Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

The Persians are Coming!

Last month my mostly-Legio Heroica 15mm Sassanid Persian army fought its way out of the Bisley storage cabinet* for the first time in almost 8 years (!!) to conduct a 5-battle campaign against a number of fairly historical foes at the Roll Call competition in Cranfield.

All of the many highs (and lows) of this sequence of military misadventures have now been painstakingly captured and lovingly crafted into a semi-coherent wordy and verbose narrative for your delight and delectation, and are even now available on Madaxeman.com.

These include three battles against the Sassanids arch-enemies the Byzantines, as well as a Sassanid Civil War and a somewhat time travelling faceoff against the might of the Fatimid Caliphate.

You'll see Elephants, Camels, fierce hill tribesmen and well-drilled Roman-style cavalry whirling across a number of tabletops, all with the added bonus of all of the in-stream historical videos, dreadful puns, partially-relevant animated GIFs, and vague attempts to explain the rules of the game that you may by now have come to love and dread in equal measure. 

There are - of course - also a great many photos in which you can see what the soldiers are saying and thinking on the tabletop, blatantly false and self-congratulatory summaries of the battle from the Great Shah, and all topped off with the usual bitingly acerbic analysis from Hannibal himself.

So, pour yourself a cup of Iranian tea and get ready to dunk into the un-digestive-able narrative that is 5 all new Sassanid Persian battle reports on Madaxeman.com!  

First posted on 13 May 2025 | 11:51 am

3D Printed Numidians

 Another week, another dabble with 3D printed models.

This time it is some 15mm Numidian cavalry from the 3D Breed March to Hell range, which I picked up as I have never really been happy with the mix of Essex, Baueda and Old Glory Numidians that I already own. 

So, having flogged off some of the metals as part of an eBay sale I then spent some of my ill-gotten eBay gains to pick up some of these prints mostly to see what this now well-established and well-known design shop (is that the right wording?) could offer. 

And here are the results:

Horses are mostly done in GW Contrasts - Aggaros Dunes, Gore-Grunta Fur, Templar Black and then the grey is Warlords Speeedpaint Holy White.

The rope "bridle" is also a Speedpaint, hardened leather - all done with white base coat.  

The horses are lovely sculpts - the riders come as separate pieces and I was immediately fearful of the spears as they are thin and rather brittle, to the point I was a little nervous about snipping off some of the "flash" even with a sprue cutter. 

 

These chaps have rather luxurious hair - David Ginola must have had Numidan ancestors somewhere down the line! 

They are a well animated bunch and take paint nicely too... however ... 

 Yes, every single one broke off its base at the ankles, with a couple also suffering further damage to the horses legs - some very tiny bits of which I knew immediately that I would never find. 

So, in summary, these are very nice figures, and a real upgrade on my rather old metals - but the combination of "materials" and "design" for these 3D prints still perhaps isn't quite there as yet to make them robust enough for butterfingered wargamers like me!

First posted on 27 April 2025 | 8:42 pm

Teeny Tiny Pirates

I had sworn that I was done with rigging tiny ships, but being gifted a pair of 1/700th Warlord Games Black Seas Brigs by Andy (a covermount giveaway on one of the wargames mags a few years ago) unfortunately meant the glue, tweezers and swearing all made a quick reappearance as I conjured these two little ships up into a pair of Pirate brigs.

 

Being covermounts these were missing the sails, which come pre-printed on thin card in an actual Warlord set. 

 

Luckily Warlord provide a downloadable set of sails for Brigs and Frigates to print out at home. 

Matching up the front and back on my printer proved rather more tricky than I hoped it would be, so in the end I just printed them on two sheets of paper and glued them together - which gave the sails more robustness anyway compared to a single sheet of paper.  

The other thing "missing" would be ratlines, which Warlord provide as black-printed acetate sheets. These ones feature the more expensive and sophisticated laser etched metal ones which I ended up buying from Ali Express in China as a bit of an experiment in seeing how long delivery would take - which was not that long at all.  

I think they do look good, but whether the extra faff is worth the squeeze I'm not sure - maybe next time I might buy some sails and ratlines from Warlord anyway for a few quid?  

First posted on 14 April 2025 | 11:15 am

The Skoutatoi

If you'd been worried that I hadn't posted any pictures of Byzantines in 15mm for a couple of weeks, then worry no more, as here come the Skoutatoi for my Byantine army! 

I used the extras up by making a couple of bases with 5 spearmen in the front rank rather than the usual 4, with the theory that I can occasionally use these bases as "supported spearmen", or just call them even more Skoutatoi as needed, depending on the design of the army list.

Shields are of course LBMS transfers, sold to me by Forged in Battle. 

This padded armour is Warlord Games Blood Red from their Speedpaint set.

TheLBMS transfers are smaller than the shields by some margin, so these blue 'blokes face' ones I painted in with a dark blue (and also a mached red) up to the edges of the shields.

This armour is GW Aggaros Dunes contrast type paint. One of my favourite contrast colours. 

These rather odd looking shield transfers seem to be missing a bit  - possibly a cutout for a shield boss? 

Anyways, as they too didn't reach to the edge of the shield I painted in a red edge to each shield before sticking on the transfer (which already has a red edge...)

That also didn't really look right, so I then added an outer edge of yellow with an AK paint pen, which I am finding is much easier to use for touchup than a brush.

This armour is GW Militarum Green - a contrast type paint.

Viewed from above this close up you can see a load of casting lines that I perhaps should have spent more time shaving off .. but, "three foot rule" and all that I guess ?!

An extra shield transfer was cut down and used for the standard bearer. 

First posted on 10 April 2025 | 7:30 am

Some "Yuge" War Wagons !

 Having sold a few of the textbook Essex War Wagons in recent years, I've accidentally drifted back into owning more than I will ever probably use as a result of picking up some because they looked interesting, and more latterly being given some 3D prints as giveaways along with competition entry. 

Mixing metal ones from different manufacturers, 3D prints in resin and even an MDF one does however lead to some serious variations in scale, or perhaps more accurately, "size" between the different ranges - and that is very much reflected here! 

This one was a 3D print handed out to competitors at the Akra Leuka Tournament in Alicante in January 2025.  I've added some Essex & Mirliton crew who are sort of randoms, all picked out of the bits box. The wagon is enormous and I needed to sit the crew on 2 lolly sticks to give them the extra height to see out. 

This cute little box on wheels is the Fireforge MDF kit of a 15mm war wagon. The wheels are a bit "Fred Flintstone" and it comes without the oxen, again from the bits box (I think Mirlitons Carroccio wagon comes with 4 which was too many to fit on a base) so these have at least got some wagon-pulling experience in a previous life

The lid of the Fireforrge MDF kit does however lift off, and they supply this folded-out lid that becomes a pavise shield thingy too. Even so its a huge blocky wagon.

Here is the 3D print and the MDF kit side by side. 

And, for a contrast, the 3D printed wagon and a Museum wagon side by side. 

I guess I know which one I'd prefer to be defending!

From the other side the sheer scale of the folded-out roof on the 3D print is even more striking.

Here is the front-on view. No room for horses or oxen on an 80mm long base with the 3D print.

This is the Museum wagon. They are ridiculously good value, especially in the annual Museum sale when you can pick them up for under £4 each.

Having draft horses as well is a bonus - my bits box is only so deep after all!

This is the 3D print again - the flag is one I Googled looking for a Hussite Flag

The imposing wall of defence - ideally they will only attack from this side!

I haven't glued the crew in though, so if needed they can turn around as a block of 4 and fight over this side too.

First posted on 1 April 2025 | 1:13 pm

Museum Z-Range Gallowglass

 Earlier this year I dithered for a while before just sneaking into the end of the Museum Miniatures January sale to pick up some mail-clad, axe-waving figures to use as Galloglass / Galloghalich / Gallogalisghaghs / whatever, those post-Viking 2-handed axemen who feature in Irish and Scottish armies of the early Medieval period. 

I've been using Vikings for these guys when I've dropped an army on table, but it isn't quite right and with some decent looking figures in Museum's new Z range Saxons that looked like they would fit I decided to drop some cash and buy on in there with some packs of 15/ASX13 Dark Ages double handed axe plus a few more Saxon range figures for added variety (as the ASX13 only has 3 poses) 

From the front..

Quite different from the front and the back! 

First posted on 28 March 2025 | 10:42 am