A Blogger's Challenge

Jonathan Freitag runs a long standing blog, the Palouse Wargaming Journal, which has just celebrated its 13th anniversary¹. In his latest post² he mused on the effect blogging has on battle reports building on a post from 2019³ which looked at how visitors read battle reports.

I know Jonathan as we are both active on the Society of Ancients forum and from Jonathan's statistical work on the Great Wargaming Survey.

After I'd commented on his anniversary post⁴, Jonathan replied that he would enjoy seeing my views on the topic of battle reports. A challenge I couldn't resist; even if it does lead to a blogger writing about blogging!

Musing On ADLG & BHGS Rankings

Introduction

Every once in a while I check the UK Art de la Guerre (ADLG) ranking provided by the British Historical Games Society (BHGS). Not least because I find them statistically quite intriguing if somewhat strange. This week I decided to dig a little deeper and do more than just note my latest ranking. I have written about rankings before in 2023 (see the postscript).

How the rankings work

They are convoluted and closer to an algorithm than commutative arithmetic:

• Players receive points based on where they finish not on the result of individual games.
• The points available differ by event: larger competitions offer more points.
• The rankings only contain the results of events in the previous twelve months.
• All results are included until the seventh event and beyond, when only the player's six best scores count.

Until players have attended their seventh event, their ranking records both their performance and their attendance (a tracker). For example: two players can have different rankings not because of performance differences but simply because one player has attended more events.

More importantly, below seven events the ranking is a "warts and all" measure. Beyond that, poorer results get dropped and the ranking begins to represent the best of a player.

Confused? I was and I still am. Read on for more detail and analysis. Be warned it's a longish read.

On Brushes

Introduction

When I lived on the Wirral in the 1980s, I was lucky enough to live close to an art shop called Tapley's run by the very knowledgeable Irene Brown. One day I was chatting to her and mentioned that, no matter how careful I was, my brushes didn't last very long; be they sable or synthetic. She reached under the counter and produced a small box of "special" brushes from Isabey of France. This was my introduction to the wonders of Kolinsky sable brushes: I've never looked back.

Current situation

Decades later I've still using Isabey brushes, but my main source of Kolinsky sable brushes has shifted to Rosemary's Brushes.

AI And Event T-Shirts

Introduction

I've seen lots of event t-shirts & polo shirts: both printed and embroidered. I began to wonder just how hard could it be? To find out, I designed, and had printed, something for this year's King in the North at Haxby in October.

The main problem was the artwork. I'm not really gifted with a pencil, so I had to turn to the new AI tools to compensate for my lack of skill.

Now read on for all the gory details.

Basing Recipes

Preparation

Base edges: I always paint the edges of my bases before applying any groundwork as it gives a far neater finish. I usually use the first colour given in the recipe, although for my North American, temperate scheme I quite like black edges.

Groundwork:This comprises two layers of sand and PVA (white or wood glue). The first layer is fine sand; mainly to texture around and across the figure bases. The second is a layer of coarse sand to hide the figure bases. This basic groundwork doesn't need to be painted, just highlighted (see Temperate #2).

Podcasts, Podget, Audacious, And Linux

For over ten years I've been using gPodder to manage my subscriptions to music and hobby podcasts.  Recently, I realised that gPodder was using almost 0.25 Gb of memory all the time just to monitor podcast feeds every hour.  This seemed an excessive overhead.

To make matters worse I'd developed all sorts of different podcast habits; copying music podcasts to an archive folder etc etc.  The habits weren't onerous but I began to wonder if there was a different way to do things with less intervention on my part.

From now on this gets "techie".  So, if this isn't your thing, look away now!

Improving A Warbases Paint Rack

In October last year I cleaned my painting desk and re-organised my paints.  When I'd finished I realised it was time to invest in a vertical paint rack as I was running out of space on my desk no matter how I arranged things.

I looked around online and ordered this from Warbases for £12.00 plus £2.60 postage:

Forged in Battle: A Cautionary Tale

This weekend I prepared a pack of 15 mm Illyrian cavalry and much to my dismay I found:

ADLG: V4 Army List Writer - Major Update

Important update (31 July 2025)
I've decided make the versions available below (4.04.03 with & without macros) the last to be publicly available.

Introduction
In March 2021 I delved into the delights of Google Sheets and created a spreadsheet based list writer for Art de la Guerre (ADLG) V3.   In the following May I released a version for ADLG V4.

In the intervening years I have used the writer extensively.  I've also fixed the odd bug and updated the released version.  However, behind the scenes I've been tweaking a few things, adding more features, and writing app scripts (Google speak for macros) to automate various processes.

It's now time to release an updated and much streamlined version.

DBA 3.0 Army Design Tool - Update

Late last year I released the first version of this tool.  It was a nice data project that I thought would fill a rainy afternoon and be of benefit to others.   Earlier this month Chris Laudermilk left a comment that lead to a significantly improved v1.0.

Via email, Chris contributed a couple of neat formulae.  One parsed the options text removing the need for users to enter the number of elements.   The other selected the troop type where there was only one option; once again reducing user input.  Very efficient.

