Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

It's been a funny old month hobby wise.  I was away for the first week of October and since I've been back I don't feel I've achieved much. Completed Here's what I managed to get finished off: Another batch of Victrix 28mm Unarmoured Romans.  I completed these as Gothic warriors and you can see more here . I redid the bases on a Green Man and Werewolf (old AE:WW2 figures) that have been hanging around with no purpose to use for A War Transformed (well that was the original idea)!  They'll be good for Verrotwood.   In progress Here's what's currently on the table: From last month: Northstar Oathmark Elves. I finally did some work on one of these performing a cut and shut, and swapping a pair of legs from a Victrix Dark Age archer for the horrid pixie boot elf legs.  I even got it based and started painting it.  Not sure what I'll do with the other 4 as the intention for these was to use as a "wandering monster" for Ragnarok.   Warlord Games ...

I enjoyed working on the first batch of Dark Ages warriors that I made from the Victrix Unarmoured Romans (see here ) so much, that it's no word of a lie to say that I'd started on this batch before the last coat of varnish was drying on the first lot. As with the first batch I've made these quite generic. I more or less kept to the suggested parts combinations on the leaflet.  However, I did use two heads from the Dark Age Archers box just to mix things up.  And yes I still kept notes of what parts I used.  I'm adamant that I want as much variety as possible across the force.   The shields are finished with Little Big Man shield transfers again.  I learnt from the first batch to cut  the centre out as closely as possible to improve the fit around the boss and therefore the whole shield. As with the first batch I didn't glue the shields or add any swords to the figures to make them more versatile. The third batch were already in progress as I was added...

As I was finishing off the Landsknechts at the end of last month, I finally started on the pack of Victrix Unarmoured Romans that I'd bought last year.  Having recently thoroughly enjoyed working on a batch of the Dark Age Archers ( here ) I was really  enthused to get on with these.   My original idea was for a late 4th Century pre-Arthurian project as in James Wilde's Pendragon novels.  However, as with the other Dark Age warriors I've been doing, I've revised this to try and make them fairly generic, so as well as meeting the original brief they are more useable for a longer span of history.   This set has an instruction sheet, which for these four I kept to.  This was a great improvement on earlier sets and it really sped up the process.  I still took notes of what parts I used for each figure so I don't have any duplicates when I start building more.  I added some Little Big Man shield transfers and once I'd painted the shield ...

As I've hinted at in a few recent weekly updates, I've been gearing up for a brand new project.  I've delved through my books,  scoured the Internet and made some  purchases.  As we end the year it's time to reveal that the new project is Late Romans from the mid 4th Century to the early 5th Century.   Now this isn't a new interest, I have been looking at this since the 90's.  As is the norm for me something else always came along.  There was a hint in a post earlier in the year as my interest was rekindled, then a trio of things aligned to give me the push.  The first was the release of the superb Victrix and to a lesser extent Wargames Atlantic plastic figures.  The second was finding the Pendragon series of novels by James Wilde at the library.  The third was a 20% off sale at Victrix. The core of the forces bought and ready to start I'd often thought about an Arthurian collection, (with Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles...