Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

Artillery!

After having a challenging experience at the Dorset Dodderers against an army with a Heavy Artillery unit in it, I decided to bite the bullet (or "large stone" I guess?) and pick up a proper Roman/Greek stone thrower unit to add to my collection.

This also meant having an opportunity to use some more of Donnington's excellent Roman artillery crew - great little characterful figures that I have already utillized for the "artillery on carts" (which appear in the ADLG rulebook on page 137) - but the question then became where to source the engine itself?

In the end, after some debate with the CLWC massif I plumped for Xyston's Heavy Stone Thrower - which comes with some Greek-looking crew, giving me the dilemma of potentially wasting some figures (Yoiks!!!).

The solution to this issue was...magnets, or more specifically, some very thin magnets I'd had kicking around for ages, most probably bought to hold the turrets on resin-cast tanks (before hard plastic kits totally replaced them in the wargamers pantheon.. before being replaced by 3D prints in turn..).

This allowed me to base up two sets of crew, and repurpose the artillery piece itself to be used by either.

Add in a small ballista that I found kicking around in the bits box (in 15mm scale - not the full size one I saw at Vindolana) and suddenly I have two sets of interchangeable Heavy and Light artillery.

Here's the rather over-crewed Light Ballista version of the Roman artillery base.

And the same tiny engine with Xyston Greek crew. The chap holding up a stone missile must be rather dissappointed...

Here you can see the magnets embedded in the two bases, and the corresponding magnet glued to the bottom of the large engine.

This Xyston piece is incredibly crisply cast.

The Greek crew are simply painted with my current go-to "white" technique of Army Painter "speedpaint" Holy White with a top layer of Army Painter Matt White semi-drybrushed on top, leaving the shading that the Holy White generates visible in places.

The metal elements are Enchanted Steel, again from Army Painter, and the engine itself is ArmyPainter Hardened Leather speedpaint on a white undercoat.

Same engine, different crew from Donnington.

Ready to ping !

First posted on 15 June 2026 | 6:04 pm

Dorset Dodderers: The Match Reports

Creaking and groaning into life in the deepest bowels of Dorset, the inaugural Dodderers competition instantly doubled the UK (World..?) roster of midweek L'Art de la Guerre competitions for the more refined and mature (aka "already retired" or "working at best part-time and keen to stop even that as soon as they can") gamers.

Themed for a post-Roman era, and taking place in Entoyment's spiffing new gaming centre at the arse-end of an industrial estate on the Poole half-ring road*, this was a great opportunity for me to wheel out some of the countless hordes of 15mm Byzantine figures I've been painting over the last year or so.

With five very entertaining games having been played over the "midweek two-day thing that feels like a weekend but isn't", some brand new figures getting on table, the huge benefit of a gaming space with excellent lighting, and the awareness that many of my more recent battle reports have been arguably a tad rushed, the end result is an old-school epic of military incompetence, surreal in-game figurine based banter, a rare appearance from the "Meso American Personalities with the letter Z in their names" Top Trumps set, some suitably acerbic analysis from Nasty Hannibal and (in this case, with the Justinian Byzantines on table), pompous and self-aggrandizing reportage from Byzanto-Canadian popster/general Justinian Bieber.

In Game 1 you will see the Justinians attempt to tempt the Zapotecs down from their Mexican mountain redoubt, whilst also learning from a couple of the tribal warriors the convoluted (but all true) story of how the Zapotec nation came by their Z-tastic name.

In Game 2, a Justinian Civil War breaks out while I scratch around furiously to try and identify a second famous Canadian "Justin", and then shoehorn that detail somehow into the already tortuous narrative arc of the battle.

In Game 3 the Justinians take a trip through time to engage in another Civil War against their near-descendants, the Thematic Byzantines, who, like the Zapotecs, appear less interested in fighting the battle and more eager to debate the origins of the appelation "Thematic" as the action continues around them.

In Game 4 it's time to get down to the YMCA and take on Harry "In The Navy" and his Arab Conquest army in a game characterised by some decidedly David Lynchian Dunes and a potentially nostril-expanding giant minaret.

Finally in Game 5 the Justinians take on one of the all time classics, Classical Indian, and try their best to conjure up a way to defeat a wall of elephants without having time to buy and paint up even more FiB figures to provide a full range of dismounts for the Justinian elephant-phobic cavalry.

All 5 reports are presented in full traditional text and image mode, meaning you'll have to actually read them rather than watch them, and they are all online now ready to go.

* Poole is right on the coast, so it's kinda hard to have a full ring road as some of it would then be in the sea..

First posted on 8 June 2026 | 6:04 pm

Rubbery Barbarian Slingers

At Devizes last year I picked up some Warlord Games resin barbarian skirmishers from the bargain bucket on their stand.

I'm not even sure if these figures are still in their catalogue, as the bright future that was supposed to be "Warlord Resin" (aka rebadged Siocast) never really took off due to, well, Siocast resin turning out to not be some form of magic new material, not being particularly cheap, seemingly reliant on one company in Spain for machinery and raw materials, and often covered in flash..

