Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Once again it's been a very busy month.  At one stage in the month I really thought I wasn't getting anything done hobby wise and then looking back as I write this I've not done that badly. Completed I spent the first part of the month prepping for a game that I haven't yet had the chance to play.  This involved: Weathering four Red Army Su-76Ms and two ISU-122/152s.  These are all 1/76th SHQ metal models that I made something like 20 years ago.  The ISUs are hefty pieces which you could brain someone with.  Lovely models.  Working on city terrain.  I made a load more rubble/ruin scatter terrain, which you can see all about  here .  I also added more weathering to the buildings and generally dirtied them up and cut out and painted a load of cobblestone sheets.  28mm Second World War German infantry.  I completed a squad of using a mix of Warlord Games Afrika Korps and German Grenadiers that I got free at Salute 2023.  I kept them very generic so they'll do as SS/sec

2024 and 2025 will see the 80th anniversary of many of the great city battles of the Second World War, such as Warsaw, Budapest, Königsberg and Berlin to name but a few.  With this is mind I've been looking at my terrain collection.  My city terrain is centred around some marvellous 20mm MDF buildings I got from Commission Figurines at Salute back in 2014.  I built some rubble piles a few years ago, but when I got it all out of the loft it didn't look very impressive so I decided to make some more. The first job was to sort the base materials.  I used four different materials: cork board; 5mm foam board; old plywood bases and old credit cards.  The cork board and foam board are great materials for this type of terrain proving height, being relatively strong, easy to cut and very lightweight.  I started by pulling apart pieces of cork board to the rough sizes I wanted and then set about the pieces with a Stanley knife and an old screwdriver.  It's very easy to carve irregul

It's been a very busy month all round, and the hobby front has been no exception.  Therefore, this is quite a lengthy update.  Completed I completed the following this month: Verrotwood Cultists.  I really enjoyed doing these, you can see more here including the concept of the Cult. 20mm Second World War Late-War Grenadiers.  There's more of them here .   While doing the above I gave some attention to the rest of my late war winter Eastern Front forces  I've touched up the paintwork where needed and added more texture to the bases of both the Germans and Red Army platoons.   20mm Red Army and Waffen SS I've also weathered and thereby finally completed one of a pair of Jagdpanzer 38s that I built about 20 years ago.  At the time I gave them a very basic finish with the information readily and freely  available being a fraction of what it is now.  I've only done the one as I want to add camo to the other before weathering.  In progress Victrix Unarmoured Late-Romans.

At Salute last year I picked up a packet of Early War Miniatures 20mm German Grenadiers for my late Second World War German Grenadier platoon.  These are Sergeant Major Miniatures sculpts now sold by the good people of EWM, although I think it was the Battlezone gents who were running the Salute stall.   This was a squad pack with ten figures marked as being ready for Chain of Command.  There's an MG34 team, an NCO with an MP40, six K98 rifle armed grenadiers (some of which also have Panzerfausts) and one with a Panzerschreck.  I don't know why there was a Panzerschreck armed figure as this wouldn't really have been allocated at individual squad level and they were used by a two man team, but otherwise it's a good selection for the squad.  As there wasn't the applicable crew member I didn't base up this figure.      I really like these sculpts.  They're probably not the greatest out there, but they have a lot of character and they fit in very well both in te