March 2025 hobby update

Well darn me that's a quarter of the year gone.  What happened there?  It was a short hobby month as I was away for a week.  With Salute now almost upon us, I wanted to complete as much as possible before the show, but what with being busy work and otherwise before my week away it just didn't happen.  Overall though, I'm pleased with how much I've done or at least is in progress and if not completed by the big day will be completed shortly after.

Completed

During March I seemed to do a lot of fiddling about and only completed a few bits:

• First off I completed six Victrix Rus warriors.  Lovely miniatures to work on, I'm very pleased with how they've turned out.  You can see more here.

• I then based the sample 6mm Heroics & Ros Second World War BEF that I painted the other month, finally finishing them off.  I stuck them on a 2p which I think works well for 6mm, giving them a bit of heft.  I quite like how they've turned out but I'm not sure if this is a project I'll go on to collect. 

• The last thing I finished was a batch of shields with Norse Age designs.   While I've been working on the Victrix figures over the last couple of years, I'd  made up as many as possible as generic Dark Age warriors so they can be used for the wider period.  By not gluing the shields on I can tack a suitable shield to the figure for whether they'll be Germans/Goths or Norse Age warriors.  The shields are from the Viking and Rus sets and are finished with Battle Flag decals, suitably weathered and then matt varnished.

My terrain time this month was spent making up another batch of clump foliage.  I'd used up all the mid-green making some 6mm wooded areas (here).  This is really easy and quick to do.  There's so much satisfaction to be had from making your own stuff.

In progress

On the table as we end March are:

• Six 28mm Victrix Armoured Rus.  I'd made a start on these at the end of February and did intend to get them done this month.  They're as nice as the unarmoured figures and I've just got the details to do to finish them. 
• 28mm Oathsworn Miniatures Burrows & Badgers Kingfisher Warrior and Badger Mage.  These are the last two of my Salute 2024 purchases that are unfinished.  Wonderful miniatures, the Badger especially is a sublime sculpt.  I did want to get these done before this year's show but I'm not going to rush them so they'll take as long as they'll take to do them justice. 
• After I based the 6mm BEF infantry I dug out the rest of the Heroics & Ros samples I bought at the same time.  This included some Second World War German LMG teams and some Cold War era Soviets and Brits.  
• At the same time I thought I may as well do the Cold War afvs, so I stuck them on painting bases, primed them and started painting them.  They'll be an update on this project in April.    
• And the 15mm Hetzer is still sitting there with no progress made. 

Gaming

No gaming this month.  I had planned to play a Seven Years War game using my 6mm collection but I never got enough consecutive hours to set up and play. 

Ramblings, Reading & Research  

I read two hobby related books this month:

• "Collision of Empires" by Pritt Buttar, which is a comprehensive study of the fighting in the East from the outbreak of war in August 1914 through to the end of that fateful year.  The opening chapters on the different armies and their doctrines, historical contexts and key commanders set the scene perfectly for the rest of the book which describes the actions at mainly  tactical and strategic level.   I now want to read the three following volumes.  I originally had this out the library in 2023 but never got round to reading it, so I reordered it at the start of this year and got to it this month.  

• "The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988".  This is one of the Osprey Elite series.  It's a good little introduction to the subject.  I especially liked the colour plates of different combatants detailing the range of clothing and kit worn.  This is something that isn't in the otherwise far more in-depth Helion titles, and is therefore a good companion to the Helion books on this conflict. 

While away in Oxfordshire we went to the Pendon Museum.  This is a permanent model railway exhibition of stunning quality.  There's three layouts and some good information pieces about modelling and the history of the collection.  The main room is a dream for anyone who likes terrain.  It had me drooling, absolutely gorgeous. 

Incoming and Outgoings

Now Spring is upon us I thought I'd give the moths their freedom by opening up the wallet and buying a few bits:

• First off I bought a pair of Osprey New Vanguard titles on the naval part of the Russo-Japanese War.  Naval? I hear you cry.  Yes, indeed perhaps all those years of listening to the inestimable Ken Reilly "The Yarkshire Gamer" have finally broken my resistance.  Let's wait and see.  They are a really interesting pair of books which I got for a good price which is always nice.

• Next to arrive was the PDF of "If the Lord Spares Us" rules.  I'd been looking for a set of First World War rules for larger actions and after a lot of Internet research I finally settled on this set.  The layout is refreshingly basic being just text, and it's all rules with no fluff, which means they'll print without murdering my printer's ink.  I like a pretty rule book as much as the next man but sometimes it's good to go back to basics.

• My third and final purchase was a copy of Osprey Campaign "Tsushima 1905".  I rounded off my buying as I started with another title on the Russo-Japanese War and another good bargain off eBay.  This is a very nice companion to the books about the ships, covering the climatic battle.  

• I was also given a load of Humbrol enamels by a good friend who was clearing out his shed.  He didn't know how old they were, but I've used a couple and they were perfectly good.  I use enamels for priming metals so there's enough here to see me out!