What's new and what's changed?
Unfortunately, there's a drawback with the second formula.  When a user selects an army and enters an option it overwrites the formula.  Repeated use would remove more of the formulae eventually removing them altogether.

AI, ADLG And The Madaxeman

I'm sure we have all noticed the torrent of news about AI.  I've remained sceptical, but I've found some of the AI image processing tools to be well worth the trouble. Many of my recent images have been processed with the help of such tools.  But that's not the subject of this post.

Introduction
I recently, stumbled across www.perplexity.ai: billed as an AI assisted search engine.  I started using it to research costume details for my Hellenistic project and I was impressed.  The results are delivered in sentences with reference links and images (if appropriate).  It also says if it doesn't know the answer; a nice touch.

ADLG & the Madaxeman
Being curious, I created a few other searches including some related to Art de la Guerre (ADLG).  Of course, they all contained a reference to the hub of Tim Porter's burgeoning mega-media-empire: www.madaxeman.com.

Much later, I was looking at Tim's latest battle reports when I spotted a link to his 2021 appearance on the God's Own Scale podcast during which Tim describes the history of www.madaxeman.com.  So, whilst painting, I listened to the episode again.  The portion where Tim describes the somewhat random (haphazard?) genesis of his site was particularly interesting as was the description of his scatter gun approach to content creation and social media adjuncts.

Now Tim's been very influential in promulgating ADLG both in person and through his website.  So, putting two unrelated topics together, I wondered how the AI would go about rating the influence of www.madaxeman.com on ADLG and whether it (?) could identify any important factors underpinning Tim's influence.

Painter's Miscellany #5

It's been a while since I posted anything in this occasional series.  This is more a "thought piece" delving a bit deeper into my approach to painting ancient and medieval toy soldiers.

Rankings! What Are They Good For?

This is a follow up to my report on 2023's King In The North (KITN) competition.  In it I noted that KITN attracted a lot of players with high UK BHGS rankings.  However, whilst preparing some tables for publication, I noticed something unexpected concerning the rankings: hence this (rabbit hole) post.

Going into the competition, my expectation was that I would struggle against significantly higher ranked players and that the top places would all be taken by the highest ranked players.  I certainly found the former to be all too true at KITN 2023 but did the latter turn out to be true too?

A Painting Injury?

No. Not cutting your fingers with a scalpel or stabbing yourself on a pike.  This is a bit more serious and a cautionary tale for all avid modellers and painters.  Please bear with me as the background is important.

Background
For some time I've been suffering with a problem with my left shoulder and the left side of my upper back.  In 2019 it got a lot worse and I thought I'd injured myself in the gym.  I had tingling fingers and pains in my left arm.  My GP thought I might have something more serious so I had an MRI scan and was tested to see if I had Multiple Sclerosis.

Thankfully all the test were negative and I was referred for physiotherapy.  A set of simple exercises eased, and then eliminated, most of the trouble with my back and tingling fingers.  My shoulder still had the odd twinge but nothing too serious.

Lockdown came and went.  I painted a lot; almost every day.  The twinges persisted.  I tried all sorts of stretches many of which helped but nothing really eliminated the problem.

Tournament Preparation

I have a two-day competition in October: "The King in the North" held in Haxby, a small village outside York.  As the day draws near I've begun getting things ready.  To be honest I've been getting ready for a while now.

I've been surprised at just how much preparation is required so I thought I'd record what I've been up to.  I suppose one of my former professional roles, as a project manager, is well to the fore in what follows.

A Resurgence of Blogging?

In this post, which I admit falls into the category of "a blogger writing about blogging", I want to discuss the history of, and one possible future for, blogging from the standpoint of a wargamer and hobby blogger.

I'd also like to touch on the impact of the ever changing world of social media on the popularity of blogs.

I know I've been writing about this, and related topics, a lot recently, so if it's not your cup of tea just skip this post.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Quality Time

Anyone who spends any time online knows the benefits of using the Internet as well as the annoyances.  The key is to strike a balance between the two, and ever so slightly in favour of the former.

Recently, I've been reappraising my own use of the Internet; from social media, through hobby forums, to online chat.  This was prompted by a realisation that sometimes I would be "clicking for clicking's sake".

Here are two things that I've done in the last week to improve the quality of my time online and free up time to devote to my hobbies.

Hobby Haul

I don't normally do this but what follows is that staple of wargaming blogs: the "what I bought at the last show" post but with a twist or two.

Ten days ago I spent the day at the Phalanx show (St Helens, UK) helping Dave Lanchester run his bookstall.  I didn't get a lot of time for shopping but I went prepared with a list to focus my efforts.  The purchase of the day was a rather special dice tray:

Everything Must Change

After more than 25 years in our current home it's time to move on.  It's the usual set of motivations for people in retirement: fewer stairs, closer to family, move while we're fit & healthy, etc.

Our house is the one with the car parked on the drive.  From a hobby perspective I've had a great painting desk on the middle floor with lots of natural light.  The room also doubled as a home office.

Social Media Changeover

Way back in 2021 I wrote about how I use Twitter.  I say way back because I'm using "technology time" which passes far quicker than real time.  Needless to say, how I use it has changed significantly once again.  I'm using Twitter less and using Mastodon more.