.. but hey ho, these guys actually seemed pretty nice sculpts, and I also picked them up for a bargain price - and here is how some of them have turned out.

The chap on the far left who has just released his sling seems to be ideally suited to this resin material, as the resin is rubbery but tough - I can imagine a metal casting of this "opened up" sling being so long it might be hard to cast, and prone to stress breakages as it bent.

They are all on 60x30 bases for ADLG in 28mm.

They've all been done quickly and simply with GW Contrasts, and Vallejo flesh to pick out the muscles (OK, sort of..) on the bare arms and highlight their faces.

I really like some of the facial expressions the sculpts have captured here

And this guy, poking a finger at whoever he's about to hurl a slingshot at, is super!

First posted on 3 June 2026 | 6:09 pm

More fragile Camels

I've already posted loads of photos of the Red Copper Camels that Harry @Mightllittlemen on Instagram printed for me a while ago, but here are some more, just a bit further away..

These were printed at 90% of the "recommended" 15mm nominal scale - I made sure to glue the "threes" of them all together at the rump or neck as well to generate more stability and robustness on each base. The bases all have a layer of metal in them too for extra weight.

As I'd already spent ages doing the last batch with a layered painting style I decided to bash these ones out a little quicker, as I suspect they will be my second-string camels (is that a thing?) that only get used when I try to put an all-camel force on table.

Irritatingly they seem to have come out pretty much the same as the ones I slaved over for hours - perhaps its my eyesight, or just the 90% thing means they are that bit further away so you can't easily see where I've been careless with the paint !

At 90% they did become even more fragile, and one particular design seemed to struggle to correctly print its forelegs - you'll see in the photos some of the camels have large bits of vegetation in front of them, which is covering the missing legs and also the metal pin I had to drill into their underbellys to get them to stand up.

Here they are next to the 100% boys.

This angle looks like it shows quite a noticable difference, but some of that may be a visual trick due to the tall spear on the larger print.

Mixed together here they seem fine to use as a mass.

First posted on 28 May 2026 | 6:49 pm

It's a Ballista!

At Warfare last year I lent my now-venerable 28mm Patrician Roman army to someone to use in the ADLG competition.

The paint job is a little darker than I'd probably do today (aka its slathered in ArmyPainter Soft Tone to within an inch of it's life, and so looks like it's been on campaign in Germania without a Legionary Laundry Cart in sight for a whole winter season) however seeing it on table again made me somewhat nostalgic for the days when it was pretty much my only 28mm army - so I've decided to give it a bit of love and attention.

That currently means a slow stepwise addition of some fairly generic "Gothic/Frankish" infantry from the super-cheap Wargames Atlantic "Generic Hairy Blokes" set (some of whom have already appeared here), and also this rather spiffy "EIR" era bolt shooter from Warlord Games.

I'm aware that some of the Warlord Imperial Romans can look a little on the small side compared to the more recent Victrix sets, and even the GB Late Romans who make up much of my army's legionaries - but this bolt shooter will, if it ever gets used, stand on it's own so the size comparison won't matter at all.

I am also aware that the lorica segmenta armour is wildly anachronistic for a "Patrician" era Very Late Roman army, but again, this looks so cool that I can live with that any day of the week!

The whole set is hard plastic, with just the two crewmen.

For a piece that will rarely be used I decided to do a simple Contrasts paint job, with the ArmyPainter Leather being used on the wooden parts of the bolt shooter itself as well as the belts and petruges of the legionaries.

The armour and steel arms of the bolt shooter are done in my new go-to of Enchanted Steel, again an ArmyPainter paint (thanks Will Morriss for suggesting it to me!).

The chap with the bandaged head is especially cool - the "dried bloodstain" on the front of his head bandage is down to accidental drift of the Dark Oath Flesh GW paint I used as a base layer on all of the flesh on the figures - it came out better than I could have done deliberately, so I'll happily take that and run with it too!

The artillery are now ready and waiting to ping some barbarian leaders at unfeasible distances!

First posted on 22 May 2026 | 6:18 pm

Burton Doubles - 4 ADLG Battle Reports

Returning to the Burton Doubles in the Land of Beer after a few years away:

Having missed Burton for a few editions, a theme which gave me an opportunity to wheel out my newly painted Nikephorian Byzantines plus the refurbishment of the Premier Inn across the road from the venue was all the impetus Adam and I needed to decide to yet again get the beers in and make a trip up to the Midlands in the unseasonal spring sunshine earlier this year.

The 4 battle reports of the games where the Nikephorians faced Abbasids, Justinian Byzantines, Silla Koreans and another Nikephorian army are now all available in video format as part of a YouTube Playlist, or individually on this website.

First posted on 15 May 2026 | 12:29 pm

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Dorset Dodderers: The Match Reports

Rubbery Barbarian Slingers

More fragile Camels

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