Not the mythical bird-like terror of Warhammer, but the Ship. My converted Black Pearl toy ship is finally done (or close to it) with 30 days to go until Adepticon and my Legend of the High Seas event. (of which there are still a few tickets left, so if your planning on attending Adepticon and are free Friday night, paint up a crew and join the action, there is still time left!)
This Ship is featured in the "Boarding Action" Scenario where the playing surface is just the two ships side by side. The other ship is Old Glory's Pirate Hunter, currently being worked on by the High Seas books author, Tim Kulinski The Pirate Hunter is massive ship almost twice the length and several inches wider than "The Griffon". Fortunately both ships main decks are the same height so it should work well as an even playing surface, I added the 28mm Crows Nests awhile back, for the purposes of the scenario, Player will have the option to climb the ratlines and fight high in air, be able swing, jump..etc. Alot of the rules that just dont get used alot.
(good sense of scale here, you can easily play with 15 or so models on this ship and have room to move them around)
I originally purchased this ship back in 2008 I believe shortly after I got the High Seas book I saw a conversion of this on the Yahoo LotHs forum I thought it would be good project as my first toy conversion..Now until then was a long time, and after just cutting the hull down to the waterline and re-masting it...I just used it as is for longtime never quite figuring out how to finish it until, I was running this event. You can still find the original here although its bit more expensive than when I got almost 3 years ago.
Before I talk about the Hobby portion of putting this together, I want to talk about the Historical reality of a ship like this. I spent some time looking into the background of ships like this and while not historically accurate by certainly any "real" model ship builders standard. I did what I could.
(Crew is a mix of Crusader and Artisan, the Helmsman is from Old Glory.)
The Deck is 14 inches bow to stern and at roughly its widest 4 1/2 inches. which in scale to reality makes here roughly 70 feet long and about 22 feet wide at her fattest. Given that her displacement is probably around 200 tons. A Galleon of this size was probably a rarity as the ones I find evidence of are much larger, (note Queen Anne's Revenge, being 110 feet long with a 300 ton displacement) its more reminiscent in size of Columbus's Santa Maria which had a crew of 40. Modeled to be armed with 10 guns.(the max for a medium ship in LotHS) considering the imagined deck layout she could easily be outfit with another 10 guns between the main deck, an quarter deck..not to mention a half dozen swivel guns...a real ass kicker in the firepower department in the 17th century, which is what it would need to be, as from what I read ships like this weren't particularly fast.
A bibliography note: three great books about Pirate Ships I have been reading lately. First is the bible of piracy, Daniel Defoe's (as Captain Charles Johnson) A General History of the Pyrates. Then an somewhat obscure book I found- The Sea Rover's Practice, Pirate Tactics and Techniques 1630-1730 by Benerson Little and finally The Pirate Ship 1660-1730 from Osprey Publishing, by lord pirate historian himself- Angus Konstam. Osprey's whole piracy line is damn awesome, if you love pirates.
On to the Hobbying side. First I cut the hull down, I wanted to keep the stock cannons as they match the LotHs rules and you wouldn't need to take up deck space with more cannon other than for show. So I cut the water line a bit higher that it probably would be at open sea. I think in reality those Cannons would be up between the two yellow trim lines clearly on the main interior deck, so those cannon ports are really too low, but whatever its a toy. Cutting the waterline with large fine blade hacksaw carefully, caused the lower portion to separate. Which was ok as I sanded down the rough cut and re-glued it back together
I then ripped out the electronics filled a few holes, cut away, two rear lanterns, the goofy cross trees and the shredded black sails and cut off all the overly decorative railings (thats what pirates did anyway, they'd gut captured ships to make more room for guns and easier access for boarding) I then made some new main cross trees out of dowels The main deck and hold then had to be redone with plastic card, in order to cover up the storage compartment it comes with. I also remodeled the ships figurehead, so it wasn't so busy (as in the Black Pearls).
(Remodeled as best I could, still looks goofy, and it seems a bit big, I thought the weathered sea foam green made it look about as good as it could.)
