Rebasing 15mm figures for use with ADLG Renaissance

I've just uploaded a new video to the Madaxeman YouTube Channel, showing the process of rebasing some 15mm Renaissance wargames figures from "DBx" bases (40mmx20mm) and rebasing them into (the really cute!) integrated Pike & Shot units that are used for L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance.  

The video is pretty straightforward (OK, "basic") and takes you stepwise through a set of simple techniques for quickly and effectively rebasing 15mm (or any scale really) figures that would work for any change from one ruleset to another.

Rebasing can often seem such a huge PITA that any ruleset that requires rebasing is instantly discarded, but I've now come to accept that it can be necessary, isn't that painful to do, and does actually leave me with better looking bases than the ones I was making 20-odd (or more!) years ago.

If you are baulking at the thought of rebasing troops for ADLG-R then hopefully this video will give you some confidence that it's not a life-threatening operation, and instead can be done quickly and easily to generate good end results. 

And let's face it, these single units on 80mm x 40mm bases look really cool, and if you are honest with yourself you already have far too many 15mm Renaissance Pike and Shot based for other systems, so changing just a handful of 'other system' units will give you the half-dozen or so Pike & Shotte units you will need to play pretty much any nationality in ADLG-R (if you slot different flags onto the pikes)

ADLG-R is a semi-official mod of ADLG written by Simon LeRay-Meyer and can be downloaded from the "files" section of the L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance Facebook Group.

EBay Incoming!

 With Spring very much in the air, I've realised that I need to free up a few Bisley drawers for some of the stuff I've painted during Lockdown, and so I will be doing a bit of a mini-flurry of eBay sales in the next week or so. 

All my eBay listings can be seen on the listings page for "the_lithuanian" 

On sale this week are: 

15mm Chinese Handgunners / arquebusiers (actually Boxer Rebellion figures!)

15mm Essex Chinese handgunners

15mm Arab musketeers / arquebusiers

More 15mm Arab / Afghan musketeers or riflemen 

15mm Byzantine Crossbowmen

Unpainted but undercoated 15mm Arab Musketeers

Blue Moon American Indians 15/18mm undercoated only

And.. last but not least a large 15mm True North Miniatures WW2 Belgian Army, perfect for playing O Group, the new WW2 ruleset from TFL, or Peter Pig's PBI WW2 rules.

All my eBay listings can be seen on the listings page for "the_lithuanian"  and all end on Tuesday 27th April around 7pm BST.

28mm Landsnechts & Swiss - in GW Contrast Paints!

You know those painting projects that seem never to die? They just drag on and on, staring at you and each time you start trying to move them along the sheer quantity of painting ends up crushing your will to continue?

Well, for me that was a big winged-Keil of Landsnechts in 28mm, bought for FoGR in a series of bring and buy used-figure bags - and then supplemented by a pack of Old Glory arquebusiers.

I had even made a couple of half-hearted attempts to sell them as a part-painted project - but then suddenly realised that they were the perfect project to try the new GW contrast paints (as even a so-so painted unit is better than a unit that never gets painted or put on table, right?

See the full effect in this photo-article..

Clogging Hell - We're all going Dutch!

A recent one-day event in Oxford gave me a chance to wheel out some almost forgotten FoG:Renaissance troops in 15mm scale to take part in a tightly themed C16 competition for the armies involved in the Great Rebellions of that era - the French Wars of Religion, the 80 Years War of Dutch Independence and the many Peasant Revolts across Europe.

Given the multitude of choices - and because no-one had bitten at my incredibly well crafted attempt at a joke on the FoGR Forum along the lines of..

• "How big is your army?"

• "It's Huguenot.."

..I ended up taking the 80YW Dutch, with a vague plan to batter my opponents senseless with artillery whilst reducing my opportunity to make the sorts of mistakes that someone who hasn't played these rules for ages might do by having a plan that didn't really involve moving my troops at all. 

The armies duly swept back and forth across the tabletops in textbook checker board formations and much Dutch courage was taken by all sides. And I used a ship! 

Read on for the usual rubbish-packed and ship-tastic reports to see how the Cloggers managed to do in these 3 FoGR battle reports

The TYW in the Kings Country

After a long hiatus, the 28mm mostly Warlord Games plastic and metal figures have crawled blinking into the light again for a 3-game 1-day competition held in glorious rural Oxfordshire, on the edges of the King's Civil War Capital.

