Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: cheetor on July 15, 2018, 01:15:55 PM
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(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531614552489.jpg)
A few months ago I decided that I should be working on fantasy pirate related projects. Within days I had surrounded myself with other toy soldier enthusiasts desperate to ply their vicious trade on the miniature seas. So I had to get a miniature sea together for starters.
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/wp-1529951681455.jpg)
Firstly, I spent a weekend sitting outside in the sun painting the terrain from the 2011 GW game "Dreadfleet", plus the three monsters in the set. Opinions of the Dreadfleet game tend to be negative and can be read elsewhere, but say what you like about it, the entire production looks absolutely gorgeous. This applies strongly to the terrain in the set.
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/wp-1529950668137.jpg?w=468&h=317)
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/wp-1529950668085.jpg)
Those islands and rocks were joyous things to paint: a tiny world full of volcanoes, sacrificial temples, magical stone circles and shipwrecks. The "Dire Straits" had become a tangible location, ready for some buckswashling. This blog post (https://sho3box.com/2018/06/25/dire-straits-covers-michael-bay-in-unexpected-seamen/) has more info on those items, for anyone inclined to take a look.
The next thing was an idea that theottovonbismark had about a decade ago. I had zero interest in the idea back then, but times change, and so I took a fairly innocuous piece of turn of the century Citadel Miniatures terrain and created the coastline of "Michael Bay".
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531038979243.jpg?w=468&h=250)
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1530985278750.jpg)
Tackling the terrain first in a project like this is a good plan in my experience.
Every game will use the terrain, not every game will require those protagonist models that you want to immediately get stuck into.
Painted miniatures without painted terrain are close to useless anyway, so getting the tabletop ready to represent various idiotically named locations for future battles gave me far more early satisfaction with the project than I would have got from painting a fleet with nowhere to sail. There be more information and images re the coastline pieces here (https://sho3box.com/2018/07/08/coastline/).
Excluding the three sea monsters from Dreadfleet that I painted while painting the terrain, the first actual gaming pieces that I have finished are... also sea monsters.
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531614552545.jpg)
The Man O' War "Monsters of the Sea" set of figures was very appealing to me when it was released in 1993 or so, but fantasy naval warfare was not on my agenda at the time. It's still a kick to go back to models like that and slap some paint on them quickly. More images and info about the Monsters of the Sea here (https://sho3box.com/2018/07/15/man-o-war-monsters-of-the-sea/), for those inclined.
Next up... a ship or two, but likely the other set of sea monsters. Then ships for certain.
Thanks for looking!
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Splendid 8)
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This is awesome. Reminds of me of when I could get people to play Uncharted Seas at my FLGS.
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Very nice, perhaps this will inspire me to crack the seal on my box of Dreadfleet! Looking forward to seeing more :)
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Stunning work on those old but rather splendid models - I used to love the way they looked like the sea monsters on old maps. 8) 8) 8) 8)
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Lovely work on these guys. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the monsters.
I never connected the models with the classic map illustrations before!
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“Michael Bay”? lol lol lol
Cracking painting! :-* I’ve still got a dark elf fleet somewhere, unpainted.
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It'll be full of overblown explosions in no time! Amusingly my little group have been talking about something similar this week..
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This is so great!!
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Wow! What an awesome looking bunch of minis. :-*
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Fantastic critturs! Personally I'm a fan of dreadfleet's ships and can go quite cheap on the net, I'm torn between beginning or not a new fleet of undead with floating necropolises and ghost ships, plus zombie pirates!
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This looks amazing. Is the sea surface painted? ...painted cloth? ...a lucky find at a fabric store?
// Wonders if some of the smaller ships from Uncharted Seas could be press ganged into service for MoW. //
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Very nice. I like the highlighting on the water elemental. Amazing!
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The Orc Frigates from Uncharted Seas make good Drilla Killa's. I picked some up to bulk out my Orc fleet and try to outweigh the 12 Chukkas I have, lol.
