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Random 15mm January Work in Progress

With the Lockdown Podcasts due to start again next week and the UK in what feels like it will be a hard-lockdown lasting at least into March, I've been chewing away at some bits and pieces before embarking onto an actual major project.

Here's a few photos of the WiP figures (all pre-matt varnishing, as it's too cold to do) - there are loads more photos on the Madaxeman Website

These are a mix of Essex and Magister Militum/Chariot hoplites, with a lone New Museum commander in the front rank.

The white leather armour itself was white undercoat, then a wash of ArmyPainter Dark tone to pick out the details, then it was painted white leaving the recesses clear of paint so the shading was left only in the recesses.

These are mostly the "boring" Essex Arab spearmen, again stripped in Biostrip, undercoated in white and then with GW contrast paints applied to mirror the 28mm figures I did a few months ago.

These are Donnington New Era arabs, based up as Saririyah Pikemen from the Fatimid Egyptian army list and painted in Contrast paints

The Donnington New Era arabs fit well next to Essex infantry size-wise

I've also been thinking about upgrading my Roman Carroballistas for a while, and Tamsins painting of these Donnington figures flagged up in the podcast spurred me on to finally get around to it

The ballista and cart on the left is from Donnington, on the right its from Essex - but all the crew are Donnington, sold as singles.

This is a rebasing project, separating my rather vast (mostly) Two Dragons Rus/Viking DBM army into separate ADLG Rus and Viking forces (and possibly creating a Viking army I can sell on eBay too)

I'm also taking the rebasing moment as an excuse to repaint the spears as well. Spears do tend to get chipped and bent, so repainting them all makes a big difference to how new the army looks.

Getting distracted by a variety of projects is sometimes a good thing, as it does mean you can get a sense of achievement from making a noticable difference to some figures - and at the moment we all need some achievements to mark down!

Equally, taking advantage of the extra time we've all been gifted at the moment does allow some experimentation, and the hoplites certainly fall into that category as I tried a very different painting style, taking almost a week to do these handful of figures

Either way, a break from launching into the next major project is great, and when it throws up some interesting figures, paint styles and creates some reason to use new(ly rebased) armies in future that otherwise might have languished in a drawer thats great too.

There are loads more photos of these on the Madaxeman Website

First posted on 15 January 2021 | 12:56 pm

About those new Warlord Games ACW figures....

After breaking the internet in the last couple of weeks, the debate about how big the new Warlord Games ACW figures actually are shows no signs of abating, even now they are in many peoples sweaty post-festive hands as part of the cover-mounted sprue on the latest WI edition.

I've actually got no dog in this particular race at all, as I already have a somewhat oversized collection of mostly original-Pendraken 10mm ACW forces for both sides which are based for Fire & Fury and are compatible with the armies of my mates with whom I hope to be playing large games at some point in the future...

..but the legend that is @Petetentacles from Bangor has got hold of some of thenew Warlord Games figures, painted them up and photographed them next to Peter Pig and 10mm 'new' Pendraken - and here they are:

From left to right these are : Peter Pig 15mm / WG "Epic Scale 13.5mm foot-to-eye but somehow also claiming to be 15mm too" strips / Pendraken 10mm / WG Epic Mounted Officer / Peter Pig Mounted Officer.

I am reliably informed that all of the infantry are based on the same Peter Pig plastic 40mm x 30mm bases. The WG cavalry are on a on base supplied for the figure, the Peter Pig one on a 2p piece of similar depth.

Ta-dah!

(Enterprising folks are already selling the WG sprues on eBay. Here's an Affiliate Link to the UK listings, from which I might earn a few pence commission if you buy anything after clicking it).

First posted on 2 January 2021 | 8:05 pm

Festive Persian Siege Towers...? OK, it's a stretch, but...

OK, maybe not - but if you are prepared to stretch to a bit of Old Testament nonsense and have an Early Achaemenid Persian army you'll probably have wondered what to use for 15mm scale "Cyrus Mobile Towers" at some point in the past... and now, I may have found the answer!

Very recently Pendraken announced an MDF Siege Tower in 10mm scale, which a quick email to Leon revealed was less than 40mm wide, and so would fit on a standard DBx basing frontage - the key challenge for other towers I'd looked at in the past.

At only a fiver a pop, I quickly ordered a couple and then set to with the wood glue to assemble the two of them.

With Museum Miniatures releasing some new Persian Sparabara, my own Essex Persian infantry were already slated to be replaced in the new year anyway, but this project meant that some of them won a last-minute reprieve from eBay as I instead upcycled a few bases of mixed bow / pavise infantry for tower crew.

