The Madaxeman.com Podcast

Christmas for Badgers

In what is likely to become this year's Christmas episode by dint of us almost certainly failing to find time to record another one in the next few weeks, the full Madaxeman podcast crew reconvene online to witter aimlessly about what they have been up to since the last podcast (which could be a description for almost any podcast on any subject come to think of it..) 

As well as the usual painting chat, we unpick the piratey bones from the recent Brixham Devonian Classic ADLG competition, which saw 36 players gather for chips, beer, invigorating coastal walks and some incidental games of ADLG at the very site of the landing point of William of Orange on his way to claim the English crown, before going into the freezing details of the Warfare event held recently in Ascot. 

Along the way there's a painting challenge, lots of cold-weather outdoor undercoating, several Samurai excursions, the Kingdom of Benin gets a mention, Perry plastics are yet again lauded to the heavens (Christmas is coming after all..), and a vaguely informed debate as to whether competitions actually have to be competitive to be enjoyable (spoiler alert, the answer is "no").

So, sit back, make sure to keep dipping your brush in the water pot rather than that glass of gently steaming mulled wine, and revel in listening to the 205th most popular hobby podcast in Finland right now !

• Tamsins Blog
• Xyston Generals as Companions
• Brixham Match Reports
• Red3 Miniatures

Oim Spartacus!

After every hiatus comes a podcast, and this week is no different as the full Madaxeman podcast team return somewhat grudgingly from an extended break of actually playing games, going outside and doing proper things in the real world - or in Tamsin's case, making one helluva lot of trees and shaving a few towels in the process - and step up out of their basements, dust off their parchment rulesets and head to their microphones to share their lack of wargames wisdom... 

The end result is a decidedly unscripted second (and first non-ADLG-specific) podcast of a new series, as we compare notes on painting and not painting, discuss how weird it is to go to a show again (SELWG), engage in a pretty piratey Andy's Quiz and see a welcome return for Micah Richards and the World of Wor-Wor-WarSports as we preview part of the upcoming Devonian Classic competition next weekend and try and predict the winners of the 25mm pool in a more random than random sort of way.

• Refurbished Medievals in 15mm 
• Tamsin's SELWG Demo Games report
• Tamsin's Jungle Terrain 
• The God's Own Scale Podcast Site

ADLGv4 List Building : The BHGS Teams 2021 - the top 6 lists

Another tentative step back towards recording and publishing a regular podcast this autumn sees the usual list review team of me, Dave and Richard pore over the 6 lists used by the members of the top 2 placed teams from the recent BHGS Teams L'Art de la Guerre event held in London in September 2021.

The event was themed into 3 separate pools : Biblical, armies with Steppe terrain, and Sub Zero (pre 0AD) and so we have a very eclectic group of lists to share and discuss in this podcast: Hittites and Assyrians, Parthians and Abbasids, and Later Persians and Ptolemaic Successors. 

The lists all are reproduced on the Madaxeman ADLG Wiki so you can read them at your leisure, or read along as you listen.

As usual this podcast is also being published on the Madaxeman YouTube Channel with pictures of some vaguely relevant figures and more importantly frequent appearances of all of the lists as well.  

 

ISITYAA tackles The Problem With Paint (Summer - ahem - 2021 Bonus Episode #2)

After much promise and very little delivery, another lazily rehashed cut-and-paste job recycles an old episode of I'm Sorry I Think You're An Arse and plops it out into the audio-ether for your delight and tangible disappointment.

This segment was originally published at the start of 2021, probably when we were all working under some sort of lockdown scenario, and addresses head-on the vexed issue of whether modern gaming and modelling paint ranges have just gone too goddam far, and instead puts forward the entirely reasonable proposition that we should all simply go back to the halcyon days when the Humbrol range of enamels was the be all and end all of painting toy soldiers, and further expounds the theory that we would all be far happier if someone important just drew a big fat Gloss 208 Day-glo Green line under any further paint-based development shenanigans going forward.

As well as this recycling initiative, there are actually some other new podcast episodes in gestation - a list pod is in production as we speak, and there are mutterings and vague talk of restarting the full team pod in a few weeks as well, most probably with some World of War-War-War Sports punditry and predictions on upcoming tournaments.

