Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Well February has come and gone.  Apart from a week where I'd picked up a nasty cold (from having to sit with daft people at work that shouldn't have been in), it's been quite a good month with more hobby progress. Completed I've completed: A trio of Victrix Ancient Germans that I did as generic Dark Age warriors.  More of these here . Seven 20mm Second World War Red Army Assault Engineers.  These were really great Sgt.Major Miniatures figures that I completed quite quickly  Four 20mm Second World War German Grenadiers.  More Sgt.Major Miniatures sculpts you can see more of these and the Red Army here .  That's all my 20mm completed. Two 28mm Burrows & Badgers squirrels.  A lovely pair of miniatures, you can see more of them here . As I did in January, once I'd completed some figures I turned to terrain: I completed a couple of wooded areas for smaller scale games.  I'll post a step by step guide for these next month. In progress On the table ...

Introduction Budapest February 1945.  After a 100-day siege and three failed relief attempt, Obergruppenfuhrer Pfeffer-Wildenbruch of the IX. SS-Gebirgs Corps finally gives the order for the garrison to breakout.  It’s far too late and the breakout is an uncoordinated disaster with small pockets of men cut to pieces by the Red Army.  This is an action of one such group made up of nine survivors from the 22. SS-Freiwilligen Kavallerie-Division. Set up The game is played on a 3ft x 2ft game mat.  The area is full of rubble and debris created during the siege.  Six numbered hotspots have been placed on the table from which the Red Army forces will deploy.  The length of the game is 8 turns.   Full details of the forces, including the Insurgency Table used for the game can be found here . Starting position, SS at the bottom Turn 1 The SS cavalry move cautiously up, aware of the need not to attract any Red Army attention.  The SS cautiously m...

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  ...