Review of Salute! 2015

Yes, a comprehensive review of the stuff I saw at Salute! 2015, with loads of photos and some actual analysis and commentary on industry trends and stuff as well...

Feel free to share this review on your chosen web forum  and chew over my thoughts ...

Spring Showdown - Malifaux match reports

4 more almost incomprehensible Malifaux battle reports, with a big pink flying baby with a bad case of piles, hot chicks in leather with big swords, re-animating snipers in a childs playroom and a cast of thousands of mechanical spiders all creating confusion in deepest Essex.

The only thing you will probably recognise and understand is the crushing incompetence, the bitter taste of defeat and the withering analysis from Steampunk Hannibal

Some Saga Warbands - being sold off on eBay

I've recently listed 4 Saga Warbands on eBay - they are figures I was selling for a friend, so you probably won't recognise the figures from previous disastrous match reports!

The eBay listing included 2 Norman/Christian armies, one Viking-type Warband and an Arab Warband that can be most any of the Arab factions. As they have now departed my possession I thought it worth sharing the photos here.

All I have done is re-base them, and also photographed them with my new model-railway-inspired backdrop - which I think adds a surprising amount to the pictures.

Dead Man's Hand

After accidentally buying lots of Wild West figures, terrain and buildings for Malifaux, the inevitable has happened and I have expanded into the Dead Man's Hand Wild West game.

I know it's been out for several years already, but this is my first game of it, and I must admit that it was a real hoot! Easy to play and learn, very simple but still delivering a cinematic cowboy experience as well.

See what the hand of fate dealt me in a 3-linked-games match report that is also a review of the rules and walk-through of the key mechanics as well.

Unusually not all of the pictures have captions, but that's because I've tried to play with some different effects to make some of them look "old" - see what you think!

Gertfaux - a Malifaux Competition!

After almost 5 games ever, Mei Feng and her Rail Crew take to the competitive table at Gertfaux in Bristol!

It's all on the turn of a card as Giant Robots take on resurrected Irish Labourers, Little Green Men try to avoid falling into an industrial threshing machine, and a 4-legged man wearing a dress tries to avoid being run down by a big a metal horse with it's own colony of self-detaching sub-zero temperature haemorrhoids with bad attitudes.

There is also Steampunk Hannibal, and some silly captions. As if they were needed...

This site, reviewed in Miniature Wargames!

Some nice words from Henry Hyde at Miniature Wargames about this site, as Madaxeman.com is the "Blog of the Month" for February 2015!

"This month, get yourself over to the Madaxeman site at http://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.co.uk

which is rammed full of excellent stuff. One aspect that I really like is where he tests various rulesets, such as a recent tryout of L’Art de la Guerre Ancients rules at http://www.madaxeman.com/reports/

Art_de_la_Guerre_review.php. There’s a lovely sense of humour underpinning the site, with lots of variety, recently including a photo report of a Field of Glory Renaissance tournament complete with comic strip speech bubbles! Great stuff. "

Fame at last!! 

New Rules, Same Incompetence? Romans take to the field under ADLG

The Legions of Roman take part in what is probably the first ever UK event for ancients ruleset L'Art de la Guerre. They play Indians, Middle Romans and Palmyrans in three tightly themed standard sized games in one day.

The rules are translated from French, but did the Romans find it was all Greek to them ?

Find out for yourself in a series of 3 reports with lots of rules-learning tips in there too

Photo Galleries back online

The 15mm Ancients, 10mm ACW, 10mm WW" and "Real Vehicles" galleries are now fixed, upgraded and secured...

If you are using Chrome as a browser you may still see a Google security warning before accessing the 10mm/Real Vehicle galleries, which I've requested be removed now I have done the update - so it should hopefully be gone in a few days.

• 15mm Ancients Gallery
• 10mm WW2 Gallery 
• 10mm ACW Gallery
• Real Vehicles Gallery

(I also managed to "find" a lost database with more information that was originally included in the 10mm Gallery, which it now appears I managed to lose by making a typo in one upgrade cycle... so, if anyone out there knows about how to merge the contents of two SQL database tables, do let me know!) 

Photo galleries offline

Both the 10mm and 15mm photo galleries on this site appear to be a bit knackered at the moment - it seems as if they have been subject to some sort of rogue code attack.

That does however have the positive benefit of rendering them unreachable, so you are safe from any risk of stumbling across something dodgy... however, as they do link to a lot of other pages on this site you may well find that "normal" pages just stop and cut off half way through, or are covered in gobbledegook. I'm working on an upgrade, so fear not, they will be back as soon as I work out how to fix it ...

Mei the force be with you - Malifaux Battle Report

In the 2nd ever Malifaux report on this site, Evil Steampunk-magic-using Marxist Drug-runner Mei Feng takes on a man on a horse and his big fat Edward Scissorhands best friend in a strange urban cowboy landscape as two players struggle again to get to grips with what the hell they are up to ..

There is kung-fu, there are dogs and eagles, there is a Sikh with a machine gun and there is a lawyer (sending guns and money..?).