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This looks amazing. Is the sea surface painted? ...painted cloth? ...a lucky find at a fabric store?
I think it’s the battle mat that comes with the GW Dreadfleet game.
(http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a605/andymac2105/Mobile%20Uploads/B856DD8E-AA8F-43E4-BBA8-6F9DEF4D478A_zpsumfk6lse.jpg~original) (http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/andymac2105/media/Mobile%20Uploads/B856DD8E-AA8F-43E4-BBA8-6F9DEF4D478A_zpsumfk6lse.jpg.html)
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This looks amazing. Is the sea surface painted? ...painted cloth? ...a lucky find at a fabric store?
// Wonders if some of the smaller ships from Uncharted Seas could be press ganged into service for MoW. //
The ships sold by Ral Partha Europe for 'Empires-the miniatures boardgame' are a fairly good matxh for Man O War
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Thanks for all of the encouraging feedback everyone :) Man O' War seems to have a relatively small number of a certain type of enthusiastic fan. It is fun digging around in the games 1990s peculiarity.
I used to love the way they looked like the sea monsters on old maps. 8) 8) 8) 8)
...and...
I never connected the models with the classic map illustrations before!
The map illustration element only became clear to me during the prep and painting processes. It really adds a little cultural capital to miniatures that... well... maybe were consigned to the "WTF?!" file when first seen.
“Michael Bay”? lol lol lol
Cracking painting! :-* I’ve still got a dark elf fleet somewhere, unpainted.
My wife suggested the terrain set name... it's either just terrible or so bad that it's slightly good. No going back now regardless.
You would do a beautiful job on your Dark Elves Andy.
I reckon that the Dark Elves could be fun to paint rapidly, based on my experience painting the Sea Dragon monster (below). Once assembled and base coated, I reckon that I could knock out a fleet in a few days. Tempting.
Very nice. I like the highlighting on the water elemental. Amazing!
The Water Elemental was probably the easiest model to paint of the lot as it happens :) Apart from adding a couple of green washes to create a little distinction between it's features, the Elemental was just painted the same way as the bases. Roughly this way, from the Dreadfleet painting guide in the White Dwarf that came out in 2011:
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/dreadfleetmowwater.jpg)
I think it’s the battle mat that comes with the GW Dreadfleet game.
Yup.
The ships sold by Ral Partha Europe for 'Empires-the miniatures boardgame' are a fairly good matxh for Man O War
I had not seen those before, they look promising Sir Theo. I will check them out. Do you have/know of any images that show the ships alongside MoW vessels?
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I finished the other MoW monsters, gotta deadliest catch 'em all!
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531698497541.jpg)
Just like the five MoW Monsters of the Sea and the three Dreadfleet sea monsters, the "Beasts of the Deep" were a lot of fun to paint. I planned the paint schemes slightly less than I normally would and just got stuck in. I think that I got away with it. There are more photos and some blather in the blog post (https://sho3box.com/2018/07/18/man-o-war-beasts-of-the-deep/) if anyone is inclined.
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531741984740.jpg?w=468&h=443)
Lastly, that's all twelve of my sea monsters. With the terrain and the monsters all painted and ready to go, its finally time to tackle some ships.
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/wp-1531698497485.jpg)
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You made an amazing work on all of them :o The colour choices are really inspiring.
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I had not seen those before, they look promising Sir Theo. I will check them out. Do you have/know of any images that show the ships alongside MoW vessels?
I cant seem to find any. I do own both but I think all my Mow stuff is in storage ! They are a little smaller amd dont mix particularly well within the same fleet but an entire Dwarf fleet, for example, would work fine on a table against GW ships. I like the Orc ships in particular but they are perhaps a little more goblin than orcs!
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Beautiful collection of models. They epitomize the trap that makes you want tolearn more about games. Well done.
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Thanks for that tutorial pic. I must get a water elemental myself now!
