Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

I finished off the final batch of ALN fighters for the Algerian War project this week.  It's been three months since I did the last batch. Three are Battlezone Miniatures (ex. Sgt, Major): 1 rifle-grenadier, coming from the USMC 1943-44 Rifle Squad pack: a greatcoated rifle-grenadier, from the late war US Army Support pack; and the bazooka team no.2, from the US Airborne support pack.  I replaced their M1 helmeted heads with the last few spare heads wearing caps I had.  With the exception of the head swaps they didn't need any further work to make very passable ALN mujahedeen, fitting very well with the rest of the platoon I've built up this year. The other four figures are Newline Designs Jaidia Warriors from their Sudan Mahdist range.  They do well enough for the fighter from a less well equipped unit without making any changes.  Although they haven't got the customary hood, the garments they're wearing are good enough djellabas. These were nice and quick...

I managed to get a fair bit of hobby time in this week which included painting some figures.  It's the first ones I've painted since May and it was good to get back to it. Painting/modelling   I finally completed the exteriors of the Spanish/Italian buildings except for the water tower which is still as built.  You can see them here . I've been working on 20mm Sikh Wars artillery crews, for both the Sikh and Anglo-British forces.  They've been cleaned up, primed and painted with just the guns and basing to do.  Research & Reading I've been reading The First Anglo-Sikh War by Amarpal Singh.  This is a fine little book, in two defined sections.  The first part details each battle and the second part is a battlefield guide.  You may think that unless you're actually intending on going to visit the battlefields, that some of the second part isn't that useful, but there's still a lot of good info so don't just skip it all - as I almost did!...

After what seems like an age I finally completed the exteriors of the Empires at War Spanish/Italian MDF buildings.  This last stage was working on the wooden areas such as the balcony railings and doors.  Part 1 , part 2 and part 3 show the work up to this point. I can't really say that they're finished as there's the interiors to do and I also want to make some scenic bases for them.  But I've reached a stage where I'm happy with how they look and would use them in a game. Two Storey house(L).  Large house with balcony (R)                                                          Large three storey house with balcony (L).  Small three storey house (R) Arched building (L).  Taverna (R).  Two views of the church front (L) and rear (R).  Farm (L).  Villa (R). 

Not too much to report, all my hobby activity this week has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings. Painting/modelling   I completed the exterior wall paint jobs of all the Spanish/Italian buildings except for the water tower which is still as built.  Details here .  Still with the Med. buildings I've been working on all the odds and sods such as the walls for the farm and villa sets, and painting the wooden parts of each building.  I should be able to complete them this weekend.  I've enjoyed doing them but it's been well over a month since I painted any figures and I'm itching to get some done.  I'll do a post with the completed buildings next week.  Research & Reading I've finished reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq" except for The Algerian War section.    Knowing that The Algerian War is one of "my things" and the reason why I bought the book, I can hear all 5...

With the roofs done, the next stage in the revamp was to work on covering up the unsightly MDF where the corners of each wall joined which I'd talked about here . I grabbed the remnants of a Privateer Press P3 Jack Bone pot that I've had for years and liberally coated all the corners of each building.  P3 paints are very thick, like the old Citadel Foundation range and will cover anything in one coat. Mind the gaps When doing this I noticed quite a lot of gaps at the corners where I'd not assembled the buildings very well.  I decided to fill them, using  Vallejo Plastic Putty which has got a thin applicator nozzle allowing you to be quite precise.  I used an old gift card to force the putty in the  gaps then a rag to wipe it smooth.  With hindsight I should have done this before painting.  With this done it was time to paint the corners and try to blend them into the rest of the walls.  I used Vallejo Model Colour Dark Sand as the base colour and ...

A bit of a funny week.  With the double bank holiday I thought I'd get a lot done but after a good start with a game of Bolt Action and working on the Mediterranean buildings it tailed off somewhat.  Gaming I played a game of Bolt Action, set in Italy 1944.  Read the AAR here .   Painting/modelling   The rest of my hobby time has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings.  You can read about this here and here .  Research & Reading I've started reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq".  I picked this up in March for £5.59, £2.80 of which was the P & P.  I bought it for the section on The Algerian War but the entire book looks fascinating.  I was hooked just reading the Introduction and I'm now onto The Philippine Insurrection. Incoming! I've started June in the same frame of mind as May.  I'm fast becoming the wargames equivalent of Norbert Colon the Vi...

As described in the first part of this series one of the main things to deal with was the roofs.  The pantiles were too dark, too plasticky and too shiny!  Luckily I had the perfect paint to hand in the form of Dulux Sumatran Melody 2, a tin of which I'd had mixed up earlier in the year when doing the bases for my Algerian War figures.   The original colours with one repainted roof First off I used a smallish brush to cut in round the edges of the roofs, trying not to get any paint on any other parts.  Then with a 1 cm decorating brush I covered all the tiled roofs.  One of the great things about using emulsions is they dry very quick.  All of the Dulux paints I've had made up have been made with a matt finish and they really do give a pleasing flat matt. This stage didn't take long to do at all. A pleasing matt basecoat The next task was to add some contrast.  I mixed up Sumatran Melody 2 with Dulux colour matched to Vallejo Iraqui Sand at appro...

As I mentioned in the weekly update for 28 May to 03 June I've made a start on the Spanish/Italian MDF buildings from  Empires at War .   I  bought the first set in 2017 intending to use them for the Italian Campaign in WW2.  I didn't get round to making them until 2019, and when I finally did I enjoyed it so bought the second set and made them soon after.  Empires at War offer sandstone or unpainted versions, I went for the sandstone to save some work.  Overall they went together well and they make nice little buildings.  I didn't do anything with them and they went into a box file waiting to be used. I always intended to make some bases for them, but it's only since I've rekindled my interest in the Italian Campaign that I got them out and had a good look.  Although these were bought as a finished option, there's still work that needs doing before I'd put them on the table.   First thought was to add a very light skim o...

After completing some Mediterranean themed terrain pieces and redoing my figure bases it was only natural to set them all out and have a game.  I didn't worry too much about points, just using the majority of the French CEF Goumiers and German Gebirgsjäger (GJ) figures that I had.  This worked out to over 1000 points for the Goums, so I added a 20mm Flak 38 to the Germans to make them up to around 750 points.  This felt about right for  a attack/defence game based upon the Envelopment scenario from the rule book. To make it a bit more interesting I didn't initially deploy the German forces but put markers on the board.  I then rolled for each one to see which German unit was in place at that point.   Turn One  All German forces are hidden so decided to leave them as is.  All FEC Run (double movement). The Goumiers advance Turn Two For this turn I drew dice and rolled to establish the German unit positions with most of them going into Amb...

I've been fully focused on my WW2 Italian Campaign project this week. Painting/modelling   I finished the bases makeover of the Allied part of my Italian Campaign collection which you can see here . I based my poplar trees.  These were the last trees that needed basing from the job lot I bought many years ago and based last year ( see The Great Tree Project posts ).  I used the same basic methods described in these posts, but with the colour palette I'd used for the Italian Campaign figure bases,  Algerian War figures and Mediterranean hills and scatter that I've been working on in 2022.  I've started improving my collection of 15mm Spanish buildings, which I'm using as generic Mediterranean buildings.  These are all Empires at War MDF that I built a few years ago.  Nice buildings overall, but there's always improvements you can make on MDF kits and that's what I'm going to be working on.  These will be my focus for a couple of week at least ...