Come and sea ;)

Yup, more waves have been sculpted:

This means I now have a game-legal 750 point Dwarf fleet ready for primer and paint.

All that is left to base is 2 Nautilii, 2 Ironclads and 4 Debris markers and the Dwarf fleet is ready to go. I'm actually getting somewhat excited!
I've been thinking about what kind of debris would be left after an all metal ship sinks. Especially a Dwarven one. All I can think of is airtight compartments that have torn away from the main ship, and casks of ale or mead...
Maybe some very light metal. :P I guess I'll just have to go for looks over realism.

See you next time!

I've got a sinking feeling....

More making waves, today on a sunk ship marker and the first pair of Nautilus-submerged marker pairings:

And the other side, showing the escaping ships boat:

Hopefully this will be carrying some VIP to safety...

And the Nautilus, surfaced and submerged:

I'm only doing a few of these per day, as staring at the white putty on white plasticard trying to discern the exact shape of the waves I'm making is putting a bit of strain on the eyes. Especially in the bright weather we're having lately. (Bitching about the weather is a Dutch national pastime... It's either too bright, too cloudy, too wet, too dry, too warm, too cold, too windy, not breezy enough or annoyingly indeterminate weather. The only advantage to Dutch weather: Don't like the weather, wait for an hour and it will be different.)
Once I do the basing on one of the Ironclads and the Dreadnought, I'll have a game-legal 750 point fleet ready for primer. With a second Ironclad and the remaining three Nautilii I can bring it up to the standard fleet size of 1000 points. I still have the Debris markers to make, but these are essentially just floating bits on a textured base, I don't expect any major issues on them.

The wrecked ship marker and the superstructure on the submerged Nautilus are made through the magical interaction between model, Oyumaru thermoform moulding plastic and greenstuff. So far I'm really liking the stuff.

See you next time!

Making Waves

I'm currently sculpting the waves onto the Man O'War Dwarf fleet bases:

It's hard to see (I guess white acrylic paste on white plasticard isn't optimal for photography...), but the bases on the Monitors are all done.Not shown on this picture are the four oval "debris" markers, as I still have to make these. You can also see the final form of the Nautilus "submerged" markers/alternative models behind the metal Nautilii. The plan is to pair each Nautilus to a submerged marker by painting the flags on them the same.

I'm also starting to look at my Empire fleet, but progress on that is hindered by not owning the mandatory squadron of 3 Wolfships. So I'm looking around for a deal on those. (I'm in no hurry, and money is tight, so most of the silly Ebay prices are right out of the question, I'll have to keep looking for a good deal.) I'm in a similar situation for the Dark Elf fleet, which is still short 6 Doom Reavers.

The plan, at this time, is to complete collecting and building each fleet I own (Dwarf, Empire and Dark Elf), as well as custom fleet-specific, Wreckage and Debris markers and any other markers they need.  Besides the fleets, I have some plastic ships from the old Dragon Lords boardgame, that may be used as merchant ships for a convoy style scenario (I just need to figure out rules and ship cards for them.)
And I'll need some terrain ofcourse. I'm still undecided if I'll simply replicate the cardboard terrain from the Man O'War box in 3d, or if I'll build my own designs. Both options have a certain appeal. (And I only have storage room for one of the options!)
I'm also thinking of making some extra counters with sloops and rafts/castaways on them, maybe some drifting wreckage/cargo as well. These don't feature in the Man O'War rules, but could always serve as objective markers for custom scenarios.

See you next time!

Archipelago of Dread

Well, they're done, here they are:

All islands from the Dreadfleet set (the wreck of a Dwarf ship is missing, because I'll paint that alongside the Dwarf fleet itself).

Loot!

Still painting Dreadfleet terrain (at the current rate, I expect my next post to display all the painted islands), but to today a package arrived:

My Nilfgaard and Northern Kingdoms Gwent set!

And the contents. The same nice quality and lovely art that the previous release (Monsters and Scoia'Tael deck) had. A nice touch was the inclusion of the Cow/Bovine Defense Force cards. The only shame about it is that they didn't also include those to add to the previously released decks as well, or offered you the option of ordering them separately for them.

This latest delivery means I now have all four decks:

I can't wait to try them out against each other!


Anyway, that concludes this intermezzo, now it's back to painting Dreadfleet/Man O'War and binge watching Black Sails for me...

See you next time!

Lonely Island

The first island is done:

I decided not to do the castle in the dark, brooding Dreadfleet colours, as I would be using this for Man O'War as well. So it got nice whitewashed walls and blue-grey slate roofs.  (Sadly the colours on the walls got washed out a bit, causing them to look a bit flat in the pictures.) The massive skulls in the rocks still kind of bug me, but not enough to want to go through the hassle of removing them.
I quite liked painting this particular island. Enough even to maybe consider buying a second one from Ebay or a bits-seller and to make an even more living, breathing castle of it: remove the Skullz from the island, flock the rocks with greenery and add some buildings and fields within the castle walls. Maybe even extend the sealevel parts of the castle into a pier or mooring dock. I like the idea, but at the moment, my money is better spent elsewhere.

I've also been experimenting with some Oyumaru, loaned to me by Johan (Thanks, mate! ) to make some custom 3D Wreck and Debris markers for my Dwarf fleet. But I forgot to take pictures of those... :( 
I'll be using (part of) these to experiment with water sculpting some more. My reasoning for this is that these markers will be on the table for a turn only, so it's not as big a loss if one of them is a little less than ideal.

See you next time!

On the rocks...

Today I finished the rock parts of the Dreadfleet terrain:

I also painted the basing testers/experimental Nautilus submerged markers:

At this point I think I'm preferring the greenstuff water and the cutout marker, but I'm not deciding until I can sleep on it, and maybe get some feedback. I tried to paint in the shadow of the Nautilus in the rectangular marking, but it just isn't showing up clearly.
I do think I have found my water recipe, though. Just needs gloss varnishing.