Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

Red Copper Camels

 In my occasional dabbling with 3D printed figures, I've had something of a mixed bag results-wise so far. 

There have been the "upscaled too far - but still cute" Etruscans, the "fairly fugly" medieval Knights and the "great but too brittle" Numidians.

Next up on this route march to the future are some Red Copper Arab camels - replacing some very old, and very grim Lancashire Games Mahdist camelry that I've had far, far too long. 

These Red Copper figures are really exceptional designs, with a huge amount of detail - the sheer amount of which only really becomes fully apparent when you start to try and paint them and begin to find extra straps, layers, details and bolt-on weaponry that you'd not really spotted in the unpainted prints. 

That did mean that my decision to go for a "layering" approach with the paint for the riders (with the camels themselves being done with GW Contrasts) ended up being rather more of a labour of love than I intended - some of these camels have at least 24 different paints applied to them ! 

Anyways, first up are some Light Camels and Generals, 2 to a base:

I've gone for a fairly muted palette on the robes of the riders, with whites and duns but then adding a splash of colour with the banners, sashes and headgear - and of course the rugs on which the riders all sit. 

This was to make them more resilient, as the camels do have long, spindly legs and the risk of them snapping off seemed that it would be significant - gluing each pair of models together creates one "thing" with 8 legs not 4, in a fairly wide and stable stance that won't bend (and snap) when you pick it up carelessly and squeeze the two individual camels together in the process. 

There's about half a dozen poses in the set - no obvious "Commanders" as such, but more than enough to generate variety. 

All of the bases are MDF and magnabase with an added layer of steel base sandwiched between the two - this gives them a bit of extra heft which isn't just me being old school, it makes them easier to pick up   as they are that little bit heavier, and actually weigh about as much as you expect.

I'll drop some more photos of the main bunch of camels in a few days. 

First posted on 7 March 2026 | 9:00 am

15mm Avar / Sarmatian cavalry being sold on eBay

I'm selling 41 nicely painted and presented Khurasan Miniatures 15mm Avar cavalry armed with a mix of bows and lances, with 4 more Light Horse archers (which I think are Minifigs?) too. 

They are listed on eBay with Global Shipping enabled too so you can buy them from anywhere in the world and eBay will ship them to you. 

They are all painted, and based up on DBx-standard 40x30mm bases with magnabase on all of them for safe storage in any metal tin or toolbox. 

These 41 figures would allow you to make up the DBA army III/13a Avars 553-557AD & 642-826AD, or  II/26 Sciracae, Iazyges & Later Rhoxolani Sarmatian 310-375BC , or form the core of a very handy ADLG or DBM army / allied contingent -  I think you could also use them as Goths, Huns or any sort of Steppe Nomad types and no-one would blink an eye.

They are based up with a mix of 2, 1 or zero "barded" horses on each base allowing you to easily differentiate between different grades of cavalry in your army list even without even needing to set off down the "different coloured flowered grass tufts" route. 

Looking more closely I think a couple of spears have broken off in the many years since I bought and painted these - which isn't too bad out of 37 lancers who've seen reasonable tabletop usage, and I'm sure you can reasily replace them of just hide the pair of guilty geezers in this mass of hard-charging lancers anyway.

These are being sold to make space in my Bisley cabinets as part of my grudging "one-in-one-out" resolution to try and keep a lid on the number of figures that I actually own. 

EBay Link is https://ebay.us/m/tZ1aG6

First posted on 26 February 2026 | 12:28 pm

15mm Arab Light Horsemen

 My 15mm Arab armies have been chugging along for many years, making do with some Lancashire Games Light Horse Javelinmen from their Sudan / Mahdist range. 

They have done sterling service but are not the best figures out there, and also suffer from rather spindly spears and swords, so I have finally decided to replace them with some Forged in Battle Arab cavalry. 

These are pretty straightforward figures, typical FiB which take contrast paints very well - especially on the horses - and have robust metal spears (aka arguably a bit too thick but they are very unlikely to break in action)

The pack of 12 (old sizes pre Dec 2025!) had a mix of 6 short spears, 3 commanders and 5 long spear riders plus 12 horses. These are the short spear guys.

And these are the "lancers" with a commander figure too.

I've done most of them with a simple paint job, using contrast paints on the horses, ArmyPainter Leather Speedpaint on the reins (as I find it both works and sort of self-blacklines too).