But in the meantime, a bit like finding an open petrol station, then realising that it only has LPG in stock, this is about as good as it is going to get for this week I'm afraid ... 

 

ISITYAA tackles The Greying of the Hobby (Summer 2021 Bonus Episode #1)

As threatened, The Madaxeman Podcast returns to punctuate your summer with a lazily cobbled together series of repeats of our barely tongue in cheek I'm Sorry I Think You're an Arse feature.

This 30 minute snippet of Madaxeman Podcast is an ideal way to brighten your already sunny day (between showers), and this time around features an ISITYAA from way back in March of this year in which Adam takes on the vexed subject of why anyone who comes out with the hoary old line of "The Hobby is Greying, And we need to do something about it!" actually needs to get right back in their box (ideally quite quickly, as otherwise Adam may assist them in an overly proactive manner). 

Look out for more ISITYAA repeats in the coming weeks!

 

 

Episode 84 - With a Sharpened Spoon

This week the 84th episode of the Madaxeman Podcast marks a firebreak in the cavalcade of nonsense as we finally decide to take a bit of a break until the Autuumn Lockdown season hoves into view again - possibly in a couple of weeks at the current rate.

In this week's episode we push the boundaries of the wargaming/tropical arboriculture sub-genre to the max with an other extended session of In The Jungle with Tamsin, a smidgeon of painting gets done, the relative merits of the two key brands of non-local chip shops in the North of England are decided, the A1 roadside phenomenon is revived and marvelled at again, Adam has a good old rant about the nonsense of the Longbow in I'm Sorry I Think You're An Arse, many, many games are discussed - some of which are also tastefully censored to avoid giving away too much information to the enemy - and Andy's Quiz returns from the depths of Time with some Eboracum-themed answers, a new set of questions, and in a "we can't keep you waiting until September" splurge of generosity, you even get the answers to this week's questions after the closing credits. 

We'll be back in the Autumn with this sort of nonsense, but watch out for one-offs and (possibly) some "Greatest Hits" special episodes (aka repeats of the funnier ISITYAA segments, shamelessly thrown out there as stand-alone podcasts) over the next few months of Summer 2021. 

• Birdsong Audio from Squashy 555, used under Creative Commons license 
• Trees, 'faarsands of 'em sir! on Tamsin's Blog

ADLG v4 List Building - Lists from The 3T's Event in York, June 2021

In this Madaxeman Army List Podcast the regular team run the rule over 5 lists all of which featured at the recent 3T's ADLG v4 event held in York in June 2021.

The lists covered are Thracian and Late Roman, together with the top 3 placed lists, Bosporan, Parthian and Nobades.

This podcast is also available in video format on the Madaxeman YouTube Channel, and a series of 5 battle reports featuring the Thracians is online on Madaxeman.com

All of the lists are also on the ADLG Wiki 

 

Episode 82 - The Rhubarb Triangle

This week the painting hiatus starts to break for some of us as work and weather and actual opponents battle for supremacy on desktops and dice bags right across the country.

That means a bit of black dot madness creeps in, football strips as heraldry get debated, there is a lengthy diversion into how many bananas can you fit in a 2-foot square terrain tile, Dixons 15mm Marlburians get a quick review, Mirliton's 15mm Communist Italians are sprayed and glued together, and the logic of reviving Hard-Fi's career through small scale modelling is briefly considered and discarded in a short section in which we all pay libations to Vallejo, the Greek God Of Paint Colours.

More importantly at around the 44 minute mark we dive headlong into the world of sports broadcasting with World of War-war-war-Sports, a pundits-eye-view of the runners and riders from the UK's first real post-lockdown ADLG v4 competition in York this coming weekend. We go through the field, and pick the group stage winners and them simulate our way to the very final itself all without the aid of VAR, but with the aid of special guest Micah Richards calling in from table-side.  

The episode rounds off with Andy's Quiz, this week on the topical topic of York. 

(Next week might well be our last Lockdown 21 podcast before we all take a well deserved summer hiatus, but watch out for some live, in-the-field specials coming out over the summer months.)

