Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

I picked up a box of Plastic Soldier Company M4A3s in the summer and it's taken me until January to finish them. They're very nice little models.  Although there’s not many parts, assembly was not as straightforward as it should have been because the kit allows you to make three differently armed versions and there's no  instructions included!  To cap it all the parts sheet that I found on the web differs to how the sprues are actually made up!  At one stage I'd looked at so many pictures of M4A3s trying to figure out what's what, that I thought I never wanted to see one again.   I spent some time deciding which versions to make and I wanted to make them as flexible as possible.  This is easier said than done because although there are separate parts for the 75mm and 76mm turrets,  there are only enough .50 cal turret HMGs and hatches to make five tanks.  However, by using spare Battlefront .50 cals and being crafty by not gluing on the hatch...

And that was 2025.  A really mixed bag of a year.  Too much serious stuff for my liking, but unfortunately it's one of the "joys" of getting older.  From a hobby perspective it was successful and I managed to finish quite a lot off and played a few games.  The end of year Ovelist updates ( doing and gaming ) give the detail if you're interested.   Thanks to all those that read my blog this year and especially those that have taken the time to comment either here, on Facebook or on TMP.  I very much appreciate it.  I wish everyone all the very best for the New Year. Completed  Here's what I completed this month: 18 Heroics & Ros 6mm Soviet Paratroops finished as Soviet Airborne for the Soviet-Afghanistan War.  This is a platoon of Airborne based for Force on Force/Ambush Alley.  This is a side project that spawned out of The Iran-Iraq War project, which was my main focus of the year.  I just need to work out what I need and ...

I really can't believe it's the penultimate update of 2024, where has the year gone?  I didn't manage to reach the heights of October, but November has been a steady hobby month with the Early Imperial Roman project entering the end of the first phase.  Completed I've completed quite a bit this month: I've continued basing the 15mm Cromarty Forge figures that I'd painted over the last few months completing: 44 Early Imperial Roman Legionaries 39 Ancient German warriors.  As well as basing these I'd not finished painting the shields , so I did all these while painting the shields for the noble warriors (see below).  The shields took ages to do but they've been worth it as they set the figures off well.  I don't want to paint anymore for a long while though. Still with the 15mm Cromarty Forge, I painted and based 36 Ancient German noble warriors that'd I'd prepared last month.  That's the last unit done with just have a few villager figures...

After a less than productive August, I went away for a week at the start of September.  I'd started to get my hobby mojo back before I went, but being away really sharpened my enthusiasm for cracking on when I returned.  Sod's law though since being back real life has been so busy that I've only managed to get in odd snatches of hobby time, with no games at all. Completed I've only completed three things this month: Early War Miniatures 20mm Pz IV H's. I'd finished the majority of the painting on these last month, and just had the crew, some extra details and the weathering to do early in September.   Now they're all done I'm very happy with them and I’ve had some good feedback.  I hadn’t painted a tank larger than 6mm for a good few years and it took me a while to get into it.  It’s made me think about revisiting the tanks I made over 20 years ago and bringing them up to this standard.  You can see more of the Pz IVs  here .  Anschluss Warga...