Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Not too much to report, all my hobby activity this week has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings. Painting/modelling   I completed the exterior wall paint jobs of all the Spanish/Italian buildings except for the water tower which is still as built.  Details here .  Still with the Med. buildings I've been working on all the odds and sods such as the walls for the farm and villa sets, and painting the wooden parts of each building.  I should be able to complete them this weekend.  I've enjoyed doing them but it's been well over a month since I painted any figures and I'm itching to get some done.  I'll do a post with the completed buildings next week.  Research & Reading I've finished reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq" except for The Algerian War section.    Knowing that The Algerian War is one of "my things" and the reason why I bought the book, I can hear all 5...

A bit of a funny week.  With the double bank holiday I thought I'd get a lot done but after a good start with a game of Bolt Action and working on the Mediterranean buildings it tailed off somewhat.  Gaming I played a game of Bolt Action, set in Italy 1944.  Read the AAR here .   Painting/modelling   The rest of my hobby time has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings.  You can read about this here and here .  Research & Reading I've started reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq".  I picked this up in March for £5.59, £2.80 of which was the P & P.  I bought it for the section on The Algerian War but the entire book looks fascinating.  I was hooked just reading the Introduction and I'm now onto The Philippine Insurrection. Incoming! I've started June in the same frame of mind as May.  I'm fast becoming the wargames equivalent of Norbert Colon the Vi...

 A news item on TMP prompted me to check the Empress Miniatures website and there I found that a pack of 4 figures now cost £8.00, meaning a single metal 28mm historical miniature has now broken the £2.00 mark.  I can remember when 28mm metals first went above £1.00 each and there was a lot of grumbling.  But now £2.00 - Ye Gads! Looking at the cost of the "best" 28mm metals (Perry's, Empress, Foundry as a sample) they currently average out at £1.69 for a metal figure.  Perry's are the cheapest at £1.33 each, Foundry next at £1.75 and as mentioned Empress at £2.00.  Whether a Paul Hicks sculpt is "better" and "worth more" than one of the Perry twins is a matter of personal taste.  I have some of all three and many more sculptors' work besides in my Old West collection and they are all lovely figures and have their own merits.   The cost of everything is going up so it was inevitable that miniatures did.  It would seem a lot of hobby companies...