The white is a white base coat, a layer of Army Painter Holy White, and then normal white paint that leaves bits ofthe Holy White (aka grey wash) visible in places underneath that are folds in the cloth. 

All in all an upgrade on my old horsemen, and a simple but effective set of figures for tabletop use.

First posted on 23 February 2026 | 1:31 pm

A test base of 28mm Frankish foot

 Having lent my 28mm Patrician Roman army to someone to use at last year's Warfare ADLG event, actually seeing this venerable army on table gave me a pang of nostalgia for what was one of my very first 28mm ancients armies (OK, of my "second wind" of buying and painting 28mm figures anyway). 

Having painted up lots more stuff since then I'd sort of convinced myself that these guys were just, well, not all that nice, and a little too overindulged on the "soft tone Army Painter wash" front to make them look overly battle-worn. 

The reality on the Farnborough tabletop however was much brighter and nicer than I remembered, with the notable exception of the always-shoehorned-in "gothic" foot I used as Foederate infantry. 

These guys were actually Dark Ages Scots from Old Glory - nice enough figures, and perfectly fine playing at being Vikings, Saxons or a lot of other hairy barbarians - but always a bit of a stretch when used as Frankish axemen in a Late Roman army.

With Wargames Atlantic releasing a new "they could be anything" box of Romano-Barbarian warriors around that time I immediately resolved to buy a set and try and paint up some properly "Frankish" infantry to go with my Romans, but using a slightly brighter colour palette (OK, not so much ink wash) to give them a bit more ping. 

And these are the results:

All of the stripes have been done with the classic "fat dark line, thinner lighther line" technique using paints from the newish Army Painter Fanatic 6-part triad ranges. 

The guys at the back are an odd bunch - picked up from a Warlord stand at a show, they were a blister of "Warlord Resin" figures which I think are mostly from an "SPQR: Dacia & Sarmatia - Dacian Tribesmen with javelins" set, which came with a few slingers as well.  

The shield patterns are also a mix - the "Roman" one is a LBMS transfer on a Gripping Beast plastic shield, whereas the others are waterslide transfers from Battle Flag, which don't quite fit on the Wargames Atlantic round shields but are close enough that with a bit of blending of paint colours and some layers of varnish to seal them in they just about work better than me trying to paint them myself. 

First posted on 18 February 2026 | 7:24 pm

Finally.. The Warfare 2025 Battle Reports

 Way back in the mists of time, a sort-of newly-minted Numidian army took to the tabletop to try and perform acceptably in a "Late Roman" period in the 15mm ADLG competition at Warfare 2025. 

The main aim was to get on table these 3D printed Numidian horsemen who were sadly printed in a resin which made them too brittle to ever take abroad (where they'd need to be held in place in a tin by  a layer of foam on top of the figures - which would have broken their javelins).

It was also to use these War & Empire Numidian Imitation Legionaries - again recently painted - and give my venerable and now sadly OOP Numidian Elephants a run out too. 

I ended up being the only player to take Numidians - a very good or a very bad sign usually - and faced 3 Late Roman armies, the Ancient Brits and the Bosporans over the course of the weekend. 

All 5 batreps are now ready and fully posted, which in a rare doubling-up of effort include both the traditional text & photo versions and also YouTube summaries of the games you can watch after wading through my turgid prose and cheesy speech bubbles in each of the standard reports.

If you just want to dive into the video, you can follow the action in the 6 videos in the Warfare 2025 Playlist on my YouTube Channel as well - the 6th video is a run-through of how I constructued the army list I used. 

First posted on 8 February 2026 | 8:18 pm

Oxford One-dayer 2026 - The Lists

 In a possibly unwelcome return to podcast and video-podding, you can now listen to and also watch 6 CLWC players chunter on about their army lists from the recent one-dayer ADLG competition held in Oxford.

The event was themed for Islam’s Eastward Expansion (637 to 751), and so the lists discussed include:

• 130 Arab Conquest (Dave)
• 140 Central Asian Turkish (Tim)
• 179 Hindu Indian (Dave, Richard)
• 171 Tang Chinese (Gordon, Andy)

The podcast is available on YouTube with video of us chatting away, and on Podbean in audio only format. 

First posted on 28 January 2026 | 4:20 pm