Shed of the Year 2026

Afternoon #Warhammer Community straight off the bat with that clickbait headline, we haven't won. But we have entered Otty's Hobby Shed 2.0 in the Readers' Sheds, Shed of the Year contest 2026.

It's featured a lot on the blog as that's where we now play regularly.

But we've shown its construction while we were still using Shed 1.0. 

With the input and effort of many we helped Otty make this masterpiece of hobby greatness.

Scott may not have got to game in it but he will always be part of its construction.

Otty had high standards, this wasn't just bigger version of shed 1.0 it was in another league for functionality AND comfort. 

Attention to detail rather than leaving things rough and ready.

A custom gaming table cobbled together from various existing tables but with loads of storage.

And then loads more storage for figures and terrain.

I realised too late last year we should have entered and I've since been waiting for this year's competition and we've at least thrown our hat in the ring. It's a tough category - 'pub/entertainment'. There are obviously a lot of well decorated shed pubs, as well as home cinemas and entertainment spaces. Our uniqueness among the more mainstream approaches might be our strength, together with the scratchbuilt nature and it's continued support for us as a group. We have fun but it's not just getting drunk. I think the winners will be decided by a judging panel, I don't think there are public votes. But the great thing is that if you don't win you can enter again! So, whatever happens we'll continue to showcase Otty's Hobby Shed to inspire others and remember our friends.

Otty's Hobby Shed 2.0, Pub/Entertainment, Lancashire owned by Sheddie Chris Otterburn & Friends | #shedoftheyear

Battle Record - Bolt Action 10/05/26

Afternoon and as we missed our usual Thursday night at Otty's shed we rainchecked to play Bolt Action on the Sunday with the SAS Rogue Heroes from WWII. Now we started at 5pm, but I didn't take many pics so don't get your hopes up.

The game was a rollercoaster, with a sandstorm hitting as we started [in turn 3 of an ongoing game]. So many of the units were pinned due to the weather. Any shooting that happened struggled to hit with the reduced visibility and cover. My dice rolling was very poor, which got a turns full of abuse. Turn four and it swung the other way, with my dice on fire, culminating in Ben and Liam wanting to pack in and go home. Despite the paddy they played on and the Italians were poorly positioned with very few infantry left [needed to secure objectives]. My dice flipped again and the SAS swung a convincing victory.

Once again the lesson learned is the game is not over until it is over. There is no point claiming defeat from just a bad turn because the Italians in the last two turns were struggling to be in the right places to hold their objectives. Too many pin markers and failed order rolls preventing them from running around the board snapping them up in the final turns.

Having packed it up we started a new Star Wars Legion game on the 'Geonosis' board. Some mistakes were made on my board extensions. I never did a black wash on them before drybrushing so they're very different and will need fixing. But as we only put two units on the board before we had to call it a night I didn't take any pictures. We'll catch up next week.

'nids part 386 - Terrain is everything - 3D printed capillary towers - Chitin highlights 2

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PaintingWarhammer on the 3D printed capillary towers. Honestly, I've been busy, although it has been somewhat tedious. There's not a huge amount to show because the highlights and dots are all done. I've been doing some other projects inbetween to avoid burnout, but I can't really share those yet. The Cerastus Knights do have hinged hatches though! I continued to keep track of how long it took me to paint the striations. 

• Big tower 1: striations 105 minutes + dots 55 minutes = 160 minutes
• Big tower 2: striations 113 minutes + dots 66 minutes = 179 minutes
• Medium tower 1: striations 64 minutes + dots 32 minutes = 96 minutes
• Medium tower 2: striations 48 minutes + dots 28 minutes = 76 minutes
• Medium tower 3: striations 59 minutes + dots 25 minutes = 84 minutes
• Small tower 1: striations 28 minutes + dots 20 minutes = 48 minutes
• Small tower 2:  striations 36 minutes + dots 22 minutes = 58 minutes

That's a grand total of 701 minutes, or 11 hours and 41 minutes on these 2nd highlights alone!  I then did the 2nd bone highlights with the big ones taking about 34 minutes, the medium 22 and the small 15. Another 179 minutes [3 hours]. 😳

But, there is only the red fleshy bits left to do now [plus matt and gloss varnishes]. You can already see I've put some thinned red between the chitin plates to look like it's raw between them. It also helps define each plate. I've also highlighted the red with both Vallejo Game Extra Opaque Heavy Red and then Mephiston Red. The stretched bit will be highlighted again up to white specular highlights similar to my Tyranid Void Shield Generator fleshy bits. Then the textured bit will have more shading added, which will be enhanced by the Tamiya Clear Red X-27. Nearly done, but you can see just how much effort it has taken.