I then added on some re-purposed Essex War Wagon horses to pull the towers (because I had them lying around with ADLG needing less wagons than previous rulesets), otherwise Museum's Draught Oxen might have been the ideal choice (although it looks like Essex "might" sell the wagon horses separately if you ask nicely too), and with the application of some printed-off "wallpaper" patterns (repeating the idea from my Assyrian Chariots of a few years ago) to give the towers a more detailed look than I could ever hope to paint and, well, Cyrus is your uncle!

There's about a dozen crew inside each tower, and a couple on the base as well to keep the enemy away from the horses!

You can fit 2 standing Essex infantry on each of the three internal levels. I used the wallpaper on the pavises as well.

This pattern is one of a number I've made available to download as a pdf from my site, but there are loads of images on Pinterest if you search for Persian or Assyrian Graphics.

The tower is painted in Citadel Magragge Blue - not sure if its still available but it is a nice strong dense dark blue.

I glued the drop-down "bridge" in the open position to fit more crew in. I may add one of the Museum kneeling archers here too once I get round to buying them.

Adding a different image on one of the front panels just about stops making the tower look like it's wearing pyjamas. I think....

The second tower I did in yellow, trying to blend in the yellow borders on this graphic from Pinterest.

Here I used much more of a mix of graphics - not sure it's as effective though as the blue one.

Part of the reason for using a mix of graphics was that the main one didn't scale down well to the smaller panels at the top of the tower.

Again, space on the drop-down bit for a kneeling archer.

Even the 10mm ladders internally don't look too out of scale.

This is a standard 40mm wide and 80mm deep DBx "war wagon" base.

Get the Towers from Pendraken
Download the Wallpaper
Oxen from Museum
Crew from Museum
Crew from Essex
Horses from Essex (maybe?)

Happy Christmas!

First posted on 24 December 2020 | 12:09 pm

Here's those Arabs... for the last time (for a while)

Yep, finally the mega-project is done and dusted. Or, matt varnished more accurately.

That means an "all options" ADLG Generic Arab Dynasties army in 25/8mm plastic and metal is now ready to be used, whenever that may be.

Here are the final set of full-army photos;

There are plenty more photos of the individual figures on the following pages on Madaxeman.com:

First posted on 14 December 2020 | 6:54 pm

Come on Down, the Price is Right! Podcast goes viral..

As the festive vaccination season looms large in the minds of wargamers around the world, the Madaxeman podcast team are back with an honest to goodness actual discussion about a topic which seems to be on everyone's Christmas list, why are so many wargamers seemingly more obsessed with the price of a figure than the quality?

The core premise of the discussion is that for the rules we all play, a typical 15mm army comes in at 120-odd figures. That means the price difference between buying an army of the most expensive figures on the market today (50p each = £60) vs the cheapest (31p each = £37.80) is just £22.80.

Given figures are at the heart of everything we do as gamers – playing, painting, collecting – and we all keep our collections for years (decades even), we spend loads on paint, terrain, gaming mats (heck, even box sets of naval games from Warlord Games that we've still not assembled and which we all know that we'll be lucky to play even once) – in what part of our collective psyche does it make sense to spend ages calculating how to ‘save' £22 on 120 figures we'll spend months painting and play with many times if that means we are compromising on "quality" by not just buying the figures we like the most ?

Why don't we instead spend the same time simply choosing the figures we like the best and then buying them, whether they are 31p, 40p or 50p a pop?

There is also all of the usual painting, gaming and Gallic techno-driven military themed obscure general knowledge to fill your early December weekends and evenings as well as a quick diversion into airbrushing, a cough-assessment section (no, not like that..), a fairly comprehensive listing of those world museums displaying collections of "stand alone" military legs, many admissions of accidental purchasing, and a lengthy almost-feature on how to make an old rusty skip look like an old rusty skip using hairspray and fake rubble.

Podcast Link to Podbean , or search for "Madaxeman Podcast" using any of your usual podcast providers.

(The "price vs quality" chat starts around 43:30 if you want to skip the rest)

The topic has already stirred up some discussion on TWS - here's the thread and on Twitter

First posted on 7 December 2020 | 11:34 am

Arab Infantry... the Spearmen Arrive

That project that's "nearly" done... we all have one, and mine is the interminable Arab 28mm army which continued to threaten to last into next year.

The latest non-self-inflicted delay is an inability to get outside to do some matt varnishing, so I've just taken some photos anyway of the infantry who are waiting on a bit of Testors and thrown them online with pics of all the other infantry I've done so far.