• Everest Models on eBay - Banana Trees that work!
• Communal Italians on Tagmata.it
• Sports background music as used under Creative Commons Attributional license 

Our Pool-based draw for the York competition:

Group 1
1. Dave Handley   Early Arab 
2. Dave Ruddock    Armenian 
3. Dave Allan      Parthian
4. Bob Amey      Palmyan
5. Nik Sharp    Meroitic Kushite
6. Gordon Jamieson  Caledonian
7. Bob Middlemist  Carthaginian
8. David Roberts   Middle Imperial Roman
9. Graeme Carroll Sassanid Persian
Group 2
1. Robert Taylor  Palmyran
2. Julian Lopez  Blemmyes/Nobatoes
3. Bill Robertson  Slave Revolt
4. Richard Case   Bosporan
5. Tim Porter      Thracian
6. Andrew Ellis   Early Imperial Roman
7. Alan Cutner  Aramean
8. Dave Saunders Late Imperial Roman
9. Robin Jackson  Ancient Spanish
Group 3
1. Adrian Steer Republican Roman
2. Marco Baroni    Ancient British
3. David Finnigan Triumvirate Roman
4. John Hogan     Carthaginian
5. Ferdie       Mithraditic
6. Chris Tofalos  Ptolemaic
7. Chris Proudfoot Aramean
8. Jesse Schoor   Mithraditic
9. Tony Robinson  Judean Jewish
Group 4
1. Hunter Hope   Meroitic Kushite
2. A Late Entry with Romans 
3. Kevin Johnson   Selucid
4. Stephen Nice   Early Imperial Roman
5. Hugh Cameron  Parthian
6. Charles Gronau  Middle Imperial Roman
7. Paul Dawson  Late Imperial Roman
8. Mike Bennett   Sassanid Persian

 

Episode 81 - Put it through a blender, with a dash of water

In this week's swelteringly hot podcast the regular team of seven perspire their way through a zoom call in a brief interlude from actually playing games in the real world against real (fully vaccinated) people to bring you what may well be one of the most podcast-like podcasts we've ever actually done. 

Part of the reason for that burst of unexpected normality is due to an unplanned but intriguing discussion about when and how we all outed ourselves as wargamers to our colleagues at work.

Following that, normal service is quickly resumed as we start to consider if a YouTube channel devoted to road-testing kitchen blenders for their ability to chop up car-wash sponges is a viable commercial proposition, if painting just three 10mm figures in a fortnight is something anyone would be prepared to admit, how Watford Gap Services is muscling in on eBay as the premium marketplace for sale of second hand wargames figures and if pizza making is an integral part of the gaming pantheon.

There is also a whole new episode of I'm Sorry I think You're An Arse! this week in which the proposition that the Achaemenid Persians were just so crap they deserve to be wiped from the slate of wargaming history is carefully considered and eruditely discussed, followed by a spot of actual gaming-experienced-based assessment of ADLGv4 so far. 

Finally Andy's Quiz hoves into view yet again, and attempts to deploy three new questions which are vaguely topical when the pod comes out but which in 2 week's time will no doubt feel as relevant as a discussion around the Eurovision Song Contest results would do today.

• Tamsin's Blog
• Clive's Stuff on eBay
• Watford Gap Southbound

The Aroma Will Fade Over Time

After a fortnight in which we received some disturbingly positive comments from many of wargamings Twitterati, the usual gang of 7 return with a tentative foray into the actual real world as lockdown eases sufficiently to allow CLWC to reopen again and all of us to attempt social engagement in a proper face to face environment.

In a limited palette of painting this week Tamsin goes totally herbal in the hillsides, Dave chunters on about the Franks for the 600th week in a row, Simon finally cracks and joins the Perry Medieval Plastic Tribe, Peter discovers that Red is the new Gold, Adam thinks carefully about meeting strangers in a warehouse late one evening, Andy finds a hole to drive into and I end my decades-long addiction to Testors Dullcote in dramatic style.

The "What did you play this week?" section focuses on our first tentative steps with ADLG v4 in the real world against real opponents as we try out some of the theory from the previous episode and stress test it against harsh reality, and Andy's Quiz of course returns with a highly topical (if this had come out last Sunday) Eurovision-themed Italian Heavy Metal special. 

(Adam was having audio issues this week, so apologies in advance for the iffy sound quality from his microphone)

• Tamsin's Hills 
• The Dullcote Tweet  
• Love for the Podcast from @GodsOwnScale