Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Halfway through the year already, bloody hell has someone sped up time and not told me?  The hot weather this month means my painting time has been limited to early and late in the day. "Why's that?" I hear you ask.  Well my painting desk is in a South facing bedroom and it's hot as Beelezebub's balls in there, with paint drying instantly on the palette.  However, I have managed to progress on a few fronts.   The blog passed 100,000 views in June and shot up to over 103,000 by the end of the month.  I'm not sure if this is all genuine traffic (who knows how these things work), but my sincere thanks to everyone that's visited, and especially those that take the time to comment, either on the blog, TMP or Facebook.  It is very much appreciated and inspires me to keep waffling on.  The blog is just my hobby diary and as there's not any of the most popular subjects (American Civil War, Napoleonics, Warhammer 40K or NWE Second World War) I'm amazed tha...

Introduction Belarus early June 1944.  As the Red Army prepares to launch Operation Bagration, partisan activity increases.  In retaliation the Germans launch a series of anti-partisan operations.  As part of a much wider action, a German Police unit moves into some woodland to check on an old logging camp which is suspected of being used to store partisan supplies.  At the same time a reinforced partisan force are there to secure their supplies for future operations.  Who will be the victors in this no-quarter given battle? This game of Battlegroup uses forces chosen from the Partisan Battlegroup and German Security Battlegroup from the Bagration supplement.   German Security Division Battlegroup:  One Police platoon of: Command team ( 5 men); three  squads each consisting of one rifle team (each 5 men) and one LMG team (each 3 men, upgraded to MG34s); one Alarm squad (SS) of 1 rifle team (5men) and I MG34 LMG team (3 men); one Fe...

I read Douglas Nash’s excellent "From the Realm of a Dying Sun" volume II in January and it inspired me to play a couple of games of Battlegroup.  Late Second World War Eastern Front is my favourite period.  I started playing Battlegroup last year, and only got two games in.  I'm determined to get more familiar with the system this year. Game One The first game involved the combat of Kampfgruppe Huppert, formed from elements of the 1st Panzer Division, SS-Regiment Ney (comprised of Hungarian volunteers) and Panzer-Jager Battalion 37.  This was a squad level game of around 350 points a side using the Attack/Counter-attack scenario from the Battlegroup rulebook.  The forces were taken from the Fall of the Reich and Spring Awakening supplements. The Red Army started quickly using their scout team and a platoon of T-34/85s to capture two of the objectives, a hill and a wood.  The German/Hungarian force responded strongly and some good shooting from the Heer Pz-...

A new year and the first monthly hobby update.  After some family dramas to start the year, thankfully things have settled down and January has proved to be a very productive month.  Completed I'm continuing on where I left off from last year in getting stuff done: First of all I polished off a baker's dozen of 20mm Second World War Red Army infantry.  These are now sold by Battlezone Miniatures but they are Sgt. Major Miniatures sculpts.  Bread and butter work for me and a nice early success for the year. You can see more of them here .  While I was working on the above, I was also painting my last four 28mm Victrix Vikings with heads swapped  with ones from other Victrix sets.  There's more of these here . With some figures off the table, I went on to a bit of terrain work.  One of my aims for 2025 is to produce or improve at least one piece of terrain per month: I made some multiple tree bases out of a miniature Christmas tree.  You  ...