Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Years ago (so long ago that I can't recall which year) I picked up a great big box of trees at a very good price at a local wargames show.  All of them had thick wire trunks with some tape wrapped round, leaving varying millimetres of wire to stick in a base. They've served me well as they were simply stuck as needed in my terrain boards which are made of layers of polystyrene roof tiles.  However, over the years the tiles have now begun to  look combat weary. Additionally I've been working on making some flat terrain mats to lay on a table so there's no surface to stick the wire in. To keep up the good work of the last year in getting stuff done, I decided to finally sort this out and base all the trees. I wanted to do this with minimum of cost, but make some good looking terrain pieces that had some flexibility Day One (23/05) First step after rescuing the box from the loft  was to check what I had. There's 19 large trees 14cm tall, 7 medium at 11cm tall and 4 sma...

As a change from working on wargames bits I've spent time over the last month building the Airfix 1/72nd Boulton Paul Defiant kit. This is the third Airfix aircraft I've built since the end of 2019. I started with the Hurricane , straightaway moved onto the Spitfire and then after a year's gap did the Defiant. Each kit was easier and more enjoyable to make, due to my skills and experience improving with each build but also each one was actually a better kit. The Hurricane needed quite a bit of filling and fiddling about during assembly, whereas the Spitfire and the Defiant especially were a joy to make. 

The scenario The Essex countryside 1588.  Captain Gonzalo Hernández leads his detachment of Flanders veterans in a search for provisions. An  English force, (part regulars and part local militia) has been alerted and moves to intercept.  The forces Spanish - Captain Gonzalo Hernández - 1 hero (D12), Antonio de Vera -  character musician, 1pt unit of 3 Light Horse (Elite D10), Hector Bellendin - character sergeant, 1pt unit of 8 musketeers (all regulars D8). English - Captain Rowland Howard - 1 hero (D12), Matthew Baynton - character sergeant, 1 unit of 8 Pikemen (regular D8) Josiah Grundeye - poacher character, 1pt unit of 12 Militia calivermen (recruit D6). Victory conditions At the end of the turn (Turn Over card is drawn) check the status of the forces. When a force has been reduced to 50% of its starting strength, including characters, throw one Ability die equal to the highest surviving member of the force, If the result is 7+ the force may continue to fight....

With the completion of four Wargames Atlantic Partisans (pictured) I've completed 100 figures so far this year. That was my total for all of 2020 so I'm chipper about that. Here's the breakdown: 28mm - 24 total Oathmark Dwarf Infanty (5) Victrix Vikings (8) Warlord Games WW2 Red Army Infantry (7) Wargames Atlantic WW2 Partisans (4) 15mm - 10 total Eureka WW2 Japanese (10) 10mm - 66 total Newline Designs Republican Roman Velites (30) Newline Designs Republican Roman Citizen Cavalry (12) Newline Designs African Heavy Cavalry (12) Newline Designs Spanish Cavalry (12) The 10mm certainly helped to get the total up as I can turn these around quickly. 

I knocked up another 3 sets of Bolt Action dice this week.  French Expeditionary Corps for Italy 43-44, United States and Red Army sets. I was toying with doing a separate USMC set but as I also have a US Army force I decided to do a catch all US set. You can access the template for these sets and the original three sets ( see post ) as a Word or PDF document from this  link

I can't believe that it's Summer 2016 that I first started to look at collecting Punic Wars armies. Where does the time go? As usual I gathered some books and looked into the period. Sometimes this is as far as it goes but I was enthused and cracked on. My first foray into 10mm, I  bought about 300 figures from Newline Designs in August 2016 and it took me until the end of 2018 to finish them.  True to my tangent ways I'd moved through multiple other interests and the little chaps were put away in the filing cabinet. With the increase in spare time over the last year, my thoughts have returned to these forgotten legions. At the start of 2021 I starting organising and pointing up the armies for WAB using the Hannibal source book. Inspired by the  Minihammer  ethos the infantry were based on 10mm x 10mm single or 10mm x 20mm double bases and the cavalry on 10mm x 20mm or 20mm x20mm doubles. However, this makes them very fiddly and was one of the reasons why I had never...

Another project I've been meaning to do for a long time was to rebase my 15mm FPW collection. I'm very fond of these.  They were first figures I bought when I started wargaming again in 1997/98. They're all Essex Miniatures (who appear to be a bit of a "Marmite" manufacturer for a lot of people), but I think that Essex have a fantastic offering and their FPW range is one of their best. However, when I looked at mine compared to what I can do now, they don't look great. The painting isn't too bad but the bases were my own cut out of plastic card and covered in flock and very basic! Original basing - French and Prussian The figures were based for the rules "They Died for Glory" by Dave Waxtel. They use single rank 4 or 5 figure basing which I always through was a little odd. Originally I had to adjust the bases as I couldn't fit most of the poses into the specified sizes and I did similar this time. Infantry got a 12.5mm x 12.5 mm space and ca...