Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Well darn it, we're a third of the way through 2026 already.  April has been a bit less stressful month than March real world wise, just steadily working through my stuff. April always means Salute for me and you can read my thoughts on the show here .  The end of April is also where I take stock of my progress in the year to date.  You can see how I've been doing with my projects here and with gaming here . Completed Here's what I completed during the month: 20mm Platoon 20 French Indo-China War Vietnamese.  I completed four pairs of porters, a mule team and the artillery crew this month.  Porters and mules were a vital part of the Vietnamese war effort.  They add something a little different to the table and they've come out rather well.  I based the recoilless rifle and all the crew on small magnetised bases then made a base out of magnetic receptive sheet as I'd done for my Ancient Germans and Imperial Romans.  This gives me the flexibility of...

It's now almost a fortnight since Salute 53, Europe's largest one day wargames show.  It's taken me a little while to unravel my thoughts.  This post isn't a review of Salute (see Storm of Steel and Big Lee's Miniature Adventures YouTube channels for two excellent reviews), it's my personal take. Much has been said and written about the show.  Salute represents where the hobby is at.  And it's dominated by Sci-Fi and Fantasy.  That's just the way it is.  I started out as a historical gamer pre-Warhammer, when Games Workshop just imported and sold other people's games.  Warhammer passed me by as I was into guitars and girls by it's release, so GW games mean next to nothing to me (apart from Warhammer Historical).  However, GW changed the hobby and with so many companies run by ex-GW people it's inevitable the GW "way" dominates the hobby and therefore dominates Salute.  This is very much how it is with the traders.  You can feel the ...

April has been and gone and a third of 2025 with it.  It's been quite a busy hobby month with Salute in the middle, which I've always seen as the start of my hobby year  As much as possible I’ve tried to clear any bits and pieces that have been hanging about for awhile. Completed I finished off the figures I'd started on before going away at the end of March: Six 28mm Victrix Armoured Rus warriors.  That's the last of the Dark Age figures for now and you can see more  here . 28mm Oathsworn Miniatures Burrows & Badgers Kingfisher Warrior and Badger Mage.  The last of my Oathsworn, you can see more here . I also started on the revamp of the 16th C collection.  I rebased some of the figures and added magnets to these and a few others that were already on round 15mm bases.  I've got a fair number to do so I'll just do a few as and when between other jobs over the next couple of months.  On the terrain front I finished: Two 6mm wooded areas.  ...

I've had more time for hobbying this month.  I finished off quite a lot and also spent a great day at Salute.  Salute used to be a shopping trip for me but since writing the blog it's become more of a social event which has been really rewarding.  This year I got to speak with a few more people that I correspond with online and we had the regular bloggers meet up.  Thanks to Ray from onelover-ray.blogspot.com for the photo. Completed I've been whittling away at the Victrix Unarmoured Late-Romans set since last August and I finally got round to completing all the figures this month. First up were the 12 spear/sword/dart armed Romans.  These had been painted a while back but I’d been procrastinating about shields.  At the end of March I got my finger out and ordered all the Little Big Man shield transfers from Victrix and I’ve been adding those.  The oval shield transfers are a bit fiddly to place correctly but a bit of paint has sorted the ones th...