Madaxeman's Wargames Blog

The Sarmatians Ride !

Just after FiB's rather chunky price increase (1/3 reduction in figures per pack, but no price change) hit the shelves, I managed to find a seller on eBay who was offering "full size" Forged in Battle Army Packs with the "old" numbers of figures per pack as well  - effectively making them 1/3 cheaper than buying from FiB direct. 

Having sold a rather old Khurasan Avar army on eBay earlier this year I had been meaning to replace such an army in my "Steppe tribes" collection anyway, so the combination of this and the FiB price hike/cheap deal ended up being the trigger moment for what has turned out to be a substantial purchase of 4-legged lance and bow armed Steppe tribesmen.

And here is the first tranche of a LOT of cavalry !! 

Having picked up a few extra packets of cavalry at Entoyment too (also at the old prices) I somehow ended up with well over 100 cavalry .. which meant I defaulted to production-line painting of the horses so I could bash through a load of them before even starting on the riders. 

These FiB sculpts are both great (in that they are pretty varied and dynamic) yet also they are starting to look a little tired, with some exhibiting casting lines, flash and occasionally twisted legs too. 

This however ended up being something I managed to turn to my advantege when painting so many horses in a batch, as it allowed me to adopt a technique that means I could be sloppy with the fiddly bits - the reins. 

Initially all the horses were undercoated in white, after which they were done in variety of GW contrasts (Aggaros Dunes, Gore Grunta Fur, Skeleton Horde, Temnplar Black Cygor Brown), with some greys in Army Painter Holy White - all whist trying to leave the (often hard to see) reins unpainted wherever I could. 

I then went back over all of them with a thin brush and standard white paint to vaguely (ie not all that accurately) pick out some more of the reins where they could be easily seen (not always easy on these castings), and then used either Army Painter Hardened Leather, or (for the "brown" horses) GW Contrast Miltarum Green to go over and pick out the now-white straps and reins, using these two paints to also "blackline" the reins and make them stand out against what was usually some variation of tan or brown horse flesh. 

This (I think) looks effective, and is pretty easy to do quickly - unlike, say, Essex horses where the straps and really well defined and stand out some way from the horses themselves, which requires more careful painting to not look messy.

 I also did a lot of variation in the saddle cloths - of course this is mostly hidden when the riders are on, but it is not hard to do and gives them that little bit extra pzazz if you do look closely at the finish figures.

 And here are some of them now:

 

My "system" for these has been to put at least one "armoured" horse on each base to denote "Elite Heavy Cavalry".

Pretty much  all of these riders have metal armour using ArmyPainter Enchanted Steel, which for this army I then toned down with a wash of ArmyPainter Dark Tone on the metalwork, as for some reason the Enchanted Steel was coming out more pale grey than usual (perhaps the heat of the last few weeks?) 

I've not gone for striped windsocks, mostly as I find they can easily ends up looking like a refugees from Finding Nemo. 

These are two bases of Medium Cavalry Archers - the lack of metal armour on the riders bodies, all three horses being unarmoured, and having a firing, bareheaded bowman on each base being the visual clues for myself and my opponents.

On the far set of horses the "self-blacklining" effect of the ArmyPainter Leather on the straps can clearly be seen. The fronts of the horses are where the casting of the reins seems to go most awry, but luckily most of the horses are "head down" so on the tabletop it's barely visible if at all. 

I've also tried to keep to a muted palette on these - mostly tans and khaki-greens with the occasional splashes of colour with a blue cloak or ed tunic here and there.

First posted on 26 July 2026 | 2:11 pm

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:

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.

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! 

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. 

  

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. 

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.

First posted on 27 June 2026 | 12:26 pm