I add a small forecastle just for looks, although not having would again be more accurate..so the slight height difference just gives the deck a bit more character. The biggest edition is bits from the Pressman games, Weapons and Warriors pirate set (a great score right here, go get it). I grabbed mine off ebay years ago..its chock full of bits for all things pirates..and all my sails and the bowspirit extension come from sails of the plastic ships contained in W&W. The crows nests come from that box as well. The main sails for main mast and fore mast..were done out of green stuff by my pal Aaron. And the extra stairs and cabin extension around the main mast are Hirst Arts pieces ( molds #71 and #220) and finally we have some GW Empire bits, all from the Steam Tank kit -I was sure glad I bought some loose steam tank bits I saw when they came up, because those Griffon emblems with the banner where so perfect I had to rename the Ship after them. There are also some lanterns and and extra survey's scope I had from somewhere. Finally there a couple plastic card doors I made for the Quarter deck.
(Hirst molds 71 & 220 in action)
Painting this took quite the while much more than I envisioned, there is just a ton of paint here Now I know what 40K Imperial Guard players painting tank companies feel like. I think the paint is pretty self explanatory, the windows and free hand logo taking the longest session.The masts are still unpainted as I was going to paint them the same color anyway, I still need to do that and a bit of clean up.
(Lazy Susan from Ikea, $7..thats a score..its very handy.)
If this isn't enough Pirate Ship for you, the real top notch toy conversions I have seen are done from the Mega Blocks toy line. OOP at the moment they are getting pricey on Ebay right now from collectors and wargamer/modelers that are catching on. I grabbed two of these NIB. both at around the $70 USD price point, used and incomplete going for around $20-30.00 Both of these will be large ships on the level of the Old Glory Pirate Hunter. I have another Galleon, and large Schooner. When these get done who knows but I am on a serious Pirate fix, and working on nothing else other then some practice WFB thru Adepticon.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Griffon
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Warhammer Forge Release 3
A little late on this one myself today , but its relevant since I am going to try to reserve this with an up front payment for delivery at Adepticon and see if they can pull it off without screwing it up. If you've followed Forge World at all over the years you know they've been logistically challenged across the board, personally screwing up all three major orders I made with them. But they have always made good and I find this model very appealing for my army...especially with my friends new found talent for sculpting wings. about $58.00 for mounted and foot model with options and no shipping??! Huzzah!!!...
Theodore Bruckner on Reaper and on Foot is a full resin set, sculpted by Kev White, containing this mighty champion both mounted on his fell Demigryph and on foot. Four different head options are included in this set: two different variations of both a helmeted and bare head, providing a wealth of modelling options.
The Judicial Champion will play a major role in the forthcoming book Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos, and to allow you to use this battlefield terror in your games of Warhammer, Alan Bligh has provided these experimental rules as a free download.
Theodor Bruckner on Reaper and on Foot is available to order now for immediate despatch.
Warhammer Forge at Forge World Events
Forge World Open Day – April 3rd 2011
Sunday the 3rd of April sees the Warhammer Forge team occupying Warhammer World here in Nottingham for the annual Forge World Open Day, which runs from 10am until 4pm and is free to attend.
The Warhammer Forge sculpting team, showcasing work-in-progress miniatures and forthcoming releases on their studio stand, will be joined by writer Alan Bligh, who will have a proof copy of the first Warhammer Forge book, Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos that you can peruse. The team will be available throughout the event to answer your questions and maybe even let slip a few hints about their future plans for the Warhammer Forge range.
The Sales Stand will be carrying the full range of Warhammer Forge kits – Plague Ogres, Bile Troll, Plague Toads and Plaguebearer Riders, Kazyk the Befouled on Rotbeast and Theodor Bruckner himself.
You can reserve all these kits for collection at the Open Day and this is the best way of ensuring that we have exactly the models you’re after. To place a reservation, please contact the Forge World Customer Service team by telephone on 0115 916 8177 – we are taking payment in advance for reservations at this year’s event, so we’ll need your name and contact details, the list of kits you’d like to reserve, and you’ll need your payment details to hand as well. We’ll provide an order number for you there and then, and shortly before the Open Day you’ll receive an e-mail confirming your reservation which you’ll need to bring with you on the day.
AdeptiCon – 1st to 3rd April 2011
If you’re attending the annual AdeptiCon event on the 1st – 3rd of April, at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Centre in Chicago, IL, then a visit to the Forge World stand in the Vendor Hall of this popular event will also allow you to purchase both Forge World kits and the growing range of Warhammer Forge miniatures, and we’ll also have a selection of display models for you to admire.
If you’ve got any queries about the AdeptiCon event, please e-mail us at Forgeworld@games-workshop.co.uk and the Customer Service team will be pleased to answer your questions.