Who knows what it all means - but as long as everything gets set on fire, it will surely all be good in the end!

The Danes at Warfare 2014 - top table action!

The last event of 2014, and the Early Danes get yet another outing at FoGR down by the banks of the Thames in sunny (cold and dark) Reading.

In four thrilling match reports they take on everyone in the world, from the Indians to the English, all whilst doing their very best to shoehorn references to bacon and Carlsberg into the narrative at every opportunity....and end up doing surprisingly well !

Lots of pictures, some barely-relevant YouTube videos and some very odd things to buy from Amazon as well all grace the reports - so, grab yourself some pancakes and maple syrup, pull up a chair and dig in!

Xmas painting session for Malifaux

In between turkey and wine, I have snuck in painting up a few more Malifaux models over the past 2 weeks.

A lot of these are proxies from Black Scorpion.

Guild Guards

A shooter..

Showgirls and a Mannequin

December Acolytes.

Many more on the website 

Happy Christmas...?

If you woke up this Christmas morning and found that Santa had brought you all of the wargaming goodies that you wanted, congratulations!

If you didn't get what you wanted, and so you happen to find yourself browsing the web over the festive period don't forget that Madaxeman.com now has loads of pages with various cleverly targeted eBay listings all grouped together to make it easier fro you to find what Santa didn't leave for you under the tree!

The UK eBay listings include:

15mm Ancients

15mm "Buy Now" Ancients

15mm Renaissance

20mm Moderns

15mm - Complete Armies

28mm Plastics

25mm Renaissance

28mm Plastic Renaissance

25/28mm Ancients

20mm Ancients Figures

WRG Armies & Enemies Books

FoG Rules & Lists

15mm Napoleonic French

15mm Napoleonic British

All 15mm Napoleonics

15mm Napoleonic Prussians

15mm Napoleonic Russians

15mm Napoleonic Austrians

6mm Listings

Varnishes & Quickshade

Bases and Magnets

10mm - All eras

1/144th Scale

15mm Flames of War

Wargames Terrain

Flock & Grass

Hedges & bushes

Trees in Bulk

D6 Dice for Sale

40K Figures & Stuff

Epic 40K for Sale

Warmaster Listings

Malifaux Arcanist listings (UK)

Malifaux Guild listings (UK)

Malifaux Neverborn listings (UK)

Malifaux Ten Thunders listings (UK)

Malifaux Outcasts listings (UK)

Malifaux Ressurectionist listings (UK)

Malifaix Gremlin listings (UK)

and there are also US eBay listings for:

15mm Ancients

15mm - Complete Armies

28mm Plastics

25/28mm Ancients

28mm Ancients

15mm Napoleonic French

15mm Napoleonic British

15mm Napoleonic Prussians

15mm Napoleonic Austrians

15mm Napoleonic Russians

All 15mm Napoleonic listings

There's also a bookstore on this site that has organised thousands of books on Amazon by FoG Ancients army list - so a separate page for books about any army in any of the FoG army list books. How neat is that?

It's always easier if you just buy what you want yourself, isn't it....

A few more Malifaux proxies...

If you're going to be a Wild West Exorcist, why stop at just a crossbow... He also has a little of the Billy Bob Thornton character from Fargo about him. Which is probably not a good thing if you are about to be exorcised... 

Joss is only available in a box set where I already have the other figures... so here's a £2 proxy 

Home made mechanical toolbox from two 15mm/6mm drones

Brass Arachnid - another model only available in a box set I own already, scratchbuilt instead from drones.

An edited and cleaned up shot of the Exorcist

In my version of the fluff, Johan is actually a wise old union official... and may even be Kang's father... 

Blokes in hats with guns. 

There are plenty of them out there... Guild Guard anyone..? 

I also now have auction listings for Malifaux figures, scraped off of eBay. Have a look here

A Double Dose of Piracy!

One of the most inept yet strangely effective armies in my inventory makes a return in a 500AP FoGR Doubles competition, as the Pirates sail into view yet again.

Marvel at the depth plumbed by the puns, shake in fear at the assault of poor jokes and fall asleep counting the number of times the men say "arrr!" as the Pirates engage in 4 games of hand to hand fighting and general bloodthirsty carnage in which the lowest percentage of casualties suffered by any of the combatants in any game hovers around the 45% mark....

Corvus Belli miniatures - listing updated

I've just updated the 15mm Suppliers listings for the Corvus Belli range, after the manufacturer suspended production "indefinitely" in Autumn 2014.

Vexillia have now bought up the entire current stock of 15mm ancient and medieval ranges from the manufacturer in Spain, so what Martin has in store is all that is left in the world basically.

The ranges cover/covered Marian & Imperial Rome and some related armies such as Spanish, Numidians, Kappadocians, Carthaginians as well as a well regarded 100YW range. The figures are sold in packs of 8, with 6-8 variants per pack that are compatible with Essex in size but can sometimes be touch more chubby and short - but also have a more variety and character.

(Corvus Belli Spanish in action) 

Get 'em while they last... !