20 Lockdown Podcasts

 During the Great Covid Lockdown of 2020 the Madaxeman posse (yeuch!) recorded a set of 20 weekly podcasts to keep one another sane, and compare notes on how much painting they had done - and all 20 episodes are now collected here on one single page

Part educational (a very small part), part just some blokes and a girl chatting not at the pub this series developed a cultish following as the series evolved over the 20 week stretch, and now this is your chance to start from the very beginning and hear the concept, the content and the output evolve from it's early Zoom-powered fumblings to the flully-fledged almost a radio show end product by Week 20.

You can listen again to all 20 episodes directly on this page, or by clicking through to your favourite Podcast platform as this Podcast is also available on Podbean, Spotify, iTunes, and Tune In (meaning you can ask for it on Alexa devices) and even Youtube

As a bit of background here's my personal tally of painting in this 20-week lockdown period - all of these get discussed in the Podcast, as well as several thousand other figures, vehicles and terrain pieces from the other cast members;

(All the stuff we talk about we've bought ourselves - there's no product placement, freebies or paid endorsements in here. But if anyone did want to send anything, please get in touch!)

"Pre-Covid Sassanid" Persian Match Reports from Cold Wars 2020

Arriving from the distant depths of pre-lockdown history with less warning than a new Taylor Swift album release, these 3 Madaxeman.com "Doubles" match reports finally emerge into the light of day blinking as furiously as an Amish buggy's indicators with a flat battery.

The mighty forces of Persia ride across the North American plain and engage in wanton warfare in the bowels of the Cold Wars 2020 auditorium at the very dawn of the age of Covid against the Classical Indians, the 100YW French and Alexander the Great.

There are beers, maps, pizza slices and almnost certainly a foot-long hotdog in these American-tastic 3 widescreen 20 Floz match reports with a side of fries and a portion of salsa.

Let's make Wargaming face-to-face Great again with these 3 Madaxeman.com "Doubles" match reports

More War & Empire Sassanid Cataphracts

Painted up at pretty much the same time as the Carolingians are three more units of War & Empire / Forged in Battle Sassanids Cataphracts. 

I'd already got 3 units worth, which isn't quite enough for a proper Sassanid army (you kinda need 4 at least I think) so rather than stick with using Roman-style ones, when I saw a pack on eBay for a tenner for 12 mounted figures I dived in and doubled the force.

These chaps have a lot of variety in the pack, and handily come with 13 riders, one of whom is a standard bearer and one an officer/General type with a mace so you can choose whether to have a standard-bearing officer in one of the units or not. 

They paint up super-easily, with simple cloaks and just enough variety to keep them interesting.

 You can also comfortably get 4 on a 40mm wide base by staggering them slightly front and back

I chose to give just a few of them cloth (or cloth-covered) armour, the rest are in full metal again to get a smidge more colour into the block. What's not to like, especially for just a tenner post-free ?!

 

Baueda Carolingians in 15mm

Another altrusitic purchase to fund Martin at Vexillia's passion for Warrington Town FC, these 4 units of Carolingian mounted archers are from Baueda. 

The ADLG Carolingian list only has 2 units of them, but with 4 figures in a pack and 3 to a base I kinda thought why not just but the extra pack and get 4 units in case...erm.... well, you know how it goes !

They are jolly little fellows, very much "true" 15mm with just two poses in the pack (Code: CRL5) and come with separate horse and rider.

 In the metal the figures are a little underwhelming, and look somewhat oddly proportioned but the detail is - like with most Baueda figures - really clearly defined and takes a wash extremely well. 

They also have a really great "likability" factor (as saying "they are cute" doesn't really sound right for mail-clad medieval warriors on horseback) and I must admit the thought of extending this to a whole army rather than just morphing some of my genric Dark Age horsemen for the rest of the figures is now quite tempting.

The Bauea site says that "These Frankish horse archers are based on the capitularies' insistance that each armoured horsemen should own a bow and on contemporary artistic depictions. Their training, experience, weapons, armour and equipment are the same as the other caballarii, but with the addition of a bow."

They are now in the 15mm photo gallery on Madaxeman.com

The return of the Malifaux Painting Mojo

In a world of lockdown painting in which I'd already done a 28mm Ancients army (the Assyrians), a 10mm French Napoleonic army and also a 15mm Medieval Hungarian, I suddenly found myself in need of some additional variety

This was not because the other three were in any way similar topics, or uniforms - it was more about trying to paint individual figures rather than painting up and finishing a full army, with a 'full army' on table mass effect.

Prompted in the Lockdown Podcast to remember that I did have some Malifaux figures on the painting pile (although rather hidden in a cupboard) I dug them out and was pleasantly surprised to remember that there were more than I thought - I had forgotten buying Envy, from the Crossroads Seven, from eBay to add to the box-completing extras for the new Kaeris crew, Sparks (my first Gremlin) to go with Mei Feng and finally Neil Henry just to do some old fashioned beating

There are loads of pictures on the website, but here are a few tasters: