Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

When I first embarked on my Late-Roman project a year or so ago, I bought a few sample sprues from Gripping Beast, Wargames Atlantic and Victrix.  The Victrix one was from the Late Roman Archers and Slingers set.  The quality of these convinced me to choose Victrix for the project and I duly ordered up some sets.  After working my way slowly through these I finally went back to this original frame.  These are absolutely lovely models.  There's loads of variety and they go together beautifully.  The instruction sheet which I got from the Victrix website makes a massive difference in this regard.  I really enjoyed working on these.  They were quick to assemble and quick to paint up being in a uniform of sorts.   I only have the one frame, but I took a couple of the bodies from some of the Dark Age Archers that I was working on at the same time ( here ) and added some spare arms to make another pair of staff slingers.  This worked...

In November I finally got my finger out to  finish the quintet of Victrix 28mm Dark Age Archers that had been on the table for awhile.  I really like this set as it's particularly versatile and you can make figures from Late-Romans right through to the Norse Age/early Medieval.  This is what I've done with this batch making a Gothic archer, two generic Dark Age warriors and two late-Romans.  The Gothic archer was a straightforward build.  All the bits came from the Dark Age Archers set except the head with the distinctive Germanic topknot, which came from the Ancient Germans set.   The two generic Dark Age warriors were also predominantly built from the Archers set.  The archer uses a head  from the Unarmoured Romans set and the arms for the spearman also came from that set.   At the same time I was working on these I worked on a frame of Late-Roman Archers and Slingers ( here ).  I really like the staff slingers, so I used the...

If you have read my previous posts ( here and here ) you'll know how much I enjoyed working on the Victrix Unarmoured Romans set.  Keeping the momentum going I completed another batch. As with the first two batches I made these as Germanic warriors.  However, with this quartet I used the parts that were specifically for Gothic warriors.  These were the quickest to assemble of the batches as I just followed the suggestions on the assembly sheet.  There's a pair of specific Goth arms to make three spear wielding warriors and a good number of head choices. I used the two with distinctive Germanic topknot hair (not the spiky hair I had in the '80s) and two helmeted heads.   Annoyingly I broke the spear haft of the warrior on the far right, which isn't hard to do with these thin  spears.  It then pinged off again as I was taking the photos.  I really couldn't be bothered to fix it again when I had them all set up for photos, so that's why it looks...

I enjoyed working on the first batch of Dark Ages warriors that I made from the Victrix Unarmoured Romans (see here ) so much, that it's no word of a lie to say that I'd started on this batch before the last coat of varnish was drying on the first lot. As with the first batch I've made these quite generic. I more or less kept to the suggested parts combinations on the leaflet.  However, I did use two heads from the Dark Age Archers box just to mix things up.  And yes I still kept notes of what parts I used.  I'm adamant that I want as much variety as possible across the force.   The shields are finished with Little Big Man shield transfers again.  I learnt from the first batch to cut  the centre out as closely as possible to improve the fit around the boss and therefore the whole shield. As with the first batch I didn't glue the shields or add any swords to the figures to make them more versatile. The third batch were already in progress as I was added...

As I was finishing off the Landsknechts at the end of last month, I finally started on the pack of Victrix Unarmoured Romans that I'd bought last year.  Having recently thoroughly enjoyed working on a batch of the Dark Age Archers ( here ) I was really  enthused to get on with these.   My original idea was for a late 4th Century pre-Arthurian project as in James Wilde's Pendragon novels.  However, as with the other Dark Age warriors I've been doing, I've revised this to try and make them fairly generic, so as well as meeting the original brief they are more useable for a longer span of history.   This set has an instruction sheet, which for these four I kept to.  This was a great improvement on earlier sets and it really sped up the process.  I still took notes of what parts I used for each figure so I don't have any duplicates when I start building more.  I added some Little Big Man shield transfers and once I'd painted the shield ...

As I've hinted at in a few recent weekly updates, I've been gearing up for a brand new project.  I've delved through my books,  scoured the Internet and made some  purchases.  As we end the year it's time to reveal that the new project is Late Romans from the mid 4th Century to the early 5th Century.   Now this isn't a new interest, I have been looking at this since the 90's.  As is the norm for me something else always came along.  There was a hint in a post earlier in the year as my interest was rekindled, then a trio of things aligned to give me the push.  The first was the release of the superb Victrix and to a lesser extent Wargames Atlantic plastic figures.  The second was finding the Pendragon series of novels by James Wilde at the library.  The third was a 20% off sale at Victrix. The core of the forces bought and ready to start I'd often thought about an Arthurian collection, (with Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles...