Podcast 49 - Late Imperial Love Eggs

With a proper Lockdown sweeping the UK, the Madaxeman team return after a 2-week boiler-related hiatus with a typically rambling episode combining painting chat, Andy's Quiz and a barely in-depth look at the history behind the Late Imperial Roman army, and which are the best manufacturers to choose when cooking one up on the tabletop. 

In between these vitally important topics we also cover the ethics of using an elephant brush on a horses' ass, how to wargame the long-awaited Schwarzenegger-Dredd crossover movie, how Dave blagged his way into UCL by claiming to speak fluent Barkerese, we hand out some freebies from Martin at Vexillia, and finally the much-trailed Australian Love Egg expose is, erm, exposed.

Welcome back to Lockdown - especially as you do now know that you have got nothing better to do than listen to this podcast whilst painting figures that you'll not deploy until next Spring. 

The Black (Templar) Abbasid Guard

In my ongoing series of experiments with Contrast paints, I've just about finished these two units of Abbasid Black Guard spearment using Black Templar as the main colour for their cloaks. They are yet to be matt varnished (as its been too chilly outside to spray) so they are a smidge shiny, but are pretty much done.

The figures are mostly Artizan Designs Black Guard from their Moorish range - a fairly small range but fantastically cast with deep, bold details for taking this sort of paint. 

The Artizan figures come in packs of 4, so there are also a couple of Gripping Beast-based plastic arab infantry padding out the rear ranks on each base. 

At 6 figures, each 60mm x 40mm base is a little light on figures for "Spearmen" in ADLG, but these are big solid guys so they more than fill the available footprint with a very solid looking line of men and shields. 

These are just painted with Black Templar on a flat white base coat. No additional shading at all. 

The padded armour is Vallejo Beige Brown with an ink wash of Armypainter Strong Tone 

The Templar Black has something of a green verdigris tone to it - the best way I can describe it is that it seems to be the perfect colour to paint Ring Wraiths from LoTR in!

This sword is I suspect one from the GB Late Roman infantry set

I also had a couple of commander figure - either Perry or perhaps Footsore - who I had intended to squeeze onto each base but in the end they didn't fit and were also too static in their poses to go with the footsoldiers so I have created a stand alone Generals base for them instead

The chap in the middle of the back row unfortunately shows where I didn't do enough to fill the joins in the arms of the GB plastic figures., 

A great colour indeed. 

(The links to the paints are "affiliate links". If you buy something after clicking on them I get a small kickback from Amazon)

Kitbashed Arabs... the project at half way through

During the rolling, seemingly endless series of lockdowns and partial lockdowns in 2020 followers of my blog and website will know that I've been gradually building up an "all options" set of Arab troops to make up armies for L'Art de la Guerre in 28mm. The aim is kinda to mirror the 15mm Arab armies that I've enjoyed using in various competitions over the last few years, but also to try a couple of new things along the way - kitbashing and using GW Contrast paints. 

Having - of course - bought far too many figures for the army I decided to start by mainly concentrating on the cavalry first, with a few excursions into infantry for variety.  This set of 50-odd photos you can now access on my site is the first tranche of all of those figures, made up from 5 boxes of plastic figures all mushed together.

What you can now see here is a set each of Gripping Beast's Arab Light Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry, a Fireforge Mongol Cavalry set and two boxes of Gripping Beast's latst Gothic Heavy Cavalry - which are basically armoured lancers on cataphract-style fully barded horses.

Over the next few weeks you will see more of the cavalry on display - and perhaps more of the infantry as well if I get cracking on finishing them too.

Link to the page with all the photos here:

Listen to the 48th episode of the Madaxeman.com Podcast in which I talk about these figures a little (as well as other stuff)

Hungary vs Spain in Medieval Tabletop Simulator action

 Another Tabletop Simulator battle report, this time in full HD with a 200 point L'Art de la Guerre matchup featuring List 238 Medieval Hungarian vs List 228 Medieval Spanish is now on my YouTube channel. 

The gameplay has been speeded up around 8-fold to allow the whole battle to be watched in just over 20 minutes, and includes a running commentary describing the action from the Hungarian sides' point of view. 

There are also photos of the 15mm Essex Miniatures Hungarian army I painted during lockdown, and a review of both army lists being used as well. 

Episode 47 - The Lockdown Crew are back in Podtown

OK, perhaps that's a smidge overdramatic, but with the shutters coming down on social gaming across the UK right now it seems like the right time to toss another podcast into the ether for your indoor painting-accompaniment over the coming week.

This episode sees all 7 regular contributors Zooming in, with an increasingly un-rare unplanned guest appearance from Mrs Andy yet again stealing the show early doors. As well as a gallop through everyone's painting achievements, we attempt to dip a disconcertingly long toe into the garlic-infused pond-water that makes up the Bataille Empire ruleset, and of course there is a return for yet another innuendo-laden episode of Andy's Quiz. 

In an effort to ease you back in gently this episode only runs to just over an hour - there will be more next week...