Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

The last figures I completed in 2024 were a quartet of Victrix Dark Age Archers.  These were my oldest outstanding 28mm miniatures purchased in late 2022.   After completing these I thought it would be interesting to look at all the different figures I made using the Dark Age Archers bodies as the basis.  You get 36 bodies (one piece legs and torso) in each set.  Four are meant as archers, two as slingers.  There are numerous heads, arms and bits.  I sold one spruce which left me with 30 to do.  In reality I only did 28 as I used the legs from two of the archers with some Oathmark Elves. As with all plastic kits some bits work better together than others and Victrix do give instructions as to what bits fit certain bodies.  If you were doing these all as archers for the same army, you’d inevitably end up with some quite similar figures which in my eyes defeats the purpose of using plastics but that's just me.     When you’ve worked o...

That's June gone.  I've continued making steady progress, completing a further 11 28mm figures (88 done out of the 128 that I started the year with).  I've made a decent start on the 15mm Early Imperial Rome project now as well.  I also played another two games, giving two rulesets I've long wanted to play a try.  Overall I'm very satisfied with my hobby year at this halfway point.  Completed I didn't have too much on the table to finish off at the end of May: In the first week of June I finished the Victrix Armoured Late-Romans.  I completed these as a unit of noble Germanic warriors.  You can see more  here . 28mm Print Minis Bitter Nightshades. These are some 3D printed figures I picked up last year and the first real Sci-Fi figures I've ever painted.  Packed with detail, just as I thought I'd finished them I'd see something else to do so they took awhile!  I'll do a post detailing these when I get time. In progress 15mm Cromarty Forg...

June started well as I completed the Victrix late-Roman Armoured Warriors I'd started on in May. I only had the one sprue of six to do and I finished them as noble Germanic/Gothic warriors.  They'll do as a unit of five with a leader, or I could use one as a champion and field a smaller unit for Warlords of Eherwon, which are the rules I'm currently using.  They're a nice addition to the Germanic force providing a bit of muscle.  As with all the Victrix kits they're top quality.  I was provided with a separate head sprue as well which is overkill really.  I have so many spare heads now I really don't know what to do with them.  It's a pity you can't buy the bits separately but that'd undo the whole business model I suspect.  Although some of it may get used for kitbashing unless you want to make a 20 headed monster all this plastic is going to sit there unused and inevitably it'll be thrown away.  I'm really not comfortable with the waste asp...

As I assembled the forces for my first game using the late-Roman and Germanics that I've been working on for the last few months, I realised I needed a few more figures to make up the units.  I needed an extra pedes for each infantry unit and a leader for the missile troops.  I didn't have any more specific late-Romans left so I rooted through my other Victrix sprues. The bodies for the two spearmen came from a sprue I had from the Victrix Ancient Germans set.  Belt details aside, there's very little difference between the clothing across much of the ranges.  The hands holding the spear come from the Unarmoured Late-Romans set as do the heads.  I've got so many spare heads from that one pack I could outfit whole legions!  The shields are also from that set finished with Little Big Man transfers. I'm using Warlords of Erehwon to play with and each unit is usually a minimum of four strong with a leader figure.  I had four staff slingers and four archers ...

Introduction I finally got the time I needed to set up and play my first game of the year.  As I'd been working on them for what seemed like forever I took the recently finished Victrix late-Romans and Germanics to the field.  I didn't have a rules set in mind when I started this collection, but I decided to use Warlords of Erehwon as I'm familiar with it. Set up I played the basic Upon the Field of Battle scenario from the WoE rulebook.  Each side was around 450 points.  I based the forces on the WoE Roman and Barbarian lists available from Rick Priestley's website  and took guidance from the Warhammer Ancient Battles Fall of the West supplement to give a flavour of this later period.  I calculated the points using the Points Values file also from the site.  The force lists are  here .  I used my usual trick to help randomise the game by numbering each unit and each order dice.  I use this to randomly deploy the units, as an ...