Battle Record - Bolt Action 30/04/26

Afternoon and I'm finally back at Otty's shed after 3 weeks away, and we're playing Bolt Action. Liam and Otty have been building a new board, terrain and armies to play as the SAS Rogue Heroes from WWII. It's been an ongoing project in the background for months, maybe even a year. 

But they only just got round to setting it all up and giving it a go, and it looks great! A Realm of Battle board has been repainted as a desert setting and a bunch of 3D printed terrain pieces look so great.

Meanwhile, Ben has been working on expanding his terrain for Foy, where some of the battles in Band of Brothers took places. Liam printed some buildings that are actually based on real structures from that period.

Liam is running the SAS with the help of some armour.

While Otty has an eclectic Italian army.

A lot of vehicles got blown up so we got a little carried away with the explosions.

But as I've always maintained Bolt Action makes such cinematic photographs - they always look so good.

Tanks and vehicles are surprisingly vulnerable. When they go, they go. However I did notice that although it is relatively easy to hit you target, unless you're point blank, wounding them is often on 5's.

So, a good round of shooting results in one or 2 casualties if you're lucky. It doesn't always feel productive.

And close combat can be completely brutal with a 10 man squad of Italian infantry being wiped out by 5 SAS defending their building. 

The explosion markers are really good, some flicker and some have coloured LEDs and a remote control!

Even the toy palm trees, with no painting at all, look great on the board.

I pointed out this looks more like Fallout with its mushroom clouds than WWII!

The terrain looks so good. I wish I was able to do stuff like this. Although project has been underway for months I'm pretty certain these buildings and walls were just a couple weeks work.

We may have another week off next week as Otty is working. We'll see if we can postpone to the Sunday instead but I've really missed gaming

And these crazy guys.

'nids part 385 - Terrain is everything - 3D printed capillary towers - Chitin highlights 1

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PaintingWarhammer on the 3D printed capillary towers. I kept track of how long it took me to paint the striations. 

The big towers were 123 and 132 minutes.

 A medium tower was 105 and a small one 42. 

Roughly 654 just short of 11 hours to do the lines! I also did the first highlight on all the spikes and the bonewhite Wraithbone chips on the base.

Then when I came to do the spots I decided not to bother keeping track and now I'm really annoyed with myself because that took far more time than I expected. It definitely would have been handy to know for the 2nd set of highlights. 

2nd highlights feel quicker as you can see where you going to put a spot or line. But, it actually requires you to be much neater and controlled. That way you don't completely cover the first stage work. Or else what's the point?

I've had 2nd stage sessions that have been much faster, the same or even taken longer, but a rough estimate is always handy. Second stage next and then maybe some very minor 3rd stage highlights, the red fleshy bits and 2nd stage bone. Lots to do on the Chitin, but then it feels like it's downhill from there.

Terrain is everything - Red Planet BASE! 🔴 Board extension - TO DONE!

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PaintingWarhammer on some extra flat pieces of terrain board that we can use to extend, or replace sections of my Red Planet BASE! 🔴 Realm of Battle Board. Essentially, what happened was I turned up to Otty's shed and he handed me these three 1'x2' sections and told me to paint them red! Totally ambushed, but what could I do? He had used some textured wallpaper to give a relief, but I had to add some sand in places to cover up the seams.

Then I got totally fixated on finishing! It wasn't a huge task, so despite being an unexpected new project I [thought I] knew what I was doing. First up, the prime. Rather than go with a spray primer I still had a tin of Red Oxide  paint on primer I'd used on the edges of my RoBB. 

Slopped it on, maybe we can still see those joins but the subsequent highlights might disguise them.

OK, so I thought I knew how to do this - subsequent highlighted Vermillion blobs to create a mottled random pattern. But I think I did the blobs smaller than I did on my RoBB. Or at least it looks that way now I refer back to the finished showcase pics. I hadn't put a wash on top of the primer, which was not as matt as I expected it to be. I hoped the matt varnish would flatten it all out.

But I thought there was far too much contrast between the blobs, so did a light overspray with my Red Oxide Car Primer to give the flattening a head start.

Then I flicked on some bonewhite paint to get my wraithbone chips

It worked really well all things considered.

From this angle it's not too bad

But compared to the RoBB you can see I was much more subtle in how I created the highlighted areas. It'll be fine with terrain on I hope but yeah, not a match I'm happy with, but I'll survive

And here we go after the varnish.

Well it's definitely matt, which has helped to remove the shine from the paint on primer at least.

It hasn't quite smoothed out the contrast that I'd hoped but it'll do.

We'll just have to wait and see when it actually gets used.

So I get a Great Big Chrome 'BIG BUILD' BASE Stamp of Approval.

As well as the Great Big Chrome Stamp of Approval according to my spreadsheet I've judged the three pieces together as 20 points, plus a 5 point terrain bonus. Therefore, this brings me up to 245 points for the season so far.