These Romans Are Not Far Away!

Posts to Madaxeman.com have been on a bit of a hiatus recently, but that's not to say that wargaming has been taking a back seat.

No, I've actually been painting and basing some serious quantities of figures, including some new 28mm Patrician Romans built on the core of a couple of boxes of the new-ish Gripping Beast plastic figures.

Of course, the project expanded and soon included some Foundry and Footsore metals, and a huge number of Old Glory not-quite-historical hairy barbarian foederate foot and mounted to pad out the army.

But, they are here, and have even had at least one game so far too - where they beat the Huns at L'Art de la Guerre. All of the figures are based for ADLG, on 60mm wide basing with 2 ranks for all of the non-skirmishing infantry. 

The Auxilia in particular who are on 60x60's really suit this basing, with some even being based in a dangerous-looking wedge formation.

There's as a result now a huge page of pictures of these excellent figures for you to browse and enjoy!

No More Turkey - it's time for Chinese!

Appearing shortly after the festive break, the perfect antidote to too much turkey, stuffing and the inevitable but somehow unwanted cheese course are these FIVE battle reports from Warfare 2016, featuring a Spring and Autumn Chinese army in brutal combat against a range of Biblical-era foes...

Watch in amazement as an order of L'Art de la Guerre appears on the table in Reading for the very first time, and a long-unused biblical era chariot force is taken out of the deep freeze to rumble across the battlefield and poke it's chopsticks at the enemy from close range.

The Chinese take on the Babylonians, Assyrians, Omanis, Carthaginians and the always difficult to spell Aechemenid Persians in 5 brutal tabletop conflicts, all of which have been certified MSG-free, (but which may contain nuts).

The reports are then wrapped up in lettuce leaves and dipped in some classical analysis from Hannibal to counteract the Communist speechifying and propaganda of the Chinese General... so dig in, as you know you'll want some more in half an hour anyway.

25mm Late Romans still underway...

With Christmas just around the corner, here's some not particularly festive WIP shots of my Patrician Romans for ADLG in 25 (8?) mm.

They are a mix of the Gripping Beast plastics, some Old Glory mixed barbarians (that I think might be mostly Scots from a slightly later era, but seem to do OK as generic Gothic foot types) with a few Foundry and Footsore figures sprinkled in to make the variety greater.

 Romans prepare to take on the (as yet un-Army-Paintered) barbarian hordes

12 units of barbarians.... let;s hope the Romans are Elite!

Auxilia, with obligatory LBMS shield transfers

The man holding up the shield is one of the "far too many in the pack" Gripping Beast archers, but converted to hold his shield up to cover his colleague from archery

Some of the "far too many" archers acting as, well, archers. I went away from the textbook red colour scheme to make them more exotic.

Still awaiting Testors Dullcote varnish on this lot

A Degenerate Legionary unit with an old-school standard

I think the officer may be a Footsore Miniatures Romano-British figure

Cloaks at the ready...

Foundry armoured cavalry. Probably able to play as Cataphracts as well at a pinch. I used some spare GB plastic spears as their lances, as they are pretty robust and the Foundry metal ones are far too bendy. They don't yet have Army Painter on them

More LBMS shield transfers....

Warlord Games 'Unleash Hell' General and Dog

Again, needing a coat of Dullcote. His skintone is just a wash with Peat Brown ink.

Hopefully I will find time to put a big dent in getting them all table-ready over the festive break...

Playing Wargames with Kids

One of my erstwhile Doubles partners has recently started a blog in which he will be chronicling his attempts to teach his young son a variety of different warganes rules.

The general idea is to share his experiences / thoughts with people that are also looking for games to play with children.

He's also a teacher and runs a games club at school, so there is a bit of a 'professional' perspective to his thoughts as to how to get youngsters into playing wargames which may also be helpful and as this whole "encouraging more people to play wargames" thing is generally A Good Idea I therefore thought the blog link was well worth sharing.

The first game he played was One Hour Wargames – specifically the Ancients rules. So if you are looking for a game to play with people of a younger persuasion, or want to know how One Hour Wargames works for ancients, or indeed just have some time to kill, please take a look.

Aaah-oooh - it's the Dacians of London Again..!

Fresh from drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics, those barbarian scallywags from the land of Dracula, the Dacians, touch down in Central London for 3 games of Roman-period themed L'Art de la Guerre goodness.

Marvel at how this usually somewhat underpowered army performs against Mithradates, Rome and the Germanic Tribes in three punchy and to the point match reports, complete with the usual smattering of captions and other tosh.

Be warned though, it's not going to be subtle... !

Results from the 2016 "Central London Invitational" ADLG Tournament

With 31 participating players what may well be the biggest single pool Ancients Singles event held anywhere in the UK this year took place today at Central London Wargames Club.

This was a 200 point 3-game 1-day Roman themed L'Art de la Guerre tournament, and congratulations are in order for Hubert Bretagne, Ian Mackay and Mike Bennett who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

A good time appeared to be had by all - here are the full results and some photos from the event.