Salute – 16th April 2011
Saturday April 16th sees the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands host Salute 2011, at which both Forge World and Warhammer Forge will be present with a wide range of resin kits – we will be accepting reservation orders for Salute in the not-too-distant future, so stay tuned to our Events Pages for more details.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
WFB 8th Ed- getting back in the ring.
I decided to get my feet wet again with some Warhammer 8th Edition this last week. After a long period off and only a couple casual games under my belt since October..I got back in with two big games this week, a 4000 point monster versus Rich and a 2200 Adepticon test versus Aaron. Both games were with my Empire against one of 8th Editions toughest armies and the one that's winning all the big local and regional tournaments around here. Warriors of Chaos.
The reason for 4000 pointer has a small story behind it. first..I had some long forgotten units I wanted to try out in 8th edition. Secondly we had been talking about getting away from the current scoring system for fun and trying WAB's army break point system with WFB and finally I been in involved in some discussion of the last few months about 8th and its ups and downs. Lamenting GW's ball dropping on fixing the magic system. (as in the fixed the mechanic wonderfully, however they then made the spells so OOT, they might as well stuck with 7th's magic phase) Discussion seemed to center around, 'well if magics getting you down, try a 3000-4000 point game it's ends up way less dominating" true enough and good point..so we did.
Empire Right Flank
Rich's list was what I expected for a big 4K game.
Daemon Prince, Sorceror Lord, Chaos Sorcero,r 2 Exhalted Heroes ( 1 BSB), Throgg the Troll King, 48 Marauders w/ GW's, 10 Marauders, 15 Warriors MoK , halberds X2, 7 Trolls, 2 Chariots ,Shaggoth, Giant.
4K Empire is alot of models My Empire was
General on a Griffon, Wizard Lord- Level 4, Lore of Shadow, Battle Wizard Level 2, Lore of Life Mounted BSB 2 Warrior Priests (one mounted, one on foot, both w/ GW's) Master Engineer w/ Hochland. 30 Swordsmen X 2, 30 Free Company, 10 Handgunners x 2, 30 Flagellants, 5 Knights with GW's 10 Huntsmen, 10 Inner Circle Knights, 5 Pistoliers, 20 Greatswords, 2 Cannons, 1 Mortar Rocket Battery, Steam Tank
The Left Flank
Table was pretty even set up, rich got the first turn which wasnt particularly bad on me other than the irresistible casting of "Pandemonium". Being rusty as I am, I over looked the "all doubles are miscasts thing"..even thou Rich told me it plain as can be, at the bottom of Turn 1, I got ahead of myself and idiotically cast a spell instead of just dispelling Pandemonium, Miscast!!!! Rich uses the Infernal Puppet to drop it to "calamitous detonation" taking my level 2 wizard and 20 his 30 swordsmen with him, running the remaining 10 toward the table edge. what a way to start the game. Thankfully It was pretty back and forth after that. Some other events of note from my side of the table
Old School
I took down the Shaggoth with shooting, then finished him up with the General on the Griffon, a pretty good monster killer. I wouldnt put it on the table against other cannons or bolt throwers
but in a fun game like this great.
Inner Circle Knights can take out Chaos Knights if backed up with a Warrior Priest.
Lore of Shadow is hands down the way to go against WoC as far as magic goes. (no secret here)
The Trolls (proxied by minotaurs here...Rich's army is 5th/6th ed and he has tons of great old models) where super tough...the Steam Tank got barely threw a couple of them when the best tank destroyer in the game..the Chaos Giant who shugged off two cannon ball hits to come on in and fold the tank into a pretzel.
One thing you never want to see across from your Steam Tank
Interesting scrap between the Marauders and Flagellants where I did 25 wounds to his 48 guys and he does 25 wounds to me.pulling all those models for one round of combat was comical in the wargaming grognard sense..we were both like.."time for the 10 wide single bases."
Magic played out exactly as discussed, it pretty much inconsequential while lowering the toughness of chaos warriors got me some mileage early, Rich being able to manipulate miscasts and neither rolling high than 9 power dice over the 8 phases (we probably averaged 6's)
magic didn't have too big of an effect (other than my bomb turn 1)
In the end it came down to same old story with Empire in either edition when it comes to playing chaos..if you can't convert opportunities when you get them..you lose. Shooting dice for artillery were epic bad...Rich got alot of milage out of Ward Saves...in a straight fight 15 Warriors MoK are going to obliterate any S3, T3 unit, immediately (my Greatswords) being all spread out on 4 x 8 there where alot of units on the flanks that couldnt get into the bigger battles.
