Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

Forged in Battle Late Romans

It was only fairly recently that I realised that I didn't actually own any proper "Late Roman" legionaries.

I've got Lorica Segmenta guys with square shields, Republican mail-clad chaps, Middle Roman half-way curved shield dudes, and some early Byzantine spearmen who have stood in for very late Romans in the past.. but none of the actual Late Roman/Patrician guys at all.

So rectifying that became a bit of a mission, especially after I somehow acquired some Forged in Battle LBMS transfers for Late Roman Legionaries - that I of course could not bear to waste!

And, after a bit of painting and purchasing, here is the finished result:

I now have some Legionaries who, thanks to LBMS, look exactly like everyone elses!

These are mostly from the mail-clad set from FiB, with a couple of leather-cuirass guys in there - most notably the chap at the front leaning on his shield, who is IMO by far and away the best figure in any of the FiB Late Roman packs.

I have squeezed a couple more leather guys in the rear rank, so as to get 4 bases (32 figures) of "quality" legionaries and then 16 figures of all-leather "2nd string" ones out of the two packs I bought.

Top down view.

Here is a more simple shield - easier to blend in the transfer from a brushstroke POV, but still a little challenging in terms of paint matching, as the transfer is really very, very vibrant and none of my collection of Reds quite managed to match it perfectly.

Once the figures have been matt varnished it looks a lot better, but if you look closely you can see the painted in edges.

These are the leather-only chaps, with a less inspiring (or less "real-looking") shield design too. They also got black crests to make them even more less imposing.

The poses in these sets are a little underwhelming TBH, and I also found the faces to be very small, often on many of them a little too small to do my latest "blob for the nose, cheekbones and chin" face painting style - however the GW Darkoath Flesh base coat seems to pick them out almost well enough anyway.

As there was so much Hardened Leather Army Painter Speedpaint on these, the straps were done in GW Militarum Green contrast so it would stand out against the leather armour.

So, I now own 48 Very Late Imperial / Patrician Legionaries !

First posted on 20 July 2026 | 5:26 pm

Museum Z-Sculpt Persian Immortals in Campaign Dress

I already have a bucketload of Persians from Museum, but I had been lacking any in Ceremonial dress - so the January Sale in early 2026 was my opportunity, and my excuse was to use them to build the solitary unit of Apple Bearers for the Later Achaemenid army.

And here they are, looking suitably stylish. This is the pack of Foot Command (2 standard bearers, 2 axemen, 2 trumpeters) all squeezed on a 40x30 base together with 4 rear-rank archers shooting overhead.

They are painted in GW Gryph-Hound Orange with Army Painter Fanatic DaemonicYellow + Royal Blue spots applied on top.

For the standards, I just painted them in Fanatic Gold, and then gave them a wash with Dark Tone to take the edge off a little.

Here they are with the Xyston Takabara - not too dissimilar in stature, but best they are not on the same base maybe.

As seems to be the case with many (but not all) of the Museum Z Sculpt figures, the detail on these castings was a little short of what the 3D renders on their website promise, most notably around the belts, straps, scabbards and bowcases.

This did make them a bit harder to paint with Contrasts than they really should be - in stark contrast to the Xyston figures, where you can practically see where the sculptor has cut out and stuck on thin strips of Green Stuff to make the belts on the figures - but even so I am very pleased with how they all came out.

There are more pics in the 15mm Gallery on my site.

First posted on 13 July 2026 | 12:00 pm

Xyston Takabara

Earlier this summer I accidentally ordered some Persian Takabara infantry from Xyston, as part of a valiant effort to get value for money out of the postage costs of buying one piece of 15mm artillery from them (which you may have already seen ...).

This first photo shows their backs, as that is where most of the arty stuff is visible, as I did them with a base coat of GW Contrast, and then added double-spots with Army Painter fanatic colours - which didn't run into the Contrasts, much to my relief.

These are great little figures, and even better with LBMS transfers on their shields - although with 4 different sizes and shapes of shields and transfers, each of which is only slightly different, matching them up is a little tricky!

Because the transfers might not always go on the right shields, its really important with these I found to blend in the edges of the transfers with paint - which I have done with all of the ones here.

