The Fleet Air Arm Museum - a Video Tour

On the way down to Brixham for the Devonian Classic last Deceember we popped into the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton and took a bundle of photos. 

Now, less than a mere three months later, I've combined them all into a couple of YouTube videos, one with me wittering along to attempt to describe the photos, and one that thankfully just has music as a soundtrack.

Video With Commentary:

Video Without Commentary:

Go ahead and have a look - it's all fine, even the steam catapult deck supervisor says it's all A-OK ! 

Forged in Battle Byzantine Cavalry - Part 1

With my rather tired and aged Essex Byzantine cavalry having been succesfully eBay'ed in the middle of last year I had been in the market for some new spiffy Byzantine cavalry for some time, and so at the Warfare show in November I picked up a load of packs of Forged in Battle Byzantines of various types. 

My aim was to create a set of cavalry which would cover the "lance and bow" options for most of the huge span of Byzantine history, adding to the two dozen horsemen from the FiB ranges that I already had painted up some time before (Early Byantine lancers painted last year, and some even earlier Late Roman lancers painted in 2023), and the 18 refurbished/reshielded "kite shield" cavalry for the Middle and Late period which had survived my Essex cull as well.

This would mean taking a few liberties with shield sizes and the like, but my theory is always that the armour and equipment of these sorts of guys would not quite be as regimented or consistent as some of us may like to think, so using stuff slightly out of period is not really that bad as long as the vibe is correct.  

I also fired up this new 10" Puluz LED Light Box, which I ordered off of eBay after my old cheap one collapsed!

It seems really good so far, much more robust than my old one, and so if you fancy one yourself and order via this link eBay will even pay me a few pennies in commission - which I guess is better that all this nonsense going behind a paywall!

This combination of new figures and new photographic kit has delivered up a large number of sets of photos, which I'll endeavour to post up over the next couple of weeks when I get a chance.

To start with, here are some cavalry made up mostly from Forged in Battle's WE-BE02 Early Byzantine (Justinian) - Boukellarioi Heavy Cavalry set, with a few archer figures mixed in from WE-BE04 Early Byzantine (Justinian) - Kavallarioi Bow.

These have mostly been done in Contrast paints, with a mix of GW and Warlord Games flavours on display. 

From memory the paints are:

• The horses are Aggaros Dunes, Snakebite Leather, Black Templar,Skeleton Horde (all GW) plus some Holy White (Warlord). The straps are all Warlord Hardened Leather. 
• Blazes and socks were added to the horses using a "Flat White" AK paint pen, which was very good for these sorts of additions, whilst not being as good for really fine detail as I had originally hoped. 
• I also used the pen to touch up some of the white clothing on these guys, which otherwise was done with Warlord's new Fanatic range Matt White.
• Armour was an experiment using Warlord's Enchanted Steel contrast (Speedpaint) on a white undercoat. It did come out a bit inconsistent in hue over the various painting sessions for these, which suggests it needs to be really well shaken before use.
• I then did some post-varnish drybrushing with Warlord Fanatic Gunmetal to give them a bit of shine on the chainmail and spear points, as the Enchanted Steel is quite grey on its own. 
• Spears and bows are my go-to colour of Vallejo 70.856 Ochre Brown
• The red clothing is Warlord Speedpaint Blood Red, or GW Blood Angels Red - they are essentially the same I think, especially at 15mm scale. 
• The blue on the serpent banner will be Frostheart, a GW contrast paint that is really striking. 
• The green shields are Mantis Warrior Green (GW). The contrasts generate a lot of depth and interest on these small flat surfaces I find.
• The more boring green quivers are Militarum Green (GW), with some in Frostheart with bits picked out in Vallejo Violet 70.960. 
• It's a bit OTT for quivers and bowcases, but going big on these bits it makes an otherwise dull view of the model a bit more interesting - and as I hope to mostly see them from the back as they advance and crush my opponents I feel justified in going a bit off-piste on the rear view of the figures from time to time!

More cavalry to come soon..

    

A rare bit of Malifaux

I'm currently  playing Malifaux every couple of weeks at Bad Moon Cafe in London, and whilst I've done pretty well in resisting the urge to buy some of the "new" models which Wyrd Games have brought out in the last couple of years there are just a handful which I felt I really did need to pick up.

The most expensive purchase has been the Arcanist "Starter" set of Harrison Frodsham, Harris J-5 and the two super-schemers, The Gearlings. 

As you can see these all have a really cool Steampunk aesthetic, which makes them interesting to paint and fits in with the "not historicals" itch-scratching that keeps me picking away at Malifaux from time to time.  

This is Frodsham and Harris J-5. When I bought the set these two felt like they might be the make-weights in this box set, as they are quite expensive in game terms and I didn't really have a feel for how effective they could be in-game compared to models I already owned and was familiar with using. 

