more than a dozen years since myself and a crew of Central Londoners made the trek across the Peloponnese to play in the Patras DBM tournament.... The epic report is still on this site and available here.

And here's the equally epic lunch!

The local clubs are looking at dates at the moment - as soon as it's firmed up we're on!

Army lists from my 6 opponents at The Worlds now published on the Wiki

The armies fielded by my opponents in the recent "The Worlds" L'Art de la Guerre event in Salamanca are now on the ADLG Wiki:

They were, in order of play

• Classical Indian
• Graeco Indian
• French Ordonnance
• Delhi Sultanate
• Christian Nubian
• Sassanid Persian 

My own two army lists were taken from the Alexander The Great list.

Battle reports are underway and being written... but here's some in-game pictures to kick things off... 

Carlos Vasquez and the Oiran

Carlos Vasquez is literally the new Hotness in Malifaux, a tanky Henchman with some exuberant flaming attacks.

I picked up the model, together with a box of Oiran on a recent trip to play at the English GT at Wayland Games, looking to expand my Showgirl crew.

Carlos is a slightly tricky but rewarding model to assemble and paint - the trickiness comes in whether or not to pin him. I did... find out why on this gallery

The Oiran are more straightforward, with some fiddly small pieces. Learn about my choice of colour scheme here.

What an Atmosphere! The Rus get in some ADLG action

Hot on the heels of The BHGS Challenge comes Dogs of War, in the excellent Bristol Independent Gaming Centre.

This was a Dark Ages & Early Medieval themed L'Art de la Guerre event, and in keeping with my efforts to try and get as many of my long-forgotten armies on table as possible under ADLG I had elected to wheel out the Rus - with a Viking ally.

The "Wall of Spears" was a new thing for me to try in L'Art de la Guerre competition gaming, so the big question was whether that was because everyone else had missed the tactical potential of such an army, or because it was a bit pants and I hadn't worked that out yet.

See how the men from the Ukraine did in these 5 rather linear battle reports!

Aircraft photos from RIAT 2017

The Royal International Air Tattoo is one of the world's best airshows.

The weather this year wasn't great, but I still managed to get some half-decent photos of some of the aircraft:

 Belgian Sea King Air Sea Rescue

Italian Tornado

Patrouille Suisse - F5E

Apache

F22 Raptor

The USAF Thunderbirds

Two Armies, Two Podcasts...

With two L'Art de la Guerre podcasts now firmly under my belt it feels like an opportune moment to release them fully into the interweb by actually telling people that they exist.

Ideal to listen to whilst painting your own figures, in these two Podcasts (also available on YouTube, with pictures) are where you can learn from people who are far better players than I am about how to design a Ghaznavid or a Sassanid army list for L'Art de la Guerre.

The Podcasts are available to listen to via Podbean, also iTunes (honestly!) and are linked to from my L'Art de la Guerre page.

Massive Heeds, Sausages and Tie Fighters - ADLG from the NEC.

With this year's BHGS Challenge taking place in the galaxy-sized open spaces of Birmingham's NEC expo centre, the first army to be dropped to the planetary surface was also a brand new to the table outfit - the much-trailed Sassanid Persians.

Resplendent in their new livery, the "Sausages", as they have been affectionately known to generations of wargamers were certainly Feeling the Force as they deployed an army built around a massive Death Star, surrounded by horsemen with Massive Heeds (or those 'lightbulb' hats to be more precise).

To find out what happened, the best bet is to see if your local protocol droid will help you translate each of these 5 match reports into something sensible.

You can also listen to a podcast at the end of Battle Report # 4 to help you learn how to build a good Sassanid list in ADLG - which is much easier than having to ask a couple of favours from some guys who look just like Tuskan Raiders...

May the Sausages Be With You..!

Saga - the return...

Having not played Saga in just over 2 years I wheeled out the Vikings (in a no Cross & Crescent allowed) event in Reading today - and demonstrated how important it is to practice, finishing with nul points out of 3 games.

Admittedly there were times when I didn't have the rub of the green - facing Jomsvikings and their movement-denying Wrath tricks in a scenario where you had to move your troops around to occupy table quarters, and then a previously unseen internet-only Anglo-Danish monstrosity which had three units of un-killable fully armoured Warriors who I had to try and cut through to Kill the Leader...  although forgetting I had the option to re-roll 29 dice in one attack also played a part!

Anyway, the mostly-Foundry figures got out of the foam padding and onto the table, so that bit was a success.

Here are some photos of the boys in action (click on any image to see the full size version)