It proved a perfect excuse to get my Wet Pallette out again to do the blending, and a good self-justification for buying some of the ArmyPainter 6-part "triads" as well to blend an exact match for the LBMS transfers too.

These guys are especially good IMO, with a base of Mantis Warrior Green with Pure Red and Daemonic Yellow dots.

You may notice that a couple of the archers here are wearing Early Persian ceremonial dress - and are in fact Museum Z-sculpt figures, as it turned out I needed 12 archers to give each base 2 "support" shooters as well as the 4 spear/axe/sword armed troopers.

Anyways, I am really pleased with how they came out - there are some more photos of them in the Photo Gallery on this site.

First posted on 6 July 2026 | 12:00 pm

Ostrogoths in Milton Keynes : Battle Reports from Campaign 2026

This year I returned to Campaign for the first time in a while, as part of one of the CLWC teams of three players in the traditionally tightly themed event. The pool I was in was themed for the Wars of Atilla, with Huns, Patrician Romans, Gepids, Arabs and Ostrogoths as the only options.

Having already used Patricians, and Huns, and Gepids, and deciding that the Arab army in this time period was a bit rubbish, the Ostrogoths ended up being the default choice - rather irritatingly as I had recently sold my Sarmatian/Gothic cavalry on eBay prior to replacing them with some as-yet unpainted FiB figures!

That meant my Ostrogoths did look a tad Gallo-German, but they were close enough so that's how they rolled into Milton Keynes ready for battle.

All 5 battle reports are now published in video format. To try and be a bit different I took a lot of the photos from a "helicopter view", trying to take a shot after each player's turn.

The general idea was to show more of the broad brush strategy of how the battles developed, but of course with a lot of Impetuous Cavalry Lancers on each side the amount of tactican finesse on display was often somewhat limited in practice!

Anyways, the reports are now posted on this website on a single page where you can view them in sequence, or in a YouTube playlist.

First posted on 1 July 2026 | 12:00 pm

Random Legionaries

No-one is quite sure how their bits box becomes a home for so many random figures, almost none of which you can ever remember buying - and mine is no exception.

But every now and then my efforts to try out new styles of painting, and new paints collides with the contents of the bits box and I have a got at cobbling together a little unit of vaguely similar figures to see if I can make the old lead into something worthwhile.

This time it's a very eclectic set of Imperial Roman figures that I noticed had somehow managed to get up close to double figures, allowing me to make up a full base of ADLG Legionaries.

My "EIR" Legions are all Old Glory figures, with LBMS transfers so these are very much a quick and dirty extra unit who look rather unlike the rest of them - maybe Praetorians, or maybe Penal Legion, take your pick!

The "test" aspects of them are that the lorica segmentata is done in Enchanted Steel from ArmyPainter onto a white base coat.

I have no idea where the guy standing at the back is from - he was the shonky-est casting of the lot, so I sort of hid him at the back.

All of the leather is ArmyPainter Speedpaint Hardened Leather

The figures throwing pilums are I believe Donnington EIR legionaries, with one Auxilia in the middle so you can't really see his oval scutum shield.

I suspect the chap standing up holding his shield in the front row may be a Corvus Belli figure - how I came to own him I don't know as I don't have any more like him at all.

The standard bearer may well be a Chariot Miniatures figures, as he looks a bit skinny - but he is nicely detailed.

All the red is Armypainted Blood Red Speedpaint, and the super-simple shield design is kinda rubbish this close up, but from tabletop distances looks acceptable enough.

When or if they will ever make it on table is anyone's guess - but at least the bits box is a little lighter now!

First posted on 27 June 2026 | 12:26 pm

Kneeling camels

This may well be getting pretty deep into "want but don't need" territory, but the combination of Museum's January sale, and having seen that there are at least a couple of Ancient armies (Moors and Early Arabs) who can have troops defending behind a line of tethered camels inevitably meant I was compelled to buy some of Museums kneeling camels earlier this year - and here they now are.

There isn't a great deal to say about them really, other than that they are done in GW Contrast Paints, with Darkoath Flesh and Aggaros Dunes being the two main colours used.