Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

England 1586.  Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spy master, has learnt that a Spanish Catholic Priest is preaching "Popish heresy" and inciting treason against good Queen Elizabeth.  He has tracked the man, Father Sebastiano, down to the remote house of Sir Roderick Greenplume, a suspected Catholic sympathiser and has sent men under Sir Sidney Hyde to apprehend the Catholics and bring them to the Tower for "hard questioning". Introduction This is a 100 point game of Sword Weirdos.  Sir Sidney's Priest Hunters use the Witch Hunters Warband trait, the Catholics are Fanatics.   Details can be found here .   Sir Sidney's mission is to capture Fr. Sebastiano and Sir Roderick.  He must avoid killing them if at all possible, although this is preferable to their escape.  If the rest of the Catholics fall in the struggle so be it.   If Fr. Sebastiano can reach the tree line at the edge of the board he is deemed to have escaped. ...

September has been busy all round including hobby wise.  I'm very pleased with what I've done and enthused with my ongoing projects.   Completed The end of the month saw the release of  A War Transformed, the Osprey rules for a "folk horror" First World War game.  I liked the look of this since it's announcement and it's encouraged me to revisit the Germans that I'd built in 2021 ( here  and  here ) and make some improvements which you can see here . I finally finished off the 15mm Landsknecht pikemen and halberdiers.  Lovely little fellas full of character there's lots more pics here . I completed two batches of Victrix Unarmoured Romans.  I enjoyed doing the first batch so much that I'd started on the second batch as the last coat of varnish was drying on the first.  More pics of them here and here .  To make the 6mm Seven Years War game that I played look a bit more interesting I knocked out some quick roads.  Details a...

As soon as I'd finished off the Landsknecht arquebusiers and musicians ( here ) I cracked on with the  remaining 33 figures.  This was 30 pikemen/halberdiers (they're the same figure you just get the halberds if you order that code) and two officers and a standard bearer.   I haven't attached any of the pikes or halberds to the figures yet.  This gives me a lot of flexibility in what units I can field, but was a right pain in the arse when taking the photos!  I'll have to glue the majority in place before I attempt to use them in a game.  As before the majority of the figures are based in pairs on 30x15mm  bases with a few based  singly on 15x15mm bases to allow for casualty removal.  The two figures based on round bases (above left) can be used as either Sergeants, Officers or Standard Bearers which class as characters in Donnybrook.   The pikes are made from a broom bristles.  They worked very well although the paint has...

August has been a good hobby month.  After my return from holiday  last month  and finally grasping the nettle that was the 15mm Landsknechts I've made some steady progress.  Completed I've completed the six Victrix warriors from the Dark Age Archers and Slingers set that I'd started at the end of July.  I really enjoyed working on these, I can't praise Victrix figures enough.  You can see more of them here . 15mm Grumpy's Landsknecht officers.  These were lovely little characterful chaps.  I painted these while doing the first batch of pikemen/halberdiers, but as they are based individually I could finish them off. 28mm Wargames Atlantic Second World War German Sentries.  I knocked out a couple of sprues of these.  There's more pics and my thoughts on the kit here .   On the back of reading about the Seven Years War I had a look at my collection, specifically the terrain.  I've never been that happy with the tree sta...