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...

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...

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 ...

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  ...