A Nest of Rats or Red Rackham's Revenge

[theoldschool]

With apologies to Herge for the title, some photos from a recent game. I'll add some narrative later.
Those long-suffering Adventurers who have kindly offered me advice on basing might notice that I am still no nearer finding a solution  
Pat

[Lowtardog]

What lovely figures and beautiful terrain.

What is it that you are unsure about with the basing?

[Operator5]

Beautiful Pat. I love the clean look of all your painting.

[fastolfrus]

Lovely looking figures.

What make are the revenue men ?

[Lowtardog]

They look like Front Rank English from their WSS range, ideal for Pirate hunting

[theoldschool]

They look like Front Rank English from their WSS range, ideal for Pirate hunting

Quite right Lowtardog, the marines are Front Rank grenadiers/fusiliers. I think the uniform for marines of the period was close enough as to make no difference. It's Hollywood after all.

As to the basing, my problem is finding a colour combination that is bright but works across all of my pulp/swashbuckling/sci-fi figures to allow them to be used indoors, outdoors and urban. I'm looking for a neutral colour. Many good natured and very kind members of this forum have offered their colour combinations, but I think it is so dependent on how you apply the paint that no one painter really gets the same finish as another even with the same colours. Oh well, I'll keep chasing the rainbow  

Pat

[Lowtardog]

You know I used to worry about this a lot but in the end decided that if in Western europe it will be an earth base coat with dry brushed highlights. for Desert ort any other terrain I go for an ochre with dry brushed buff/off white highlights.

[PeteMurray]

Beautiful painting, Pat. The Grenadiers' uniform is a tough one to paint, and you've done magnificently with it.

How is your water done, and who makes the dock system? Ainsty?

[theoldschool]

Beautiful painting, Pat. The Grenadiers' uniform is a tough one to paint, and you've done magnificently with it.

How is your water done, and who makes the dock system? Ainsty?

The docky system is from Ainsty now owned by Old Crow Models. The water is exactly as it comes from TSS. It's one of their sand/coast tiles.
The palm trees are Pegasus, they are fantastic, although you can't see the tops of them in the photos and the little grass clumps are astro-turf.
The genadiers were a pain to paint with all that lace, thank heavens I didn't have to do too many of them.
Pat

Here is the scenario:

A Nest of Rats

After a bloody game of cat and mouse across the Spanish Main, Red Henry Rackham and his fellow captains have run to ground along with what remains of their murderous crews.
Commander Jacob Ireton, captain of His Majesty’s ship The Fortune learns that Rackham is in Porto del Fuego. Fearing that Rackham will once again escape the hangman’s noose, Ireton takes swift action and leads his ship’s officers and marines ashore to deal the pirates a final deadly blow.


Encounters for the game were kindly supplied by Pete. I'll post a write up of the game tomorrow.

[Captain Blood]

Pat

Lovely stuff. I recognise that Ainsty quay, and most of the figures! I've got their cousins in my collection.

What did you use for the sea?

I'm at a loss on the basing front - the FW Neo-Sovs I was delighted to acquire from you were beautifully based with a nice neutral earthy / sandy finish. Why don't you use that for your pirates?

I know what you mean about settling on a single colour though. It's tricky.
When I took up painting, gaming and collecting again a few years ago (after a loooooooooooong break of 15 years or so) all my new collections were based on 'red desert' bases. This started with NW Frontier, worked well enough for Future Wars, for Pirates, and for much else besides. But it didn't really work when I moved onto F&I Wars, Swashbucklers, and now ECW - and much else besides! So now I have two complete sets of board and terrain! One for use with 'red sand / desert / tropical island' settings and figures, and one for use with 'normal' earthy colour ground! I now have getting on for 700 painted 28mm figures. Half of them are based on one colour, and half on the other!

When I paint new figures, I have to decide which of the two worlds they are primarily going to inhabit - arid/tropic or temperate.

Bit of a pain in the bum really, but that's just how it's ended up...  

[PeteMurray]

Encounters for the game were kindly supplied by Pete. I'll post a write up of the game tomorrow.

I did?  : EDIT: I totally did. My brain malfunctioned. I'll still be interested to see how you used them, mostly because I don't immediately see how they'd fit the scenario...

I'll be curious to see how the game went!

[8?8]

Wow!
I´m myself into a pirates project with a Royal Navy crew. If I get to your standards I would be very glad. Very nice minis and a lot of good looking environment.

[warrenpeace]

Great figures!

  Excellent paint jobs!

 :love: Lovely buildings and docks and trees!

 :roll: And yes the bases could use some work, maybe pour sand on glue?

 :mrgreen: I wanna play at your house!

[uti long smile]

That's beautiful!! So clean and crisp. I'll have to get some of the tiles as they work really well. Where are the buildings from?

[PeteMurray]

About basing: The plain green bases work for me for some reason. I think they work better on the soldiers than the pirates. It's almost like they're Old School Gamer Bases, like the Britains bases, in their plain green scheme. So your bases imply that sort of jolly carefree style of play, while being of the modern style of sculpting.

Does that make any sense? It makes sense to me.