Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Last year was the first time that I’d tried the Ovelist approach from The Hobby Support Group.  I found it really helped to focus and keep me from disappearing down too many rabbit holes, so I’m doing it again.  Once again I've split it into gaming and doing ( here ). You’ll notice that I've gone for periods rather than specific rules.  I agree with the Too Fat Lardies maxim of “playing the period not the rules”.  I also have so many rule sets that I don’t know what I may use 😄  All those listed are ready to play and as with last year it's about getting those unused collections onto the table.  Here’s a few notes behind each choice: Fantasy Skirmish - I love Sword Weirdos and it's an easy game to set up and play in a short time,  As I don't have a dedicated gaming space that's an important factor for me.  It also lets me get those figures out that I don't use with their "parent" system anymore like Warmachine/Hordes and Celtos and the handful of...

After a successful 2024 using the Ovelist approach I’ve been mulling over what to do this year.  Strangely this has been quite difficult as I cleared far more than I bought and haven’t got too much to work on.  As before I've split out the doing from the gaming ( here ).  Here's the 2025 doing Ovelist: The starting balance is: 28mm - 43 figures (21 Norse Age, 8 Verrotwood, 10 WW2, 4 Burrows & Badgers) 20mm - 26 figures (26 WW2) 15mm - 2 afvs (2 WW2) 6mm - 44 figures (11 WW2, 33 1980s, ; 9 1980s afvs) There's a square each to cover off all the above.   I’ve also got the perennial Terrain square.  I like fiddling around making terrain and my tables sorely need improvement.  While the outstanding figure count is so low I want to try and spend more time on terrain and produce or improve at least one item each month.  Another square has been allocated to getting my 16th Century collection ship-shape and ready to game with.  I’ve looked at...

It's the end of the year and time for the third and final Ovelist "doing" check point.  The original plan is  here,  check point 1 at the end of April is  here , and August's check point 2 is here  The latest gaming update is  here .   This was how the list looked at the end of August: And here's the end of year position: As usual the size of the tick shows how complete a project is.  In the case of the very large ticks that project is complete with no figures left to do.  That’s Imperial Rome, Late-Romans, Verrotwood, WW2 Partisan Warfare and Sci-Fi.  The only failure was that I didn't do anything on the South African Border Wars project.   Between the end of August and the end of December I did the following: Imperial Rome - I've completed all 175 Roman and Ancient Germans for this project.  I also made unit bases for them all for Midgard.  This is the project that I'm most pleased with.  I didn't start th...

The gaming Ovelist original plan is  here , with check point 1 at the end of April here  and the end of August check point 2 here .  The "doing" update is here . The first part of the year had been a gaming failure.  I picked it up from May and this is what the gaming list looked like at the end of August: And here's what it looks like as we end the year: During the period from September through December I was very targeted in my gaming, ticking off the remaining squares and played the following: Second Punic War.  Thanks to the release of Midgard I finally got some of my 10mm collection onto th e table .  The AAR is here .  Fantasy Skirmish .  I had a really enjoyable game of Sword Weirdos.  I think it's impossible not to enjoy the Weirdos.  The AAR is here. 10mm Fantasy Battle.   I had my first game of Warmaster Revolution using the 10mm Ogre and Chaos Dwarfs armies I completed in 2023. The AAR is  here .  I also got i...

When I started this Ovelist business I'd separated out the gaming side from the "doing".  The original plan is  here  and check point 1 at the end of April is  here  with the "doing" update for check point 2 here . As of April I'd not played any games and as I wrote in check point 1 this is mainly due to not having a dedicated playing space.  I therefore revised the gaming Ovelist, using genres or periods that I want to play rather than being too specific.  Here's what the revised gaming list looked like at this point: I'm pleased to say that in this period there's been a big improvement: I've played the following: First Anglo-Sikh War.  I've got quite a nice 20mm collection for this period but I've never played a game.  I finally got round to playing a small game using Black Powder, which was also my first game with this rule set.  It worked well enough and I'll be aiming to play again using more of my collection.  Verrotwood ....

As we're now at the end of August it's time for me to do my Ovelist check point 2.  The original plan is here and check point 1 at the end of April is here .  The gaming update is here .   As is my wont I've confused matters.  In  April I decided I wasn't going to do the Sci-Fi 28mm project and replaced it with Second World War Eastern Front.  Very shortly after I changed my mind and did the Sci-Fi figures.  Therefore, to incorporate all this mucking about I've now got a 3x4 Ovelist rather than the 3x3 I started with.  I have added an Odds & Sods box for those bits and pieces that aren’t part of a project and a New Projects box as you never know when the muse will strike.  This is what I'm sticking with for the rest of 2024 (for the moment anyway). The size of the tick shows how complete a project is.  In the case of the very large ticks that project is considered complete - I've finished all the figures I had for these and don'...