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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)
The Successor army moves on apace, with the latest addition being 3 units of Cataphracts, making the later version of the Seleucids an option to use at a future event.
I already have some Gripping Beast fully armoured horse troops, which I painted up as Arab Ghilmen cavalry quite some time ago - however those figures were very wide, with the horse armour making it impossible to do the "wargames-standard" 4 figures to a base.
It was therefore with some trepidation that I picked up a box of GB's new Roman Cataphracts, only to be pleasantly surprised to find that they appear to have thinned-down the horses so it is almost - with caveats - possible to squeeze 4 of them together on a standard DBx-style 60mm wide base.
This feat of engineering was achieved with a bit of careful arrangement, slightly deeper than usual (50mm) bases, and some judicious use of the sprue clipper to remove any lower legs that were keeping the horses in the middle of each block too far apart.
It's surprisingly hard to notice the missing legs in this solid mass of metal.
Where I had cut the legs too high up the thigh, I also filled in some of the gaps with wood filler, painted it black and then drybrushed it to match the rest of the guys - which made an already hard to spot thing even harder.
This happy chap is yet to find a suitable shield transfer to go onto his standard. I have a feeling I may end up buying a sheet of white 25mm Successor shield "stars" from Veni Vidi Vici just to drop one on this standard (so if anyone has a spare please let me know!).
If you look really closely you can see that the standard bearer's demeanour appears not to be adversely impacted by the loss of one of his legs just above the knee, which is rather reminiscent of the legendary Peter Cook & Dudley Moore "Tarzan Audition" sketch!
I also used a lot of head swaps from the bits box for these - leaving the "Roman" heads out and adding in very "Greek" ones from Phalangites, Hoplites and Companion cavalry to emphasise their Greekness.
The second rate unit will be this one in bronze - the painting is a simple black spray base coat and drybrish with Vallejo Weapon Bronze, with the spears and faces undercoated in white before painting the colurs onto them.
The spears have a barbership sort of effect which is enhanced considerably IMO by the fairly simple addition of extra "rings" that break up the blocks of colour.
These are a dark brown initial ring around the lance, with a ring of ochre brown then painted inside it.
This breaks up the bit between the blocks of colour nicely, and also gives you a bit of leeway to even up the lengths of the blocks of colour when you've painted them by painting the dark brown ring over a bit more of one colour or the other in each case !
There is also a barely-visible coloured bit of cloth at the bottom of the horse armour - this too adds some subtle hinits of colour to the units
The final bit was to do some colour on the joiny-bit at the back of the horse armour (which may just be there ot hide the join line in the two halves of the horse !).
This also adds more subtle colour on what is an otherwise potentially rather one-tone figure.
So, 1 dozen cataphracts, all of which actually fit together in a solid block on 60mm frontages, and all for a very decent price too!
A few years ago (2019 to be exact) I won an unpainted army in a raffle at the L'Art de la Guerre Worlds in Rome. The figures were from Italian manufacturer Strategia Nova, and the prize was actually an Arab army, however as I have Arab figures in abundance I asked the guy who'd provided them if I could swap for a different army.
And, of the ones he had, the Slave Revolt army of Spartacus looked like the best bet!
With the UK gripped in a weird interim world of pseudo-lockdown the entire team reconvene again for the Madaxeman Podcast this week to chat through the usual mix of painting and gaming, before running riot with a freewheeling exploration of the different basing techniques they all deploy to try and make their figures look better than they really are from "wargaming distances".*
As well as enticing talk of flocking and slathering on gritty emulsions there is a potentially dangerous liason with the entire concept of Assyrian Relief, a rare and unusual mention for Nigella Lawson, further consideration as to whether size actually isn't everything when it comes to tiny toy tanks, a diverting foray into YMCA with the Imperial Roman Artillery Corps before ending with a bit of "oh la lah" to the Sound of Music in Andy's Quiz.
This weeks episode also comes with a teaser mni-video, which can be accessed on the Madaxeman Video Channel.
With a frightening lurch into double figures (or a proper round dozen if paintbrushes and glue are your thing) the Lockdown team from Madaxeman.com are back yet again with the weekly soundtrack to a weekend of painting and avoiding household chores.
As usual the podcast is available on Podbean, iTunes, Spotify and YouTube as well as other platforms where you find your pods.
Hot topics for tepid discussion this week include whether the best yellow paint is in fact Plague Brown, the Tau of Fire Hydrant Numerology, whether there was an aftermarket for refitting Egyptian chariots with go faster stripes and pumping stereos, how posh would a Samurai leader need to be in order to qualify for a self flushing toilet, whether Sisyphus would have been daft enough to start painting 28 bases of horses and how many arms per man do you need to make Fireforge's box of Mongol infantry.
The regular feature on ADLG List Building this week covers the Nikephorian Byzantines (in all its various modes of spelling), Andy's Quiz of course returns to help us all disco-down into the weekend, we talk in more depth about playing actual games on Tabletop Simulator, and a new feature is born in the shape (and theme tune) of Teaching Timmy About Napoleon, an idiot's guide to the Napoleonic Wars
Can you believe that I've never owned any Napoleonic figures, played any Napoleonic games or even read any books about the Napoleonic Wars? I mean, I've not even watched a single episode of Sharpe!
But, finally the inevitable has caught up with me, and with the help of a nudge from the arrival of a set of rules which more than one person at my club might potentially agree to play (in the form of Bataille Empire) I have finally taken the plunge and dipped my toe into Napoleon's wars.
Of course, being respectful of the principles of Napoleonic gaming in which every player must have their own individual approach to rules, scale, basing, terminology history, uniform and painting I had to find a means of doing something unique and (in some way at least partly) incompatible with my clubmates - so with everyone else already having 15-18mm troops based for Blucher, FoGN and various other sets I went my own way and built an army in 10mm with a large investment in Pendraken lead in the form of a French starter army picked up at Warfare 2019.
I then topped this up with a few more orders from the nice chaps at Pendraken and added in a couple of extra purchases from Old Glory and The Wargaming Company (both made at Cold Wars 2020 just before Lockdown struck) to leave me with the daunting painting challenge of maybe 500+ foot and mounted figures to do under Lockdown conditions, hopefully to leave me with a viable Bataille Empire army that is still utterly different to the stuff owned by the people I'll be (eventually) playing.
