Devizes 2024 - the Battle Reports !

In a truly surprising development, 4 "traditional format" read-along battle reports are now available for anyone who wishes to follow the varied exploits of a deeply smelly and unwashed Ilkhanid Mongol army in stunning hyper-colour  and (mostly) 28mm plastic, as they take on the Samurai, the Ghaznavids, the Burmese and finally the Mongols of Timur the Lame down in the heart of the West Country at Attack! 2024's ADLG competition.

Thrill as the Armenian-supported Ilkhanids send waves of fragrant dancing cavalry, eager unwashed knights and reluctant yet deeply sweaty spearmen out to fight a variety of almost equally colourful foes, including Mighty Shrew Elephants dressed in patchwork duvets ...

 

..bare-chested Burmese jungle dwelling tribesmen who can wiggle all of their toes independently, and...

.. the "I can't believe it's not Seleucid" Elephant Corps of Tamerland the Great and his horde of partly undead warriors and cannon fodder. 

Yes, this is a possibly welcome (YVMV) return to the old-school of battle report blogging, with rubbish captions, a probably unhealthy focus on the Mongol's poor personal hygenine, ridiculously OTT descriptive sentence structures, and the musings of both the Ilkhanid Khan and (of course) Nasty Hannibal himself  to reconsider all of the action at the end of each game. 

These battle reports are accompanied by the "Melksham, Don't Mind if I do!" edition of the Madaxeman (Video) Podcast.

 

Ten Kingdoms 3D printed Sung Chinese

 In my ongoing dabbling with 3D printed figures the latest test batch is a sample set of cavalry and a few infantry from Ten Kingdoms, as produced under license in the UK by eBay seller Micks Bits.

These chaps are - as printed - slightly large for 15mm, but Mick seems to have found a very good quality resin, robust but with just enough flex not to be as snap-liable as some of the earlier 3D prints I've tested the waters (or resins..) with in the past. 

They are really, really crisp figures, seemingly with more detail emerging the more time you spend trying to paint them properly (!) - another sign that 3D printing even for small scale miniatures continues to come on in leaps and bounds. 

The cavalry even come with pre-printed 3D shields (only one design I think) which you can ink wash and add a bit of paint to and come up with a classic Chinese dragon-face thingy fairly easily.

There is a hard-to-pin-down difference between these CAD-designed sculpts and "normal" sculptor-carved figures, which is perhaps best articulated as these being somehow "cleaner" - but this range at least seems to have managed to get in quite a bit of the artistic elements of "character", with even facial expressions being visibly different on the individual figures. 

Here are the archer and crossbowman stood next to some Lurkio metal castings I bought and painted up at the same time. 

At tabletop distances they are not noticably different in height, but the 3D prints are more well-fed and the difference in amount and sharpness of detail is very noticable. 

I'm working through a fairly major pile of "undercoat these figures outside before the weather turns" at the moment, so quite when I will get around to turning this sample-sized initial purchase into a full army is anyone's guess, but the more time I spend looking at these guys the more convinced I am that I will end up with a Song / Ming / Khitan army using Ten Kingdoms sculpts (designs?) at some point in the near future,. 

 

2024 Kegworth Codgers Midweek Challenge: Runners & Riders

 We now have a near-full list of Runers & Riders for the upcoming Kegworth Codgers Midweek Challenge ADLG competition, with a rather astounding 32 players finding time from their busy retirement and part-time work schedules to attend plus - I believe - one chap who was so desparate not to miss out on a couple of days in an unbranded Premier Inn-equivalent motel just off the M1 that he's booked 2 days holiday to play too.

The event is themed for Kegworth's great transport links and proximity to the Fosse Way, inspiring a Roman Roads theme of "armies valid in the period when the Romans were building roads across the Britain, 43-407AD" and that has resulted in a pretty decent spread of options, with 21 different lists represented including 7 Roman armies and a further 7 hailing from outside the Roman sphere of influence.

In a week and a bit therefore the mighty halls of the Kegworth Hotel & Conference Centre will echo to the sounds of warfare, as the battle is joined to see who is the Codger of the Year 2024.  

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Future Islands ?

Having a strong Guernsey connection has made me rather enamoured of Martello Towers, and so when I saw that Brigade Models did Black Seas-sized Martello Towers it was inevitable I would have to buy some. 

And here they are in all their teeny tiny glory!

The islands are irregular MDF bases I picked up at the Attack! show from Products for Wargamers, and will soon be providing challenging obstacles for my two navies to try and avoid running aground on!