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Wonderful :)
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Those are absolutely wonderful.
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the painting of the monsters and terrain is exquisite.
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Again, thanks for the encouraging feedback everyone. The project has been fun and pleasantly rewarding so far.
I cant seem to find any. I do own both but I think all my Mow stuff is in storage ! They are a little smaller amd dont mix particularly well within the same fleet but an entire Dwarf fleet, for example, would work fine on a table against GW ships. I like the Orc ships in particular but they are perhaps a little more goblin than orcs!
Good info Sir_Theo, thanks. I like the idea of some goblin crewed ships in a force, even if they are rules mechanically identical to existing MoW Orc fleet ships. I may look into it at a future point.
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Amazing colors on those! Really makes me wish to dig out my old Man‘o‘War stuff.
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Fantastic. I've got dreadfleet still in its box, I'll have to have a look at it. Those terrain bits/monsters look brilliant, really lovely paint job. Don't bother with ships just go for it with the monsters!
Wasn't ManOwar similar in gameplay to Epic at the time, really crunchy rules. I'm sure I played it once and felt disappointed by the faffy aspect of it. More than a handfull of ships would take a week to play. (Epic turned into a nightmare)
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Those terrain bits/monsters look brilliant, really lovely paint job. Don't bother with ships just go for it with the monsters!
Thanks :)
I like most of the Dreadfleet ships too, in particular the mecha-squid submersible "Black Kraken" and the hollowed out sea monster corpse that the skaven hang out in, the Skabrous. I will definitely be adding some of them as time goes on.
But a MoW fleet first.
The DF terrain is really nice, definitely something that should be in any MoW players collection. Dreadfleet is inexpensive to pick up too, and easily worth it for the terrain alone.
Wasn't ManOwar similar in gameplay to Epic at the time, really crunchy rules. I'm sure I played it once and felt disappointed by the faffy aspect of it. More than a handfull of ships would take a week to play. (Epic turned into a nightmare)
MoW is a little like playing second ed Epic, exclusively with Titan and knights (no infantry and tanks).
The ship templates are ludicrously huge, taking up about 1/3 of the table space: huge faff. Online fans have made playing card sized ship records that can be sleeved or laminated and used with dry erase pens instead. I think that is likely to help.
The MoW rules are surprisingly modern in places (hit location integration with roll to hit feels like a more modern streamlined boardgame mechanic) while still having some of the daft but potentially quite entertaining rules for things like critical hits that characterised GW games around then.
I'm hoping that MoW hits a sweet spot for my gaming group. With several of us painting MoW fleets right now, I am hopeful that the time invested by the players in their ships etc will give us a springboard into some pleasingly entertaining, shenanigans filled games. Fingers crossed... and if it doesn't work out then we will find another rule set that will do the trick with the same models.
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Always loved those models.
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I am stoked to get to be one of the people who will be playing on this set with Cheetor. I have been preaching about the joys of Man O'War to him for nearly 2 decades!
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I am stoked to get to be one of the people who will be playing on this set with Cheetor. I have been preaching about the joys of Man O'War to him for nearly 2 decades!
Any day now Otto, particularly now that I have the core of my first fleet painted :D
The Seventh Sons
(https://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/wp-1535749808000.jpg)
A squadron of Plaguecrushers, a squadron of Deathgalleys and a Plagueship as the flagship. With a few diseased sea beasts summoned to aid them, thats enough to get a few games in, although I do plan to add a few more Nurgle ships to this project before I move on.
More info and photos here for anybody interested. (https://sho3box.com/2018/08/31/man-o-war-plaguefleet-the-seventh-sons/)
Thanks for looking!
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My second most favourite fleet in Man O' War - nice restrained paintwork there, they look great, much better than the box photo paint job.
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Great thread. Nice to see those old figures.
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Gorgeous. Love the subtle colouring and the photography here. Following.
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Charming in all their putrid rottenness. Lovely.