The TYW Germans - chosen because they have the nicest flags, as well as some little gunnes - take on the Swedes, the New Model Army and the French in three large format, widescreen big battle reports under FoG:R rules.

Be amazed how efficiently they progress through good planning and superior technology, and puzzle as to how Wallenstein and Tilly both end up on the same side in the same army as I deploy simply the nicest figures I can find and try and pretend there is a plan behind it.

There are three reports, complete with the full gamut of Germanic expressions of amazement and horror, lots of photos, ridiculous captions and a full set of post-game analyses from Renaissance Hannibal himself.

Get back to the 16th Century today with these 3 FoGR reports!

The Renaissance of The Renaissance - 3 FoGR Reports using the draft rules revisions

A subtle revision of FoGR Renaissance is in the offing, and to help test the rules the Kings Capital in Oxford is besieged by eager gamers all keen to raise the standard for King or for Parliament!

What will happen in an event where in previous year's I've taken Parliamentarians and Scots?

Why, it's One for All and all for The King!, as we shop at the Waitrose of Life, not the Lidl of Despair for 3 FoGR reports!

L'Art de la Guerre Renaissance...

ADLG Renaissance is in development... and even with having not actually played it or laid eyes on a copy, I do know that it will probably involve "double units" for Pike & Shot.

The idea of rebasing is a frightening one, but amazingly, on examination of my Renaissance collection, I have spotted that I have at least a couple more bases of ECW/TYW Pike & Shotte than I actually need for any conceivable FoGR army I might wish to use in future... who'd a thunk it?!

So, knowing I have plenty of spares, I decided to test-base some Pike & Shot, using "second line" figures who won't honestly get an outing anyway just to see what they might look like.

It's an "Impetus-style" basing methodology !

Not sure that having 3 ranks of each is entirely right, but as a first experiment its a pretty decent look I think.

15mm FoGR Markers

With the tweak of the FoGR rules which is now on the near horizon, one of the changes is to revise how Commanded Shot work when they are supporting friendly mounted troops.

In essence this will see the bases of Commanded Shot removed (together with the rather significant in game terms 50% extra frontage it created for Supported mounted units), and replaced by markers attached to the mounted units.

With a load of blank MDF disks hanging around from ADLG casualty marker making, this seems to be an ideal opportunity to conjure up some Commanded Shot markers for my FoGR armies, using some of the many spare/excess normal musketeer bases as the components.

And here they are - not that complicated or exciting, but nice none the less.

These are old Minifigs musketeers, together with some Carbine-armed horse from QR Miniatures from Poland - see more of them here.

Derby 2016 - The Kalmar Union in FoGR Action

A frantic effort not to retain a trophy that needs engraving comes to a cattle shed near an airport next to a busy motorway near a town with a great ring road!

It's almost as glamorous as Charleroi, but it's in England and it's Derby again!

The Mighty Kalmar Union are pretty medieval, but despite the clue being in the name, they are from Scandinavia, not Greece. Either way, will the army be pitted like olives or enjoy a smorgasbord of success in these 4 FoGR reports against a range of in-theme opponents.

The Covenanter's make it to the Kings Capital!

In three fleetingly (thankfully?) brief battle reports, enlivened by some tremendous 15mm eye candy and the usual videos, the Scots Covenanter's  appear in FoGR and take on three Royalist armies in a one-day competition with pre-set terrain.

See how the forces of anti-papery did in these highly accurate historical rematches, including far more Poor quality troops than have been seen on a Renaissance battlefield for quite some time.

El Kraken added to the 28mm manufacturers directory

Spanish company and authors of the Tercio rules, El Kraken (gotta love the name...) have been added to the 28mm Renaissance manufacturers directory whilst I fight with myself not to invest in their kickstarter on the basis that I already have far too many 28mm TYW troops...

They also very kindly sent me a copy of their Tercio rules some months ago, but unfortunately life has gotten in the way of me even getting around to reading them - so one day you might find a review on this site too!

Naismith & Roundway under new ownership

It appears that one of the classic "true 15mm" manufacturers is now under new ownership, with Naismith / Roundway being bought from Navwar and now running independently - and with a proper web ordering facility too!

