In the margins of the recent SELWG show in Picketts Lock a well-padded BHGS Teams event took place with sets of three players contesting ADLG glory in three well-themed pools - including Maximum Elephants!
22 Nov 2022
Elephants Sir! Faarsands of 'em!
20 Nov 2022
3D prints - The Greeks
Those of you who listen to the Madaxeman Podcast will have heard us talking about 3D prints a fair amount recently - and in the lastest episode ("Huge Grenadier Hat Malarkey") we even committed to the idea of Tamsin printing off some figures for us all to have a go at painting as well.
These are the 3D Breed "free" models (STL files to be precise I believe) that are given away as tasters to their range, and come in both 15mm and 28mm styles. Tamsin printed them off for all of the Podcast crew and I've now managed to finish prepping and painting the Greek Hoplites I ended up with, and have taken a few photos of them here:
These are the beasties in their au naturel purple plastic form, with "supports" still in place. This looks a right mess and a faff, but using a sprue clipping tool (a necessary investment for anyone making plastic figures these days IMO) they did clean up eailly easily and quickly to then undercoat for painting.
We'll be talking more about these figures on the next episode of the Madaxeman Podcast which is out now and can be reached directly here
11 Nov 2022
A few more bits and pieces
The lead pile clearing continues with the following, some of which have actually been done for a while but haven't been photographed before now.
These are Blemmye cavalry from 15mm.co.uk - possibly to feature as African Kingdoms or even top quality Numidians at some point in future.
They are (typically for 15mm.co.uk) rather small as this comparison to some Old Glory/Exxex Numidians shows
An Essex scythed chariot, made bold (and done easily) with Contrast Paints
Forged in Battle Numidian foot, given slightly bolder shields than my first pass at this lot had ended up with
18 Oct 2022
Random bits and pieces
With 2 full armies in the paint queue, I finally got around to tidying up some of the odds and sods that had been cluttering my paint table for, well, in some cases, many years!
The ends results are eclectic, and not all done in Contrast Paints either (to make a nice change!)
First up, some dynamic falling knights from Donnington's 100YW range, based up as exuberant hit markers
Next, and the main batch, some 28mm metal knight figures of unknown (ie unpainted on a Bring & Buy) origin.
I've used waterslide transfer paper and my home printer to make the symbols for the heraldry so that's why they look so precise - my painting hasn't suddenly improved !
Irritatingly a bit of ink wash seems to have congealed on this guy's shield.
They are done up as Spanish Knights, with Castile and Leon heraldry
And a few other cities and statelets too
I really like these figures - they came with separate hands to mix and match weaponry
One unit is in non-Spanish colours
I've had this guy hanging around for ages, but drilled out his hand and added a Valencian flag
More weirdly, these are some sort of random armoured horsemen on what I am pretty sure are old Essex Han Chinese chariot horses, painted up as African Kingdoms mounted warriors or cataphracts
The padding really helps create a bright and unusual looking unit.
I did also add some cotton as horse-hair style pennants to differentiate the Elite from the Average ones.
More random stuff to come soon!
12 Oct 2022
Refurbished Hittites
The epic task of selling off our late clubmate Clive's collection (on behalf of his family) was not 100% succesful. A rather battered looking Hittite army, presumably bought for DBM or DBMM, resolutely refused to tempt any of the people I offered it to - presumably the near total lack of chariot wheels and crew, and the 50%+ lack of even chariot bodies to accompany the vast numbers of horses was somehow off-putting!
Rather than consign it to the recycling pile however, I decided to take it on as a project, and contacted the nice folks at Essex as I know they have sold separate components in the past.
They were happy to supply me with horseless chariots and crew, so after a lot of soaking-off of the robust original bases, a full rebasing, and the addition of some new, fully wheeled-up chariots the army has now become a pretty decent ADLG Hittite/Ugaritic force
This is a pure-play Essex chariot, mounted on a 40mm round base to act as a General
Both of these are the original Lancashire Games chariot bodies, some with wheels scrounged from the bits box (possibly stolen from unused Napoleonic gun carriages...) and a mix of the Essex and original Lancashire crew
Essex chariot bodies, painted in a simple GW Contrast red with white trim, with Lancashire horses and Lancashire crew
This may well have been the only "original" chariot from the Lancashire range to survive, with even their own wheels !Lancashire crew, Essex chariot body, Lancashire horses
There were hundreds of these slingers from the Lancashire Makedonian range, all based as LI, which makes me suspect it was a DBMM army. They unfortunately suffer from the occasional Lancashire Games issue of very weak ankles, so I'm not sure how long they will survive. ADLG doesn't use many slingers, so I used a load of the spare ones to base up in blocks of 7-8 to use as Levy
These bowmen are very nice figures, and have robust ankles too. I can see them making appearances in other Biblical armies as well.
I suspect these may be Essex refugees who snuck into the army - based up as Javelinmen, with a lone slinger hidden in the middle of the pack to bulk out the 8 of these figures to two bases of ADLG-appropriate numbers
These are the main body of infantry - using some bowmen to again boost numbers. The simple paint job the original painter did looks very effective, but is really just some easy-to-do dots - very effective for the effort!
The army list has some Elite bow units with Pavise, so having also found these pavises hanging around it seemed an ideal opportunity to use them.
The figures are mostly from the Lancashire Games range, and you can see a load more pictures of this army online in my 15mm figure gallery