Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

The First Anglo-Sikh War is yet another conflict I've been meaning to "do" for ages .  I actually bought and completed a couple of packs of Newline Designs figures quite a few years back. But true to form something else diverted my attention. Anyway over the last month or so either side of holiday, I've managed to complete my first unit - a British regular regiment loosely based on the 31st Regiment of Foot. These are Newline figures in 20mm scale. I'm a big fan of 20mm or thereabouts (be it 1/72 or 1/76) and a big fan of Newline.  The service from Sean Pereira is excellent and these are very nice figures at a ridiculously competitive price of £9.80 for a regiment of 24,  19 rank and file and 5 command figures. 40p a figure.  Come on you can't go wrong with that.  For maximum flexibility for different games, these are based individually on 15mm square bases. They're on three 4x2 movement trays, all from Warbases . The bases were covered in my usual sand m...

All quiet on the blog as I've been away on holiday.  However, before I went I completed some more WW2 partisans.  All the bodies and heads and the arms for the Bren gunner (second from left) are all Wargames Atlantic. The arms for the two on each end are from the Warlord Games Blitzkrieg German infantry plastic set, the man with the Molotov cocktail has arms from the Warlord Games Soviet infantry set with a spare K98 from the German Blitzkrieg set.  I really enjoyed putting these together. I've got quite a comprehensive bits box now for 28mm WW2 plastic figures and it's fun to look at which can be combined to make a unique figure.  I find the Wargames Atlantic heads much more characterful than the Warlord Games but the arms seem a bit weedy. The Warlord Blitzkrieg Germans fit well with the Wargames Atlantic figures as both are slimmer and more proportionate than the Soviets, which are of the "heroic/cartoony" type of figure.  These will probably be used for an A...

As we're now halfway through the year it's a good opportunity to take stock of what I've achieved and put some thought in what I'd like to work on in the second half of 2021. The Covid pandemic still impacts all aspects of life including the hobby. However, here it's a positive impact as I'm not spending a minimum of 4 hours a day commuting. The time saved and the fact I'm not tired all the time has been a gift. Of course I wish for an end to what's been a terrible time for many. But I hope the "new normal" isn't a return to how things were because frankly some of it wasn't that great. Now onto hobby matters.  Achievements Completed 129 figures - 68 10mm, 51 28mm and 10 15mm. That's not bad for me.   Rebased all of my 15mm Franco-Prussian War war collection. Rebased 7 28mm WW2 figures to sell (and recycled the bases they were on). Made a statue terrain piece for Zona Alfa/Zombie games Based 30 large trees Completed 1/72 Boulton-Paul...

It's 80 years since the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Without question this was one of the key events of World War 2 and world history. To mark this I decided to play a small game of Bolt Action representing a German unit feeling its way forward in the first days of the operation. This was a great chance to use a lot of the new stuff that I've been working on. It was the debut for my Red Army platoon, KV-1 and Pz-111, which were my first lockdown projects last year,  and also for the German Heer platoon I built a couple of years ago. It was also the perfect opportunity to get my newly based trees out for a game and use the artificial turf mat that my wife kindly picked up for me a few years ago. And I got to use the Bolt Action dice I made earlier in the year. The battle at the end of Turn 1 It's been awhile since I played so I went with small 550 pt forces each side, giving four teams/order dice for the Germans and six teams/order...

I managed to get my next batch of Wargames Atlantic Germans assembled and painted in only a few days. Primed, base uniform colour on As with the first dozen I seemed to spend almost as much time fiddling about assembling them as I took to paint them. However, they were slightly quicker to do, as rather than trying to do twelve steel helmeted riflemen with as much variety as possible with the limited parts available, I wanted an officer and a few NCOs out of this batch. Therefore, I got to use different heads, which will differentiate them as NCOs on the table. I'm pleased with how they worked out, I especially like the officer and the field cap headed figures.  I'm intending to round out the platoon with Great War Miniatures machine gunners and more rifleman. Although I really like the Wargames Atlantic figures I don't think there's enough variety to get any more  riflemen that will look significantly different and I'm not keen on the one set of MG arms. But they...

I've been intending to do a WW1 project for years. I bought the Warhammer Great War and Through the Mud and the Blood rules when they came out, picked up reference books and costed out various options. But as with many projects it never got past the planning stage.  Last year I was very close, read a good few books, looked at my reference material but started a Barbarossa project instead. Earlier this year I finally got round to reading my copy of  Alistair Horne's classic The Price of Glory about Verdun and was determined to start but I couldn't decide on the figure or game scale, or rules, so the project was postponed. Then I saw that Wargames Atlantic  were soon to release a set of plastic WW1 French that looked as good as their German Stormtrooper set. Decision made. Starting with the Germans I decided not to buy a box of Stormtroopers but opted for 3 separate frames. Getting these from SGS Models they worked out slightly cheaper each frame than if I'd got the b...

You can read week one here . Day Eight (30/05) Having got the bases to a reasonable point, albeit still far from finshed, I had planned to get on with the trees today. However, when I sat down at the painting table I changed my mind and decided to get the bases done and dusted. To start I glued two different shades of static grass onto the bases.  I was quite careful with this, sticking patches on to link or break up the flocked areas. Close up of two large bases with two shades of static grass added Once the grass had dried I added two different shades of finely chopped lichen onto the bases. As with the static grass this was quite deliberate. I took some care to glue some lichen round any bigger stones. With lichen added Next I stuck  some self-adhesive static grass of three different heights and three different shades onto the bases. I used moss, green and battlefield mix all from Tajima . I then finished off by adding some self-adhesive bushes.  After a break for anot...