The army break idea seems cool, (we were both at around 25 breaking on 7's) but since we only finished 4 turns in our 3 hour time limit we had to default to VP, and in those he had me by a cool 1000's. These games between Rich and I always become theoretically wargaming discussions in the beer and pretzels vein over the standard competitive game I usually play which is why I love them and win or lose its always a pleasure.
Saturday afternoon Aaron stops by with his awesomely converted WoC army..the sculpts in this army are just insanely awesome, if he can manage to paint them anywhere near the standard of his sculpting this is going to be "the" WoC army people talk about in these parts. check out his stuff at Little Green Monsters.
2200 is good size format in 8th its bring out lower model count armies because of peoples tendencies (and the games) to break out bigger monsters.
Aaron Warriors with Halberds
Aarons List
Tzeentch Daemon Prince, Chaos Sorceror (level 2), Exhalted BSB, 18 Warriors Halberds MoT, 18 Warriors Halberds MoK, 2 Chariots, 10 Chosen HW& S MoT, Hellcannon.
Empire List
General (on foot), Wizard Lord level 4, Life, Mounted BSB ,Warrior Priest Master Engineer, 28 Swordsmen, 30 Free Company, 20 Flagellants, 10 Handgunners, 6 Inner Circle Knights, Cannon, Rocket Battery, Steam Tank
Two Chariots and his Daemon Prince which is 100% scratch built except for the plastic head in the belly
Pretty straight up back .and forth tournament game, I got a lucky break from the Flagellants who made a long charge that ended up trapping and taking out both chariots before they could do anything. the Hellcannon wreaked havoc on me..basically putting my main unit out of the game..The Chosen drinking from the Wyrding well on the table, got stupid and missed there chance to get the knights who found the hell cannon early..tying it up for the rest of the game both units of warriors broke under my shooting, the Steam Tank's grinding and Free Company beefed up to toughness 5. magic had a decent impact, but nothing critical I was all buffs...Aaron got off one good Gateway (strength 9) , but I shut about everything else down. The Daemon Prince came out about a turn late..finished off my Flaggies. got into my BSB and free company when the clock ran out after one non eventful combat round. We had the big melee in Aarons backfield with the Hellcannon, my Stank, My Knights and the remnants of rallied unit of warriors. At the bottom of 6, I had the the Hellcannon with one wound left and 4 Warriors..after my 3 remaining Knights wiffed on killing the Hellcannon, I had a choice go for the moral victory and have the Steam Tank take out the hellcannon or go after the points for the warriors..I took the warriors and was up by about 1000 points in the end. Great game.
His Hellcannon and Chosen
Pretty good list for me, probably what I will run at Adepticon, with some minor adjustments. The big decision is Life or Shadow...Life worked out here, but Shadow is the best for Chaos and we will see alot of WoC armies this year. a second level 1 wizard is awfully tempting but a what cost...I'd be running 6 characters..ouch. 2 Hellcannons is going to be the soup du jour for this year..no way around it. Not sure what I will against two of those things- brutal...but that's ok...my Lizard army is going to 3 maybe 4 Stegadons, just to fall in line and play my part in the 8th edition Fantasy monster dome. double Hydra, double abomb, double hellcannon, double giant spider, double Sphinx (the new TK thing), double Steam Tank (not me, but others) . Any takers until "No duplicate rares" comes up as the first tourney composition requirement??
The Chosen getting some paint...you better hurry my man 40 days!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Warehouse Hulk- bout done.
Labor of love here, with some snow days preventing the boys from even getting here for club night the last month I found some extra time to finish this up to about 95%. There are some paint issues I want to address and I still need to build the hangar door, but I haven't figured out "what I am going to do for the door itself...the frame is figured out..pieces are cast..just need to think about it awhile and maybe play on it some. I stopped keeping track of time but I started with nothing on Jan 8th, figure 5 weeks and on man hours?...I'd say 80ish hours including casting.
Hirst Molds used
#301, 302, 303,
#270 (X2) #271, #272, #273
I own 270, 271 and 303, the rest I borrowed from Rich, except for #272 which I was from another friend, it was imperative to have 2 molds of # 270 in order to decrease the casting time because there are a ton of floor tiles used here, and if you read my previous entry I wasted a couple hundred tiles trying to make one gigantic floor piece.
