Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Background Both the Elven band of Dyvima, and the Dwarves of Bigae Elf Woe have been seeking an enchanted cottage.  If they can claim the ancient dwelling they will gain secrets from the old times to help their people.  The Fates have intervened and both groups have converged on the cottage at the same time,  There is only one way to settle the claim and that is by combat.   The forces This is a 75 point game of Sword Weirdos.  The Elves are led by Dyvima, a Fighter/Healer and comprise of another Fighter and two Archers.  Bigae Elf Woe a Commander/Pit Fighter leads a Dwarven Berserker, a Dwarven Fighter and a Human Hunter.  Full rosters can be found here .  Set up This game is a variant of the Objectively Normal Scenario on page 12 of the Sword Weirdos rules.  Rather than have a number of objectives, the aim is to have as many combatants be within 1/2 a stick of the enchanted cottage at the end of the final turn to claim the dwellin...

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all have a marvellous 2024.  I'm doing something a bit different this year.  Usually I split the year into three sections of four months with Salute in April being the first key point to work towards.  For 2024 I'm trying out the Ovelist approach of The Hobby Support Group.  I've chosen  nine things to work on for the whole year.  I'm still going to take those check points at April and August and revise if needed. The starting numbers for the year are: 128 28mm; 10 20mm and 152 15mm.  I started 2023 with 321 unpainted figures made up of 108 28mm, 53 15mm and 163 10mm so broadly similar, just replacing the 10mm for 15mm really.    New projects I've currently got one brand new project to work on: 1st Century. A.D Imperial Rome.  I've had the Infamy, Infamy rules for well over a year now, but could never find figures I liked as I wanted to do it in smaller scale.  I really liked Cromarty Forges' 10mm...

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 a bit of a palette cleanser while working my way through the 15mm Landsknechts, I started on a half dozen Victrix Dark Age Archers.   I'd completed a  first batch of these in January and it was good to get back to them.  The original intention was to use these as Norse warriors for my Ragnarok project.  Since then though I've been looking at making them more useable for a longer period of history.  Therefore, with the exception of the sword armed warrior who is very Viking, I've tried to make them quite generic.  As before nearly all the parts came from the Victrix Dark Age Archers set, with a few extras from the Victrix Viking sprue.  These were used to make the sword and seax armed figures.  There was the usual amputations and other bits of minor surgery to make things fit and that's all part of the fun with these plastic figures.  I followed the same process as before and methodically took notes of what parts I used for each figur...

I've decided to switch to monthly rather than the weekly updates which I did for all of 2022.  I'll still be posting when I complete something, but time is very precious at the moment so this works much better for me.   Completed This month I've completed the following:   A regiment of 10mm Ogre Ironguts for my Ogre Kingdoms Warmaster Revolution army which you can see  here .   Six 28mm Norse warriors for my Ragnarok project.  You can see more of them here . I prepared a load of 2ps to use for bases for 28mm plastics.  This involved giving the edges a good thick coat of Humbrol Khaki enamel, followed by a couple of coats of Vallejo German Camouflage Black Brown, then varnished in Humbrol Gloss and finally a coat of  Vallejo Satin varnish to tone the gloss shine down.   In progress The following are on the table as January ends: A regiment of 36 10mm Hobgoblins for my Chaos Dwarf Warmaster Revolution army.  These are v...

As I was working on the 10mm Ogre Ironguts I was also painting up six Victrix figures to use as Norse warriors for my Ragnarok project.   The majority of the parts came from the Victrix Dark Age Archers set, but I added in some spares from a Viking sprue to make the spearman and axeman.  I did some cutting and replacing of hands to make these work and that's one of the great advantages of plastic figures. I also used a head from a Viking sprue and another one from a Viking Command sprue for two of the figures.  When I assembled these I very methodically took notes of what parts I used for each figure.  The aim is to stick this all on a spreadsheet and it'll help organise me as I build more.  I don't mind if you call me OCD.  The Victrix sets give such a fantastic number of parts that they're very good value.  The quality of course is second to none. A few of them can also do double duty as Germanics for the Late-Roman project that I'll be st...