Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

28mm Franks - the second tranche

 Last year (I think?) I picked up a set of what were either Wargames Atlantic's "generic dark age dudes",, or their "Goth Warriors" (bonus points if you can tell the difference.. as clearly I can't!)  in 28mm, to use as Frankish Foederati mercenaries in a Very Late Roman army I've had for quite some time.  

The reasons for picking up these Franks were twofold - first so that I could stop using Old Glory Scottish Vikings as "Foederati" foot, but more importantly because I had finally worked out how to do two-tone horizontal stripes on tunics, which meant I could make some almost "onion round the neck" French Franks to brighten up my admittedly rather almost-in-the-dark-ages Roman army.   

I'd done one test base earlier this year, and now, as a big change from the legions of 15mm horsemen who had been clogging up my painting table recently, it was time to go full stripey and get some football-kit-wearing Franks onto the painting table. 

Because the figures have been assembled in reasonably dynamic poses, waving axes around and the like, I mounted them on 60x40 bases in sevens rather than eights, with 4 in the front rank, and 3 in the back. This did allow me to usesome "filler" figures to pad out the rear ranks without being seen, as the striped guys really grab the viewers attention. 

And, finally, here are the two more fully-finished bases of "Franks".

These guys are mostly the WA Dark Age Geezer/Goths set, with a few stragglers from a Warlord Resin  bargain bin show purchase making up the rear ranks. 

The shields are a mix of Victrix Gallic round shields (those with the metal spine down the middle) which I had in the bits box, along with some LBMS transfers for them, and the rest are waterslide transfers from Battle Flag, aka wargametransfers.com's Viking range.

The Battle Flag transfers are a smidge too big for the WA shields, so I've trimmed them down slightly to fit before applying them. 

The WA shields are also somewhat convex, which makes applying waterslide transfers a real PITA - the solution I've adopted is planty of MicroSol/MicroSet transfer-softener, and sometimes also slicing the transfers in a dark-ish part of the design so the transfer can overlap a little as it "shrinks"/"curls" around the convex face of the shield without it being too obvious. 

From the back you can see the un-stripey Warlord figures more prominently. 

The trick with the stripes is embarassingly easy - a fat darker stripe with a narrower lighter stripe within it. 

Blending the edges of the transfers into the edges of the actual shields was a bit tricker than I hoped with these transfers, as the colour blocks all seemed to have a lot of "texture", and the transfers were also a little translucent too - a difficult combination to match even with a range of paints and a wet pallette to use. 

But, at normal distances they seem to have come out OK - and a layer of gloss varnish  on the shields prior to doing the matt varnish coat also works wonders.

Here they are with the other base I did earlier. I have been looking for some more of the Gripping Beast plastic Late Roman shields in my bits box, as I still have a good number of really nice LBMS "Late Roman Chi-Rho" oval shield transfers, and I like the way they make this unit look like it's sort-of half integrated in a Roman army - but so far no luck in finding any more spares! 

One issue I did have with these figures was that they tended to get a little boisterous during the painting process, and getting the little b-ggers to stand still whilst I painted the double-lines on their tunics was rather challenging at times, as you can see here...

Never mind the overalll AI stuff, it is still quite clever how their puddle bases spin around and move a little under their feet as they are jumping! 

First posted on 13 November 2026 | 5:21 pm

A 1/700th Scale ship

 In what can only really be thought of as a blend of a gift to myself andf self-flagelation, I've added yet another ship to my 1/700th fleet, again this one being a 3D print from Three Decks Dockyard.

 

The railings along the sides of this ship made it easier to rig than the other British 3D print, as the ratlines and rigging could be easily tied on without having to drill holes at wierd angles through the superstructure of the rear decks. 

Again the ratlines are the Warlord acetate printed ones picked up in their sprue sale last year. 

I didn't bother with trying to paint in the detail printed into the sails - I wasn't sure if the previous ship ended up looking a bit messy, so gave it a miss on this one.

  

And, there she sails - the last ship in my two fleets, until I buy another one (or two)...

First posted on 7 November 2026 | 11:51 am

The Sarmatian / Alan / Skythian / Gothic Generals

 Here are the spare commander and standard bearer figures from my Sarmatian project 

This should allow me to do any sort of combination of Brilliant/Competent/Ordinary commanders for any 3-command ADLG army.

This chap has somehow ended up with one of the best 15mm faces I've ever done! 

 

It's also allowed me to use up all of the figures I got with this rather epic purchase spree!

First posted on 6 November 2026 | 8:45 pm

The Napoleonic Wars, Redux

No, it's not a yet another "Directors Cut" by Ridley Scott, it's something much less exciting... 

Having recently discovered that the Napoleonic Wars are on the A-Level syllabus this year I decided it was time to do my bit to help out the youth of today, and dive back into the Madaxeman Podcast archives to dig out the early (2020 Lockdown-era) episodes in which we ran the often incoherent feature "Teaching Timmy About Napoleon".

I've now edited all of those segments from 7-8 different podcasts into a single "bonus repeat" podcast, which runs to about 3 hours in length and is spread over 2 separate pods, both of which are now available via my Podbean channel.

Both episodes can be streamed from here. 

The Airfix Farmhouse and Waterloo Battle Set can both still be picked up on eBay - :

here is an affilate link to the UK listings

First posted on 3 November 2026 | 8:54 pm

Battle Reports and Tourism from Nancy, 2026

In a veritable cornucopia of French-themed, hastily-published content I've somehow managed to throw stuff at the wall and discover that some of it has stuck following the Team CLWC trip to the Nancy ADLG event held only last weekend - and it is already posted on this website! 

That currently includes:

• A 4-hander military tourism video of our road trip to and from Nancy, featuring:

• Reims Cathedral, 
• Fort de La Pompelle, 
• The Worlds Largest Pikelhaube Collection, 
• Hackenburg Maginot Line Fortress (and narrow gauge train), 
• Nancy, 
• Verdun, 
• An abandoned and destroyed village, 
• Vimy Ridge, 
• ..and one of Frances top abandoned underground rocket-firing Nazi Megastructures, La Coupole!

• The Estonians 
• The Feudal French
• The Kingdom of Sicily
• The Feudal Scots
• The Feudal English (a Civil War!)

First posted on 30 October 2026 | 6:08 pm

Alan Cavalry

 The FiB Steppe Warrior fest continues with these Alan cavalry, who have shields and short(er) spears.

The patterns are mostly based on Alan symbols - it's not just random you know! 

They've ended up as being quite jolly - originally I was considering just plain shields, but the combination of the high opacity of the newer Fanatic paints and a new brush seems to have allowed me to do some reasonably simple symbols and make them look better by adding lines and circles of dots around and across the shields - so they may get more game time than I was originally thinking!  

First posted on 21 October 2026 | 8:43 pm