Pirates

Five new pirates for the High Seas campaign I’m playing in.  Figures by Black Scorpion, except for the figure with the spyglass which was the promotional miniature for High Seas.

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Ruined Castle – Complete

Took about 10 weeks of hard work, but I’m rather satisfied with the result. In the end, the 8×4 table was consolidated into a tightly packed 4×4 table – perfect for a skirmish game like Legend of the High Seas. The event organizer was please with the terrain & apparently the castle was a hit with the players.

Looking at the finished project, I would to add a few taller pieces.  The jungle plants are nearly as tall as the castle structures – I’d like for the castle to break through the forest canopy.  Guess that’s a project for next year.

Pirate Castle Series:

1. Ruined Pirate Castle
2. Its a Jungle out there
3. Ruined Pirate Castle – layout
4. Ruined Pirate Castle: paint list

Pirate Castle At Play:

1. Cursed Treasures:  Cursed Isle at Adepticon
2. Plastic Legions:  Give it up for the Pirates!!

Ruined Pirate Castle: paint list

Adepticon is almost here & the castle is nearly finished. For this project, I’ve spent a lot of time painting with a sponge. Its a great little tool which completely eliminates any brush marks. With the highly textured surface of the Hirst blocks, the sponge quickly applies paint to the surface & leaves shading in the crevices unmarked. Wet blending is a snap – the sponge easily blends from color to color.

All that is left is a bit of static grass on the bases and creeper lines on the walls with flock.

Paint List

Field Stone:

• tan house paint base
• Dark Brown with hints of Light Red Oxide & Hunter Green (Folk Art)
• 80/20 brown/black wash with water, future wax and white glue mix
• Desert Sand top coat (Americana)

Chipped Stone:

• medium grey house paint base
• Medium Gray (folk Art) & Dolphin Gray (Apple Barrel) undercoat
• 80/20 black/brown wash with water, future wax and white glue mix
• Medium Gray top coat

Soil:

• medium brown house paint base
• English Mustard (Folk Art) 1st dry brush
• Desert Sand top brush

Ruined Pirate Castle

The pirate castle for Adepticon is finally coming together (and with 2.5 weeks to go – it better!).  25 pieces cover a 6 foot by 2.5 foot table space.  When combined with jungle plants, the whole set up should fill a 8×4 gaming table.  I have a lot of painting to do, but a big brush should cover a lot of ground in a hurry.

The castle layout begins with the two large round towers with the gate house ruins in between.  Next is the open court, presently occupied by pirate booty in the form of wine barrels.  Past the loot is  the armory on the left and to the right, the chapel.  Next comes the remains of the grand hall, now little more than an entrance way & a few pillars.  Finally, the oldest part of the castle stands with a watch tower on the left and the corner keep on the right.  The broken remains of the walls surround the fort.

Both towers below have full floors at the 4 inch level, making them fully 3D gaming pieces.  The ground cover is Hirst Arts Cavern Accessory Mold #85, wooden craft barrels and resin cannon balls.

Corner Keep

Corner Keep

Armory

Watch Tower

Its a Jungle out there

It is an old concept, but damn if plastic plants don’t make for super easy terrain.   Take a trip out to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby stock up on:

• a few types of plastic plants
• a bag of 40mm round wooden disks
• hot glue gun

After a few nights work, you’ll have a jungle worth of terrain to cover the gaming table.  I’ve never been a fan of hot glue, but the product does a fine job of holding everything in place.  25 stands/150 glue points and I’ve had to re-glue one plant frond.

Look for this jungle to be part of the ruined pirate castle playing at Adepticon 09.

Ruined Pirate Tower

First installment in a rather large project for Adepticon:  a ruined pirate castle. The table will be used for the group Legend of the High Seas game on Friday and Saturday night.  Plans for the rest of the castle include a second round tower, one or more square towers, a fallen main  hall, a few grand facade and lots of jungle foliage.

The ruined tower is built from Hirst blocks with a floor tile carve as the second floor and wall paper texturing the base.  The open side and missing upper floors represent the damage done to the fort when sacked by the British navy – but in reality are a nod to playability, giving easy access to the structure.

High Seas Roster pdf

A new crew roster sheet for Legends of the High Seas is available from Warhammer Historicals.

Pirate Crews

Getting ready for Adepticon next week with three pirate crews for the Legends of the High Seas demo table. Crews are constructed from Privateer Press Sea Dogs, Games Workshop Empire Militia, and Wargames Foundry Scurvy Dogs.  Paint plan is simple with brown, black/grey & beach bone with a primary color for each crew.

Sea Dog Pirate

Pirate Captain

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Captain

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Civilian

Sea Dog Pirate Captain

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

High Seas – First read

Legends of the High Seas by Tim Kulinski

Legends of the High Seas is the latest release from Warhammer Historical. The book allows gamers to take to the seas as Pirates, Privateers and Royal Navy sailors of the 17th century. Printed in full color, High Seas counts 144 pages.

The game is based on the Lord of the Rings combat system and the Mordheim campaign system. Followers of either of these games will find High Seas very familiar. Game play begins by creating a crew of either Pirates, Privateers or Royal Navy. Each crew contains a Captain, several heroes and is filled out with a number of henchmen . The campaign system allows for the crew to develop skills and increased traits as they survive the nine missions provided in the book. The combat system is easy to learn but difficult to master. Heroes have access to Fame and Fortune which allows characters to influence the outcome of melee, movement and shooting. The armory is sparse, with only handful of common weapon types and a small number of exotic weapons.

High Seas is well presented with color photos of figures through out the book and contains a brief miniature gallery with figures from several manufactures.

The book is currently available in the US at various locations including The War Store ($44.99), Scale Creep ($38.00) and Amazon.com ($37.95). For a limited time, the book also includes a ships captain figure in 25mm scale.

Should everything go as planned, I will be enjoying my first game on Tuesday night.

Ahoy, Pirates on the Horizon

Legends of the High Seas is a new pirate game soon to be released by Warhammer Historical.   By all accounts, the game is skirmish scale played campaign style using a variant of the Lord of the Rings game system.  I was a big fan of Mordhiem when that game first came out and look forward to the same sort of gang/crew development that takes place over a series of games.  On top of the excitement over getting to be a pirate, I will be assisting the author – Tim Kulinski– run LotHS demo games at Adepticon 08.  To stay on top of all the updates visit the Yahoo High Seas group.

The first batch of pirates for the demo games are the Sea Dogs from Privateer Press.  At this point, I’m going to call the crew a work in progress.  One of the “problems” with photographing your miniatures is that every flaw and missed spot jumps out of the pic and screams for your attention.  The faces need a bit more attention and I see little bits of under coat peaking out.