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 ...

During the first part of February I completed all my outstanding 20mm Second World War figures.  These are all Sgt. Major Miniatures sculpts, now sold by Battlezone Miniatures (Red Army) and Early War Miniatures (Germans).  These are the last of the five packs I picked up at Salute in 2024. Five of the Red Army are the Assault troops pack (those with body armour).  The other two were from the SMG 2 pack, all are from the Winter Russians range ( here ).  I finished them all in the so called "amoeba" camo which unfortunately you can barely make out in the photos.   These are great sculpts full of life and character.  I really like the figure holding the PPSh 41 outstretched.  Having handled one, I reckon he'd have to be very strong to do this for any length of time, but it's a great sculpt.   The Germans were from a "late-war German Grenadiers in Winter attire pack".  Unfortunately, one of the barrels of an STG44 had broken and it was...

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  ...

My first finished miniatures of 2025 are a baker's dozen of 20mm Second World War Red Army infantry.   I picked these three packs up along with two others from Battlezone Miniatures stand at Salute last year.  The sculpts are Sgt. Major Miniatures. They're all dressed in winter clothing.  There's a good mix of greatcoats and the padded jackets and helmets and padded hats.  Two of the figures were in all-in-one suits, so I chose to leave these until I work on the pack of similarly dressed assault engineers I've got. I like these figures.  They're what I'd term "classic" wargames figures.  Maybe the proportions aren't great, maybe they're a bit cartoony and maybe the weapon are quite crudely done, but they've got bags of character which comes out as you paint them.  They're pretty robust too so should take handling during a game without any trouble.  They also fit in very well with my existing Red Army figures from Battlefield, New Line a...

I finished off these figures at the end of May.  Four are painted as ALN fellaghas for the Algerian War and one is a Viet-Minh - I'm sure you can guess which.  Apologies for the photos I just couldn't seem to get them right.   They are actually US Marine Raiders Command from Battlezone Miniatures , Sgt Major Miniatures sculpts.  I picked up this pack and some German Panzer-Grenadiers from Steve at Salute.  Whether in person or over email Steve's service is second to none.  Top bloke.   The US Marine Raiders range has proved invaluable and I've used all of the packs in my ALN force.  Those figures in this range that are sculpted as Filipinos with obvious Asian features or clothing I've finished as Viet-Minh for my First Indo-China War project.  As no one makes any specific figures for the  ALN (or for the Algerian War at all come to that) I've had to really look into things and improvise throughout this project.  I think th...