Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

As I've hinted at in a few recent weekly updates, I've been gearing up for a brand new project.  I've delved through my books,  scoured the Internet and made some  purchases.  As we end the year it's time to reveal that the new project is Late Romans from the mid 4th Century to the early 5th Century.   Now this isn't a new interest, I have been looking at this since the 90's.  As is the norm for me something else always came along.  There was a hint in a post earlier in the year as my interest was rekindled, then a trio of things aligned to give me the push.  The first was the release of the superb Victrix and to a lesser extent Wargames Atlantic plastic figures.  The second was finding the Pendragon series of novels by James Wilde at the library.  The third was a 20% off sale at Victrix. The core of the forces bought and ready to start I'd often thought about an Arthurian collection, (with Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles, an excellent series of Wa

And that's the end of 2022.  Was it a good year?  I found it hard going in many, many ways.  Thank goodness I had my family and the hobby to fall back on during the difficult times.  Here's how I did against the plan I published at the beginning of September. Existing projects Anglo-Sikh Wars Complete movement trays and add flags for each unit -  Completed.  👍👍  All the movement trays are painted and textured and all the infantry standard bearers are now fully employed with a flag to wave.  I suppose I should have done the cavalry guidons but I couldn't find any info so I put that off.   16th Century Western European Wars (15mm) -  No progress.  👎 Make scenery to go with English church model Purchase/make specific terrain Look at buying more figures to extend the collection back to the 1540s and also for the Irish Wars - I didn't buy the figures to do this but in buying the Grumpy's Landsknechts I have now got more flexibility for the later wars.  Algerian War (2

Not too much hobby activity this week, family, food and films have all been on the agenda.   I've started working on some figures for the new Ragnarok force I'm building.  The basis of these are from the Victrix Dark Age Archers set but I've got spares from the Viking set to use as well. Incoming! Santa left a couple of nice books in my Christmas stocking. This will be the last post of 2022.  The round up of the last part of 2022 post is up on the blog and news of a new project and my 2023 plans will follow in the next couple of days.   Thanks to all the people who've viewed the blog and those who left comments.  I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and all the very best for 2023. Dr B

With Christmas around the corner I've not done too much hobby stuff this week. At the start of the week I did manage to complete my second regiment of Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses.  You can see more of both regiments here .   Incoming! A command sprue from the Victrix Vikings set finally arrived, delayed by all the postal problems we currently have in the UK (along with the Railways, Nurses etc).  This came from Wargames Emporium who are a good source of plastic figures and provide a good service.  I've been after one of these sprues since 2020, when I built some figures from the standard sprue for the game Ragnarok: Heavy Metal Combat in the Viking Age (which I've yet to play).  I've had a small Norse army of Gripping Beast figures since the 1990s but wanted something different for this game, especially as the lovely Colin Patten sculpts look very small compared to today's figures.  The Victrix figures are superb but quite tricky to build especially as there's a

Over the last month or so I've been working on two regiments of Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses for Warmaster Revolution.  I finished the first regiment a couple of weeks ago intending to take some photos and post, but in the end I cracked on with the second regiment and did them all together. These are all 10mm 3D printed figures bought from MGS Miniatures.  No real clean up required apart from the removal of some supports from the firing figures  You have to be very careful about this as it's easy to break the end off the blunderbuss as I found to my cost on the first few I did.   They're primed and painted in acrylics my usual mix of Vallejo, Citadel and Army Painter.  One regiment was done in a red and green colour scheme as in the regimental colours of the French Foreign Legion.  I added in some gold as the third colour.   The second regiment was painted with the Ancient Assyrians in mind and I used a blue, yellow and red  scheme.  The most time consuming part was trying to

I'm still trying to finish off anything in play before year end.   All my efforts have gone into working on the next regiment of Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses.  When completing the first regiment I did think about having a change and doing some more Ogres, but the dwarfs were all primed and ready to go so it made more sense to crack on with them.  I'm pleased to say I've made good progress and I should be able to finish them this weekend.  Research & Reading I've finished reading The Encircling Sea, the second book of Adrian Goldsworthy's Vindolanda trilogy.  Like the first book it's been a really enjoyable and exciting read.  I'll make sure I read the last of them early in in 2023 especially as I have another trilogy waiting which is directly relevant to a new project I'll be starting in the new year. I also read a nice little book called The Battle of Lincoln 1141, which I found on my last visit to my local library.  This interested me as I spent an en

I'm been trying to focus which as every butterfly will know is easier said than done and get things finished off by year end  I've spent most of my hobby time adding the finishing touches to the First Anglo-Sikh Wars infantry regiments that I've been working on over the last year or so.  This involved texturing the movement trays and making the standards for the units. I have now completed the command stand for the first Chaos Dwarf Blunderbuss regiment for Warmaster Revolution, so these little chaps are ready for action now.   When I get a chance and light permits I'll take some better photos and post on these. Research & Reading I've started reading The Encircling Sea, the second book of Adrian Goldsworthy's Vindolanda trilogy, set in Britain at the end of the 1st Century AD.  It's an exciting read and keeping me  entertained and educated which can't be bad. Incoming! Some sprues arrived from SGS Model Store.  I won't say too much about them as

It's been a full on week work wise but I have done some hobby bits. I've finished the Stug IIIG that's been sitting on the table for ages.  There's more of it here . The regiment of 10mm Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses for Warmaster Revolution is nearly done.  Just the command stand and some final texturing of the bases to do which I hope to do this weekend.  Research & Reading I've been watching The English on BBC iPlayer.  I think it's superb and makes me want to give the Old West collection a run out.   I've continued alternating between reading Iron Kingdoms, the history of Prussia 1660 to 1947 and Sharpe's Fortress.   Incoming! I've got a few orders on the way where I've reinvested all the money from my eBay sales and some birthday money I was given.  When these arrive they'll form the basis of my projects for a fair bit of 2023.  

I've finally finished the Sturmgeschütz IIIG that seems to have been on the table for months. This is a 1/76th resin Butler's Printed Models FFF print.  It's very well scaled and almost exactly the same proportions as my old Fujimi kits.  The FFF printing leaves a lot of marks on the model, which I'm explaining away as field applied Zimmerit!  BPM now do a High Resolution Resin version of some of their models which may improve on this.  I don't really need any more Stugs but they are my favourite German AFV of the war so I won't say that I won't be acquiring any more.