The Taifa Andalusians head to the West Country

With the warmth of Spain now a distant memory, barely a week after going to Alicante with the 15mm Berbers it was time for the 28mm Taifa Andalusian army to try it's luck on Southern shores as I headed to the PAW show in Plymouth for some more ADLG action.

The army featured Almughavars, Knights, Spearmen and all sorts of other odds and ends, most of which you will have seen in the paint queue on this website at some point in the last couple of years.

Over the 4-game weekend they took on the Christian Nubians, the First Crusade and a couple of Sicilian Norman armies as well, all of which has been documented in 4 separate 10-15 minute videos in which I attempt to explain what I thought I was trying to do!

See how the forces of the Reconquista (and those who perhaps weren't so keen on that idea too) fared in these 4 reports from PAW

Wiglaf Dark Ages 18mm Figures

I'd seen and heard a lot about the new Wiglaf Miniatures range from Dan Mersey, the rules author of several Dark Ages era games.

The range is nominally for The Age of Penda, designed for the wars of the seventh century AD Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their enemies and is sculpted by Mark Copplestone, but with more than enough Viking/Saxon/Norman etc figures in my collection already to field a substantial European civil war, never mind a single army I'd been dithering for a while whether to pick some up mainly for comparison purposes.

Then, on Instagram, Dan popped up and said he has some sample bags available, so a quick Paypal transaction later and I soon had a set of 7 of the guys to have a go at painting them up. 

As you can see they are sharply cast models, nicely animated and with some non-generic poses. 

The figures with spears have been cast with open hands, which is always good now that so many of us have cottoned onto the idea of using wire spears or plastic broom bristles !

And here they are painted up and based - I did a kind of slap-chop approach on them in the main, with black undercoat and white drybrushing to give highlights to the paint, but with so much chainmail there's still a lot of drybrushed gunmetal on black anyway.

The chap with the fur cloak gets the wolfskin treatment in this lot.

And from the front at ground level. 

I'm not really all that satisfied with my efforts on the shields as the black lining is a bit sloppy in these closeups however all of the shields have multiple bosses, nails and metal strips designed into them which did rather cut across my simplistic painting approach, 

The big question with any new range of figures like these is "how do they compare to XXX manufacturer", so with that in mind here are the Wiglaf guys next to some Essex Feudal East European spearmen.   I think this pretty much nails the "are they really the 18mm they are marketed as?" debate with a resounding "yes". 

A few more manufacturers to compare - these are my Two Dragons Norman spearmen

Some Corvus Belli (now Plastic Soldier Company) 100YW dismounted knights

Figures from Xystons "biggest ever" (size wise) range of Roman-era Theurophoroi are about the only figures I have that stand up to the Wiglaf guys for size.

Bauda Carolingian spearmen.

So, all in all some very nice figures which are very characterful - and which I probably haven't managed to do full justice to with my painting either (althought with Steve Dean doing the brushwork on Dans own website that's also a pretty high bar to fall short of!). 

But, what is clear is that they are absolutely 18mm in height, so be careful which ranges you are looking to mix them with - or just go ahead and buy a whole army full from North Star!  

Alicante! The Berbers Try To Conquer Spain Again

In the dark and cold month of January an intrepid band of Central Londoners set off very early one morning to head to Heathrow, and then onto the sunshine of Southern Spain to take part in the annual Akra Leuka ADLG tournament in Alicante. 

Of course, going all that way just to play toy soldiers would have been daft, so the trip had long since developed a frightening degree of mission-creep by adding in a couple of nights in Valencia, a visit to a mountaintop castle, much Iberian gastronomy and quite a few different types of alcoholic refreshment.

But, at the heart of it remained one of the biggest ADLG gatherings of the year, with 68 players drawn from all over Europe coming together for a marathon 6-game competition themed where every army list had to be led by one of its greatest historical generals ("Strategists" in L'Art de la Guerre terminology).

After much consideration I had ended up plumping for the Berbers, mainly as they had successfully invaded Spain (and most definitely not because I thought they were a "good" army under ADLG). 

The event itself then saw this somewhat scratch Berber host taking on the Ghaznavids, Timurids (twice), Byzantines, Feudal English and also the Ottoman Empire, and all of us taking on some extra pounds no doubt in the tapas bars and restaurants of Southern Spain too. 

With 6 games, a lot of tourism, a range of opponents from across the continent and an account on ChatGPT I've ended up absolutely throwing the kitchen sink at the whole "writing up the match reports" thing this time around, including video analysis, stats and odds charts, randomly generated Berber oaths, somewhat spurious pen-pictures of the Great Generals involved in the fighting, AI-generated poetry and army list analysis as well as the usual terrible jokes, irrelevant captions and other badly written nonsense you are probably already well used to. 

So, put the kettle on and brew yourself up a Sangria as now is your chance (as long as you are sitting comfortably..) to share that epic experience in the Battle & Tourism Reports from Alicante 2023. 

The Idlers of March : a new podcast episode lands!

After a lengthy hiatus (since November last year!!) the Madaxeman Podcast is back with a new daffodil-sprouting episode recorded earlier this week at the very start of March 2023. 

Despite the absence of any badger-related content, we do manage to cover shopping expeditions (online and in real life), take a diversion into discussing the merits of Siocast/Warlord Resin/"I Can't believe It's Not Called Airfix" plastic figures, get into a bit of Spartacan slap-chop via an azimuth spray disaster, go all Judge Dredd, barely mention cricket nets, explain to Adam what he's been missing all this time as a sidebar to the great "Amos vs Drummer - Who's The Expanse's Greatest Ever Character (and why it's obviously Drummer)" debate, talk about castles in Spain and why the second most successful Berber invasion of the Iberian Peninsula landed in Valencia instead of Alicante, have a peek at Andy's trophy haul and (eventually) learn how he ended up out of pocket after accidentally buying his own birthday presents from his wife.

There's also a return for Andy's Quiz, with a brand new Two Ronnies-style twist this week as we accidentally give you the answers to the questions from the episode before last.

The pod can be listened to on Podbean, or by searching for The Madaxeman Podcast on any of your usual podcast providers' platforms