The Gearlings however were the "I sort of need them to play" models, as the Crew I've been using most recently doesn't have any fast, survivable little models that can scoot down the edges of the table and do "stuff" to achieve the (non-killy) objectives that make Malifaux such an interesting  game to play. 

Gearlings are absolutely ace at this sort of thing - which I guess is why Wyrd brought then out as part of a £30 set of 4 models! 

Having seen the errata for all four of these models (which came out after the box set had been printed and manufactured it appears), and having put them on table for a spin I can now see that this is a very potent half-crew that can achieve a lot together! 

As usual I added some watch parts to the bases of these mechanical gearling models to reinforce the steampunk vibe.

 

They were all done with black undercoat, then drybrushing on top to be consistent with many of my other Malifaux models. 

I also bought from Etsy a Wind Golem proxy, as picking up the solo model isn't really possible (and this was really cheap by comparison).

As you can see, one of the challenges of buying 3D prints from Etsy of non-historical models is that the actual size of the thing is very hard to gauge ... this is stood next to two Wind Gamin Wyrd models!

And here he is next to the Fire & Ice Golems for a better comparison.

Aesthetically it fits really well I think, but I really hope he doesn't topple over in-game as he coudl easily crush my opponents models in the process!

Through the Breach We Go! 
 

The Roman Road Heads Down South

2025's PAW competition in deepest Devon (aka The South West's 2nd biggest Festival of ADLG & Pastys) provided me the opportunity to put the recently painted 28mm Triumverate / post Marian Reform Roman army on table in a Roman-themed event. 

This would see as many of the figures I've been painting and trailling on my blog in the past few months being shoehorned into a single army list, with maximum inclusivity trumping potential effectiveness by some margin!

The end result is these four 28mm video battle reports from PAW in Plymouth which you can watch in a YouTube playlist, or embedded on a single page on madaxeman.com.

The embedded video page also has a post-event summary from Nasty Hannibal.

6 Video Reports from Alicante 2025

In 6 mercifully bite-sized video reports I run through the mixed fortunes of the once all-conquering Swiss army at the recent Akra Leuka competition in Alicante.

For anyone who's listened to the Podcast, you'll already know it didn't go especially well, so here is your chance to see just how badly things panned out for the Swiss in their games against the Serbs, the Ottomans (twice), the Burgundians, the Condottieri, and finally the Hussites in 6 consecutive YouTube video batreps.

You can watch them all embedded in this website here, or jump straight to full-screen YouTube action by following this link which will play all 6 reports in sequence (if you can bear that much excitement in one go!) 

The "placed" lists from Beachhead 2025's ADLG events

Having just gotten back from plating ADLG at Beachhead (where I somehow ended up 2nd in the 28mm pool with 3 wins and 2 defeats - go figure!), I have managed to quickly upload the "top 3" lists from the 15mm and 28mm competitions to the ADLG Wiki on this site.

They are:

15mm

• Classical Indian
• Sahelian Empire
• Seljuk Turk

28mm

• Burmese
• Early Successor 
• Seleucid

There will be some reports - eventually - of my 5 games too, but here's a few tasters to get you started...

Alicante & Cartagena - the Podcast, and The Videos

The first Madaxeman podcast of the year hits the pod-shelves in both audio and video formats as the team discuss the recent expedition to Cartagena and Alicante.

To mark the new year and new start for what is hopefully some more regular podding, this episode is tentatively titled "Episode 1, Series 5" and sees 4 brave podcasting gamers hit the airwaves and chat about their trip to the South of Spain in mid January to take in the Akra Leuka tournament at the upmarket Benidorm that is Alicante.

We also take in the Worlds Largest Collection of Model Tanks, the current state of play with which 15mm metal casting companies are currently closing down, whether "Paella" is actually just "Rice" with a different postcode, if a War Wagon collapses in the forest can a Swiss Pikeman hear it fall, if anyone has ever seen a bigger chorizo nugget, whether we are all now far too old to understand this 3D printing malarkey, and if double-carbs is the missing link between Glasgow and the entire Iberian peninsula.

The guests on this podcast are Dave "From The Podcast", Dave "Ming the Marxist" and Mark "The FWC Man", all of whom you can actually see on this YouTube version of the Podcast.

The lists we all used in Alicante can be found on the Madaxeman ADLG Wiki.

• Marks Hungarians
• Tim & Daves Swiss
• Daves French Ordonnance  
• My video of the Cartagena Military Museum

Grab a Toblerone and head to Farnborough!

 Yes, after a somewhat lengthy delay the 5 battle reports from the L'Art de la Guerre competition at Warfare 2024 have finally made it to these pages, allowing you to see the Swiss army in all its glory!

In a series of 5 consecutive High Medieval battles the Gnome of Zurich leads his cheese-eating, cowbell-donging merry band of men with (long pointy) sticks into action against the Scottish Schiltrons, the Reconquering Medieval Spanish, the pecunious mercenary Free Companies, the even more monetarily-focused Condottieri, and finally the highly efficient Medieval Germans.