Whilst I'll no doubt miss the sporadic trip to a particularly unlikely and grimy part of NE London every few years, its good to see these extensive ranges back in full 21st Century distribution.

I've updated the Renaissance, Ancients and Napoleonic listings accordingly.

The Great British Bacon-Off

We're back to FoGR and some more Renaissance action as the Early Danish Army sizzles its way in several extremely bold, and a number of even rasher (see what I did there?) battles at Warfare 2015.

The army attempts to contest the leaderboard and emulate last years victory with a series of unfashionable Reiter units and some well-stuffed pikemen. Is the bacon worth the slicing - time for you to decide in these 4 battle reports

28mm FoGR Reports from Derby 2015

Marvel at the size of their pikestaffs, and be amazed at the innovative use of crewmen along with their battalion gunnes as the Catholic TYW Germans attempt to mask their true emissions and bravely soldier on against all comers, real and imaginary, in a series of four fully-loaded 28mm FoGR battle reports from the 2015 Derby Convention

Read the battle reports here!

On the workbench....

Every now and then I remember that this website is basically a blog (and there is in fact a Blogger version of it was well), so this statement is true in a very literal sense as well), and so perhaps sometimes I should just make some entirely self-indulgent posts about what I'm up to right now.

So, in between updating this site and doing various BHGS things, I also am attempting to finish the following painting pile:

• 2-3 x 28mm Swiss / Landsnecht Kiels for FoGR (including Arquebus "wings")
• Updating some of my 15mm Greek & Cathaginian elephants with new versions for ADLG
• A 28mm Oliver Cromwell (because one can't have too many 28mm Renaissance generals..)
• 8 x 28mm Norman/Christian knights for Saga, plus a priest..
• 2 bases of baggage to go with the Landsnecht Kiels
• A pack of Mainforce 6mm modern British infantry 
• A 15mm PBI WW2 Belgian army which has been stuck at the stage of being based and undercoated for about 8 years... 
• 20-odd bases of 15mm Renaissance American Indians for FoGR
• Another 10 or so bases of Eastern shot in 15mm for FoGR 
• Casualties for the above... 
• Oh, and casualties for the Kiel..
• Boxes and barricades in 28mm for Malifaux
• 20mm WW2 Us Heavy Weapon teams, for CHain of Command or Bolt Action
• 4 x 15mm Scythed Chariots (no idea...) and 4 bases of 15mm Carthaginian Heavy Cavalry
• A full 15mm Scots Renaissance army, to be everything from Covenanters to Jacobites
• Loads of 20mm WW2 Germans, who are based and undercoated in Uniform Grey, but that's about it so far. 
• Some 10mm ACW Union troops that I was donated (I already have far too many..) 
• 5 x Modern Russian 6mm T90's - cheap GHQ in a bring and buy that I couldn't resist
• 2 x 20mm WW2 buildings (MDF) to assemble
• 16 bases of Polish/Russian Renaissance Shotte - undercoated, but now becalmed... 
• A 10mm WW2 landing craft 

and that's all before I start thinking about rebasing stuff for different rulesets, or selling things on eBay..

How on earth I find time to update this website who knows !

Renaissance (ish) Chinese Musketeers for FoGR

This painting project has been hanging around since - I suspect - late 2012 when I think I bought some Lamcashire Games Arab and Chinese musket-armed figures at Warfare. Some of the Arabs were done in time to appear as Maratha infantry at Clevedon 2013 but the Chinese have languished in the painting pile .... until now!

You can click on these images to get a bigger picture:

They are from Lancashire Games Boxer Rebellion range (what with me never being one to go for the obvious morph) and have the twin advantages of being a/ cheap, and b/ definitely not obviously belonging to any actual Renaissance Chinese historical era, which is my excuse for using them as generic musketeers or arquebusiers for any sort of Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian or other army from that FoGR army list book.

In an even more shameless morphing plan, they were painted to match a front rank of Essex Han-era Chinese spearmen, who you can see in the last picture. The Lancashire figures are stylistically very different, and a lot taller... but at wargaming ranges the difference is not too ridiculous. Sort of.

And given that they will only surface sporadically, getting 10 bases of interesting-looking infantry for under £7 is a pretty decent deal in anyone's book.

The real upside would be if someone comes out with a set of rules covering the Boxer Rebellion using DBX basing conventions. When that happens I'll be halfway to starting another period too!