Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Introduction The Rus of Jarl Magnus have been laying waste Jarl Arne's land, while he himself has been raiding over the whale road.  Such an affront to his honour cannot go unpunished and when he arrives back to find a raiding party still active, he sets out to punish them.  This scenario is based on the Back to the Boats scenario in the Ravenfeast rules.  I have adjusted the points values to give the Rus an extra 50 points, as I felt 200 point difference was too much. Norse  -  Jarl Arne, Huskarls x3, Berserker x1, Hirdmen x6, Bondi Archers x3, Bondi x10, Thralls x2.  25 figures total of 500 points. Rus  -   Jarl Magnus, Huskarls x2, Hirdmen x4, Bondi Archers x2, Bondi x9.  18 figures total of 350 points.  Starting positions Turn One  The Rus win the Movement initiative and they all move their maximum allowance. With the exception of their missile armed warriors (the Thralls and Bondi Archers) the Nors...

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.  ...

Well darn me that's a quarter of the year gone.  What happened there?  It was a short hobby month as I was away for a week.  With Salute now almost upon us, I wanted to complete as much as possible before the show, but what with being busy work and otherwise before my week away it just didn't happen.  Overall though, I'm pleased with how much I've done or at least is in progress and if not completed by the big day will be completed shortly after. Completed During March I seemed to do a lot of fiddling about and only completed a few bits: First off I completed six Victrix Rus warriors.  Lovely miniatures to work on, I'm very pleased with how they've turned out.  You can see more here . I then based the sample 6mm Heroics & Ros Second World War BEF that I painted the other month, finally finishing them off.  I stuck them on a 2p which I think works well for 6mm, giving them a bit of heft.  I quite like how they've turned out but I'm not sure if ...

The latest figures I’ve completed were half a dozen Rus from Victrix. These are all from the unarmoured frame.  In a full set you get equal numbers of unarmoured and armoured/command frames.  I bought one of each from The Sprue Shop last year.  These were lovely to work on.  The instruction/guide sheet was clear, all the parts went together well and they make excellent animated figures.  I always like to do the bulk of my Dark Age figures with spears and shields.  Victrix provide plenty of sword arms and although this might make pretty figures, it's not really  accurate.  The scarcity of Norse Age sword finds shows that they were rare items.  It's the equivalent of giving all your Second World War Germans STG44s.  It may look "cool" but it's nonsense.  I did give a couple of the figures axes.  These look good and are more historically plausible.   These will join the small Rus force I'm putting together for Ravenfeast...