I broke open a brand new 50Lbs box of Merlins Magic for this ($68 shipped), I have exactly two pounds left. So if we want to figure real cost figure most of the box of plaster, plus the 3 molds I bought ($100 shipped) plus $12 or so for the 2 big pieces of foam core..and basic colors come from 2 quarts of house paint I bought at Home Depot, and I used almost a whole bottle of glue. Figure just about $200 on the nose real cost, Of course I'm not figuring in other paints, but I was really using old paints ready for the garbage anyway. ( also if you bought all the molds I used here it would run you about roughly $250 for the 8 molds.
all the Props are from Hirst Molds with the exception of the Lab Equipment (cobblestone castings) the small rectangle crates which are from my 15mm scenery and are by GZG and the Vehicle under the control room in the hanger, is a stripped down Star Wars vehicle from WotC.
I bought a couple of for 2 bucks each and plan on raiding my friends IG bitz boxes.putting some treads on them and making them cool futuristic work vehicles.
I put my "red planet" 4 x 4 in the back ground for looks, it worked.
Next up is talking about playing some Skirmish on this, I've been working on my own Sci-Fi Skirmish ruleset for awhile now, it works in both 15 and 28mm (same rules) its either one inch equals 10 feet at 15mm and 5' at 28mm. I've noticed tons of people are putting out simple house rulesets lately, I've made it point not to look at anyone them, just so I can see where mine falls in. While I am sure there some overlap with basic concepts..I'm pretty confident my dice mechanic is unique..whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.
Figures here are by Reaper but I got a bunch of other figures for skirmish from a variety of companies, not one of which is Games Workshop..so unless I throw the handful of Genestealers I have down for some Space Hulk style fun, don't expect too much GW in my Sci Fi.. accept for other people playing some games with me.
There still some paint touch up to do, nothing major, I have painted all the pipes in the base red yet and that "Mint Green" glow I did in the emergency power room is irking me, I need to tweak that a bit, still figuring out the "how" there.
I left several areas as transition points so I can easily add on to this in the future, I plan on adding a couple rooms down the road. After I wrap up the next few projects.
A bit over the top with rust powder in a few spots..nothing a light black wash wont tone done.
In the end, a really fun project...I feel my "hirst" chops are very good at this point and I am already looking forward to next one, After two big setups the intimidation factor is gone and I say bring it on!.LOL. but I got a ton of figures to do, an event to run and get ready for, and a bunch of gaming to do first.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Orc and Goblin Advanced Orders
Well the new Orc and Goblin book for WFB is up on the GW website I don't normally feel compelled to repost this sort of thing but but these releases are newsworthy in what I see they could dictate about the future of Warhammer and the rumors I've heard about the end of the dragontail chasing, army book cycle. First up is the above book cover. It's cool to see what the style is for the new books considering this is the first official army book release for 8th edition but also notice it is a 112 page hardcover and almost $40. USD. for reference The WoC book is 16 pages longer and a soft cover. The hardcover on this book is indicative to me about the intention that these army books are supposed to be around a good long time. As in maybe its the last rules book you are going to see?. Rumor has that GW is seriously considering stopping being a rules company altogether and only being a miniatures company, while I am sure the income from Army books and supplements is substantial, the margins on creation costs have become thinner and thinner over the years..its just the realities of our current economics and technology.
Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but a hardcover army book combined with the rumors of 8th ed rules updates of all army books and "That's all she wrote" with only special optional rules released with miniatures in future (the way Forge World does) being the future. perhaps all those disclaimers of "we aren't really a rules company, but miniatures company that releases rules by popular demand", have come to fruition.
Then there is this:
The continuous release of these gigantic models is cool from an aesthetic standpoint, personally I am not sure about it from a rules perspective. From the rules I've seem rumored this thing is a monster on the game table, not so sure how or if its game breaking within the big up and downs of 8th ed..but it's clear GW isn't shying away from bigger, more elaborate kits that push the boundaries of not only plastic technology but your wallet. How or if- this has some tie in with the rumors out there, I am not sure...I just find the releases here interesting in the big picture of Games Workshop, what's that is worth is for you to decide.
Images copyright Games Workshop, used without permission.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Warhammer Forge Release 2.
There seems to be alot of interest in this so I am re-posting the newest newsletter from Forge World. A couple more Nurgle releases here and the upcoming book looks pretty interesting. definitely interested in seeing what else they have up their sleeves.
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