  

In each battle the highly complex and over-engineered Swiss plan unfolds in full Alpine Cinemascope, accompanied by ferocious yodelling and a faint whiff of burnt fondue

All battles come complete with speech bubbles, bizarre captions, and a series of FACTS to educate you about the lesser-known aspects of the Swiss Pikemen of the Medieval era! 

  

Pull up a Toblerone, log out of your secret bank account and take aim at the apple-on-the-head delights of these 5 full Madaxeman battle reports featuring a 15mm medieval Swiss army in all its technicolour glory! 

A New Year Bonus - a video of a lot of tanks!

As a pre-New year treat, I've uploaded to YouTube a rolling montage of photos taken during my visit to the Kubinka Tank Museum outside of Moscow all the way back in September 2006, long before the museum became part of the Patriot military theme park (around 2014) - meaning at the time getting access was a bit of a challenge to say the least!

The photos in this video have already been on the Madaxeman website for quite some time, so much so that they may have been overlooked - hence dropping them all into a video that you can play through in the background when you are doing something far more interesting.

If you do see any pictures that are worth a second look then at least you can go to the website and check them out again at your leisure, without my occasional bursts of ill-informed commentary interrupting your tank-based visual enjoyment.

The Kubinka museum hosts a wide variety of tanks and armoured vehicles developed and used throughout the 20th century by the Soviets, Germans, Allies, Japanese, Hungarians and other nations.

The star of the show is of course the only actual example of the WW2 German Super Tank, the Maus, with the example on display being assembled from the bits of the only two two prototypes ever made, both of which the Russians captured at the end of WW2.

Around 60% of the exhibits are Soviet-era vehicles, with lots of experimetal prototypes, the most recent display being the Object 172, the prototype of the T-72 MBT. Most Cold War-era Western tanks (from the US or Western Europe) were war trophies from the Middle East, Africa, Vietnam and Latin America, which were all sent to the armour testing facility at Kubinka to study and focus on any strengths and weaknesses.

Segments & Timings: 3:27 - WW1, Early war/light tanks, British tanks 6:36 - US post-war & WW2 tanks 9:31 - German WW2 tanks (the full set!) Including... 13:30 The Maus 17:35 - Other WW2 German AFVs & transport 19:39 - French, Italian & other minor nation tanks and tankettes 20:57 - Hungarian WW2 Tanks 22:18 - Japanese WW2 Tanks 23:15 - An armoured train 23:35 - WW2 Russian tanks & tank destroyers 25:22 - Post War Russian tanks, prototypes & experimental vehicles 28:45 - BMPs and other wheeled and tracked APCs 30:11 - More WW2 Russian armour, & more BMPs 35:37 - Random shots that seem to have gotten out of sequence (possibly taken on a different camera?)

Happy New Year and enjoy the video!

A Festive Bonus - a dozen Gladiators!

 Yes, the interminable ADLG 28mm Republican Roman army project has now hit a Christmas milestone, with one of the novelty items in the army list hitting the interweb in the shape of these dozen Gladiators.

They are all from the Crusader Minis range, which I think do a very good job of staying stylistically in keeping with the mostly-Foundry Legionaries I've posted previously, but at a much lower price point of £7 for 4 instead of £14 for 6! 

They were done surprisingly quickly, with the non-metallics being mostly Contrast paints - however on these figures the non-metallic parts are rather smaller than the metal-clad bits!

I also did almost all of the shield patterns myself, the exception being the chap at the back who uses a spare Crusader Roman Cavalry transfer from LBMS - unsurprisingly the shield was an exact size match for the CRusader cavalry shields ! 

The flesh is my now-standard layering of white base, Darkoath Flesh contrast then Vallejo Dark Flesh real paint, whereas all the matallics are black undeercoat and a drybrush of metallic.

  

I was particularly pleased with how this laurel wreath shield came out - it's a white base coat, GW Contrast Blood Angels Red (which does leave a bit more texture on the shield than a straight normal paint coat woudl do), then the laurel was initially picked out as a series of white blob over which I then painted GW Contrast Mantis Warrior Green. 

 

Very chuffed with the musculature of the guy front left as you look at this base of figures. The casting really helped show where to paint, and the Darkoath Flesh layer then gives you even clearer guidance as well.

The yellow on their loincloths is Yanden Yellow Contrast. 

The blue shield pattern is hand painted too (OK, this is a bit half-hearted compared to transfers, but...), but the notable thing about this is that the yellow bits are painted in a single layer straight onto (wider) black lines, using the new Warlord Games Fanatic paints - Demonic Yellow in this case. 

This is the first yellow paint I think I've ever owned that had enough coverage to give this density of colour on top of black, straight out of the dropper bottle - highly recommended.

The same technique and paint was used on this red shield too. 

Talassar Blue is the loincloth colour here.

And, here are the set, ready to accompany the Roman army into battle, and you to the dinner table for some turkey and stuffing!

And here's an AI-generated video of the guys being animated and aggressive!