The TYW in the Kings Country

After a long hiatus, the 28mm mostly Warlord Games plastic and metal figures have crawled blinking into the light again for a 3-game 1-day competition held in glorious rural Oxfordshire, on the edges of the King's Civil War Capital.

The TYW Germans - chosen because they have the nicest flags, as well as some little gunnes - take on the Swedes, the New Model Army and the French in three large format, widescreen big battle reports under FoG:R rules.

Be amazed how efficiently they progress through good planning and superior technology, and puzzle as to how Wallenstein and Tilly both end up on the same side in the same army as I deploy simply the nicest figures I can find and try and pretend there is a plan behind it.

There are three reports, complete with the full gamut of Germanic expressions of amazement and horror, lots of photos, ridiculous captions and a full set of post-game analyses from Renaissance Hannibal himself.

Get back to the 16th Century today with these 3 FoGR reports!

28mm Assyrian Generals for ADLG

Whilst an Assyrian ADLG army still sits in it's original shipping box almost a year after buying it in the Museum Miniatures January sale, I have been occasionally browsing eBay and other sites for some 28mm Assyrian Generals to use as commanders with the 15mm army.

And now I've found some - and even better, they are Foundry figures!

ASS005 - "Heavy Infantry Command 1" on their website, picked up off eBay for a snip and now all set to lead the Assyrians to victory (I hope...).

My painting doesn't sadly match that of Foundry's professionals, but I did attempt to use the same sort of colour scheme, which will no doubt become a reference for the rest of the army once it's done.

I also normally only put one figure on a base for these commanders, but with a blister pack with musicians and standard bearers who otherwise won't get used, and also realising that 15mm Chariots will never fit on a 40mm round base I just went for it and added all the figures to 3 Commander bases.

This link will take you to a listing of 28mm Assyrians on your local eBay

In places their eyes are a little "fried egg" - egg-specially when viewed close up - and I might go back and touch them up if I have the inclination, even though at gaming distances they are perfectly OK

This link will take you to a listing of 28mm Assyrians on your local eBay

War & Empire Sassanid cataphracts

As well as picking up some Numidians at Britcon from West Wind's war & Empire range I also added a set of 12 of their Sassanid cataphracts to my collection.

OK, I do have lots of cataphracts already, but none which were overtly Sassanid - so a blister pack of a dozen seemed like a good chance to add 3 units to my mostly Legio Heroica ADLG army, and to get some size comparison photos of the W&E cavalry as well.

Here are the full dozen from the blister pack. The pack has (well, mine did have) more riders than horses, with a few officers and standard bearers to include if you want - which of course I chose to do.

Cataphracts are a decent host for a Sub General in ADLG, so the standard and sword-waving chaps in the middle may well be an embedded Sub General with some regularity.

Here are 8 of the W&E guys, with a textbook Essex cataphract unit in the middle of the line.

The proportions are a tad different, with the Essex ones looking bulkier and having stumpier horses but bigger bodies for the men, but they are basically the same height at the end of the day.

This shot has the Legio Heroica Sassanid Asarvan cavalry in the line. Again, not a great match in terms of stature but a decent one in terms of overall height.

The W&E Cataphracts are from their first range of releases, which seem to have fairly slight and short cavalry riders so perhaps later ranges will be a bit chunkier.

Here's the General and standard bearer. I wanted a fairly colourful mix of figures with different types of barding to match the look and feel of my existing Asarvan.

From the rear you can also see they have a fair selection of cloaks, allowing a more irregular look as well.

The size comparison shots for the Numidian foot can be seen here

15mm Teutons for sale on eBay

On eBay this week is another "downsizing of a DBM/FoG army" ADLG army sale, this time a nicely presented 200+ point 15mm Teutonic army including a wide range of options to form several different variations of this legendarily punchy force.

All the figures have been based and magnabased for storage and transit, and have been double-varnished (Army Painter + Testors Dullcote) for tabletop handling.

Here's the link to the auction which ends on Sunday 14th October, around 5pm UK time

They are based with a snow effect, which on a bigger DBx army can seem a bit limiting by making it harder to do possible morphs into other forces - but with ADLG armies being smaller it's entirely feasible to have a dedicated Teutonic winter-war themed army like this as a stand-alone force.

These guys were originally part of a much bigger DBM/FoG army now being downsized to ADLG, and the sharp-eyed amongst you may have even spotted some of them appearing on the Madaxeman website in several battle reports as part of the legendary DBM Lithuanians a few years back  ...

There's a total of 60-odd foot + 50-odd mounted (so almost 170 "things" in total, if you're working out a fair price).

The army comprises:

• 18 Teutonic Brother Knight figures (Mirliton & Toullier)
• 6 Vassal Knight figures (Mixed - some Museum?)
• 4 LH Crossbow figures (Mirliton)
• 4 Hungarian LH figures (Mirliton)
• 4 Balts with javelin figures (Essex)
• 6 Prussian Medium Cavalry figures (Mirliton)
• 4 LF Bow Balt skirmisher figures (Essex)
• 2 LF Handgunner figures (Essex)
• 16 Teutonic Brother Spearmen (Gladiator) 
• 16 German Militia Spearmen (Essex)
• 8 English Mercenary Longbow (Essex)
• 3 Commanders bases (Mirliton and others)
• 15 Levy figures (mixed)

If you want to expand the army I am happy to either point you at the exact figure codes or have a dig around in the rest of my collection as well to see if I can help out.  I can also add some of the "snow" in the parcel too if you'd like to base up a few more extra figures yourself.

I can also arrange for collection at Warfare, or on a clubnight at CLWC in London so if you are a UK-based player those may be options to save on postage. If you're in Spain or Southern France, I'll also be at the Estella event in late October. 

Part of all bids will go to support SSAFA, the UK armed forces charity.

Here's the link to the auction

It ends on Sunday 14th October, around 5pm UK time - happy bidding!

Improving Some (rather) Old Pikemen

My Classical pikemen date back many years, and are some speed-painted Minifigs figures designed to be shoved together in multiple ranks and viewed from a distance..

Rebasing them from DBx to 40x40mm ADLG bases has given me a chance to tart some of them up a little however.

This has seen some given more colourful uniforms and boldly-painted shields - and others given Veni Vidi Vici shield transfers.

They can all be seen in more detail here

War & Empire Numidians (15mm)

I recently bought some Numidians from War & Empire (Forged in Battle) , which have managed to get painted extremely quickly - probably due to their simplicity!

They are led by some Baueda Generals working in tandem with W&E infantry officers on 40mm round bases for ADLG.

I've also posted some comparison shots to show how they scale with other ranges of Romans and Carthaginians (who they will be fighting with or against I suspect).

All these photos and many more are online now on my site, where I also explain the painting techniques as well (for what they are worth). The figures can also be seen in the 15mm directory

International Vandalism - 28mm ADLG from Devizes 2018

The pleasant west country town of Devizes is home to the Wadworth 6X brewery, a collection of over-filled bed & breakfast pub type establishments and the DDWG annual "Attack!" competition and show - and with a set of propositions as enticing as that, how can anyone resist?

The army of choice this time are the African Vandals, as a combination of a simple list with impetuous charging cavalry and my ownership of some brand new Gripping Beast plastic lancers working in tandem with some slightly older Footsore cavalry made the grade.

The Vandals take on Arabs and Byzantines in 4 spectacularly large-scale reports featuring 12th century religious iconography, big-hair-metal music videos and an opportunistic homage to Jeremy Corbyn.

There are also some fantastically painted troops on display as well - plus a video/audio commentary on the first game too.

Don't waste time - dive into some serious Vandalism with these 4 reports!