Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Here's the summary of my hobby activity for the last full week of February: Gaming I played a solo game of Ambush Alley in the French Indo-China War.  Read about it here Painting/modelling   Quite busy with a lot of different bits going on: Completed the Battlezone Native raiders detailed here . Completed the old Blitz Miniatures figures that I'd swapped the heads on to make them more suitable for ALN fighters.  Reworked the bases on my old Blitz Miniatures WW2 goumier figures that I'm using for ALN fighters. Completed an old Battlefield Miniatures WW2 French para.  I also reworked the bases on the existing painted  Battlefield Miniatures WW2 French paras  Painted up and based a Battlezone Marine who'll do perfectly as a French officer in Algeria. Nearly completed a Battlezone MG team with just the base to do.  I cleaned up another seven Battlezone US Marines and took their heads off ready for a swap.  I cleaned up the pack of five Battlezone Red Army riflemen.  Busy, m

I've had the the original Ambush Alley and then the Osprey Force on Force rules since they were first released.  Although I like them and have been meaning to use them I never have - which is like many of the rules I own.   For this first game I amended the Contracting Trouble scenario which appears in both the old AA rules and the pretty Osprey FoF.  You can download the full scenario details here . Mission Brief A team of French Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés (GCMA) have been attacked while visiting a contact at a village.  The villagers have since disappeared leaving them pinned down by Viet Minh.  A squad of the 8e BPC (battalion parachutiste de choc) are in the vicinity and hearing the gunfire make for the village. French (Regular) Mission Objective  The paras must locate the GCMA team and escort them off the south table edge. The GCMA are wounded and out of ammunition by the time the paras arrive on the table and may not fire on the Viet Minh. It is important to ke

I completed the Battlezone Miniatures Native Resistance Fighters this week.  I originally bought them for the Algerian War project, but on close inspection upon arrival, the Oriental features and dress meant they're far more suitable for the French Indo-China War.  Therefore, I painted them up as some  indigenous irregulars fighting for the French such as the Hmong/Mong peoples. They're also sculpted in a very different style to the USMC Raiders .  They're much chunkier and taller and they fit better with the Liberation Miniatures figures which make up nearly all my Indo-China collection.  The pack of seven contained one figure with a bush hat who makes a very good Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés soldier working with the irregulars as many bravely did.  I also added in the USMC Raider figure that I felt didn't work as an ALN fighter for the Algerian War. The irregulars skin was painted first with Citadel Tallarn Flesh and then washed with AP Dark Tone.  Tallar

Third week of Feb and here's the summary of my hobby activity: Painting/modelling   I finished off the Battlezone Miniatures USMC raiders which I'm using as ALN fighters for the Algerian War project.  Have a look here I did some surgery on  a few old Battlefield Miniatures figures and swapped their heads to make them more suitable for ALN.  I cleaned up a pack of Battlezone Native raiders.  These are much bigger figures than the USMC Raiders in a very different style and must have been done by a different sculptor.  Due to the oriental features and clothing I decided to do them for Indo-China rather than Algeria which was their intended purpose. I cleaned up a Battlezone MG team which will do as French conscripts in Algeria. I found an old Battlefield Miniatures WW2 French para which works as well for Indo-China or Algeria so added him to the table while I was in the zone. I cleaned up another few Battlezone US Marines and took their heads off ready for a swap.  Stuff on the de

I finished off my first batch of Battlezone Miniatures USMC Raiders this week.  They'll be used as ALN fighters for the Algerian War project. I had two packs of five but of the ten, one was a duplicate BAR gunner and I don't like any duplicate figures in skirmish scale games.  That figure is in the spares bin now.  The other was in a vest so not what I was looking for.  He's had a free transfer to the French Indo-China War project where he fits in better.  I didn't do anything in the way of converting these.  They're probably a bit overequipped in terms of webbing, but I have seen seen photos of ALN units in full webbing so I'll use them as a better equipped squad,  They're also well equipped weapons wise, so they'll fit in better for the era I'm particular interested in gaming which is 1957 and 1958.  This was when the French were making more use of 'copters and honing their COIN tactics.   The paint job was simple.  The skin was painted first w

I was quite excited at first glance of the Warlord Games email announcing the Slaine miniatures game .  I thought/hoped they'd done the usual Warlord trick and bought up an existing range (in this case the Celtos range from Brigade Models ) and repackaged it.  I have a good sized collection of these and a decent set of rules may see them get some use. Alas, on looking into it properly it is a new range of figures for another Warlord "boutique" game.  Will it be supported properly or will it just disappear in a year or so?  Who knows but it did make me start thinking about Celtos again. This has been the only fantasy game I've really gone for.  I really like the Celtic mythos which I'd first been introduced to as a lad through Michael Moocock's Corum books.   I was also drawn to the superb artwork by Clint Langley who did the Slaine art in 2000AD and I really liked the overall game concept.   I got into the game from the early days in 2002.  I-Kore, who were th

This is what I've been working on this week. Painting/modelling   I made a few batches of different shades of clump foliage out of old dish scourers.  I really like doing this sort of thing as they would have ended up in landfill.  They took no time and little effort to do.  Each scourer made a small bag of material.  When I've honed the technique and make more I'll do a post on it. I made some more jungle terrain to act as a link between my Vietnamese village and the jungle - more pics here . I cleaned up and started to paint a squad of Battlezone Miniatures USMC raiders to be used as ALN fighters for the Algerian War project. Research I'm well into A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne now.  What a great book it is. I'm still researching the French Algerian and Indo-China Wars as and when time allows.   Purchases Very restrained this week with only a few things coming in: I ordered a couple of packets of Swamp Green Tall Wild Tufts from Serious-Play on 2nd Feb a

On the back of making a base for my Indo-China/Vietnamese buildings I decided to make some additional scatter bases to extend the village into the surrounding jungle. The techniques used have been mainly covered in the jungle terrain posts I did last year.  However, as these pieces were more a part of the village than the deep jungle, I used the village red-earth tones rather than the darker jungle tones.  If you want to read what I did please have a look at these posts.  Otherwise the rest of this post is photos!  Judging by the positive comments I've received people should like these too.  

This is what I've been working on in the first week of Feb. Painting/modelling   I finished revamping the bases of my French Indo-China War figures so they fit in better with the terrain.  They got a dark wash and then I added a mix of static grass and lichen (which I'd put through an old blender) and then various grass tufts.  Finally I added a few more earth tones. They look a lot better now. I made a base for my Indo-China village buildings detailed  here . I did some more to my jungle scatter terrain, adding a few more earth tones to the bases.  I really need to stop fiddling about with these.   Painted a load of corrugated cardboard in preparation for making yet more jungle terrain and started to make some more.  You can't have enough. Village surround in progress I've been experimenting with making my own scatter material.  I'll probably do a post on this later. Research I started to read A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne again.  It's been years sinc

I painted these Vietnamese buildings from SHQ donkey's years ago but they've never made it to the table top.  With my interest in the French Wars of Decolonisation reinvigorated it was time to change that.  But first they needed a home. I've been playing about with EVA foam for a couple of weeks or so.  I did some tests to see how it would take different types of paint (emulsion, cheap craft acrylics, hobby acrylics) and how sand and filler would adhere to it.  It fared well with all of these tests.  Now was the time to actually do something with it. After looking at a plethora of photos of Vietnamese buildings and villages (both real and model) I positioned the buildings and drew round them to mark their footprints.   Then the fun bit.  I used cheap household filler from Amazon to add a layer of texture to the whole of the base.  This was simpler than I anticipated when going around the buildings footprints.  The whole lot was left to dry for a couple of hours. On returnin