Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

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.  ...

Six years since buying my first figures I finally played a game of Burrows & Badgers.   Setup The two warbands pitted against each other were the Royalists led by the Hare Werdna Thunderfoot and the Wildbeasts led by the Fox Mellifluous Malachi.   The Royalists.  L-R Beriys the Adder Mage Lutralus River Blade the Otter (Second) Werdna Thunderfoot the Hare (Leader) Briar Far-sting the Rabbit Archer Apodemus the Mouse Ranger  The Wildbeasts.  L-R McGranite the Ferret (Second) Salien the Toad Mage Mellifluous Malachi the Fox (Leader) Putor the Ferret Shakey Bart the Weasel Bitter Sydney the Shrew I played the Open Battle scenario from the rule book.  The Royalists' Secondary Objectives were Deliver and Conserve.  The Wildbeasts' Secondary Objectives were Capture and Showdown.  The Royalists (R) win the Fortitude Roll-Off and are the Attackers.  The Wildbeasts (W) have the largest number of models and go first.  Each character ...

I've been quite busy with hobby stuff this week.  The week away has reenergised me with determination in getting on with things.  I  also published my 100th post - fittingly it was about terrain as I have done quite a lot of that since I started the blog.  Painting/modelling   I've made a couple of batches of woodland scatter terrain.  Quick and easy to knock up.  Have a look here and here .  I painted all the edges of my conifer tree bases in the Dulux green I had made up for me last year.  They now tone in more with my boards and mat. Burrows  & Badgers is my main focus at the moment and I have created two warbands. I also wrote a post about my intro to the game which you can see here . Research & Reading I've been studying the B&B rules and looking at videos online so I can actually play a game.   Incoming! I took a trip to the local Homebase to see my pal Gerry and get some more paints mixed up.  This ...

After completing the first batch of woodland scatter I very quickly knocked up another batch.   The steps are described in the earlier post, so I won't repeat them here.  The only change I made was to paint the whole of the base including the edges with the Leather Brown colour as soon as the sand was dried.  By taking a bit more care with the drybrushing, I didn't have to do this at the end like I did with the first batch. That's a total of eighteen pieces made over only the last 4 or 5 days.  These have been good to fit in whilst working as you need to allow time for the various stages to dry, so you can do a bit before work and it'll be ready for the next stage when you get home.  They're going to make my woodland games look much better.  

Taking a break from the Sikh Wars project I decided to make some scatter pieces to complement the tree bases I'd made last year. I spend a lot of time walking or running in mixed deciduous woodland and there's much more to a wood than trees.  Much of the greenery is from the understudy community of numerous plants and I wanted to simulate this.  As these pieces didn't need any strength I decided to make the bases out of EVA foam sheets.  It's more or less weightless, takes paint and scatter material well and can be cut with scissors.  Therefore it's quick to work with. I always paint the sheets with cheap craft acrylic paint to begin.  I think it gives a better starting surface. After cutting out the basic shapes and bevelling the edges with scissors, I covered each shape with PVA and added my usual sand mix.  They were left to dry overnight. Next stage was an undercoat of Dulux matt emulsion that I'd had mixed up to match Vallejo Leather Brown.  Once ...