The great piratical sort down has begun

[FifteensAway]

Not sure if he gets the blame or the credit, but following Captain Blood's teeny pirate thread has inspired me to take action on a long considered project: reducing my Massive numbers of 15 mm pirates down to a more "reasonable" number - reasonable for me, still be too many by most folks standards I'd guess.

I've started with the women and children and sorted out five groups of 18 figures each which I intend to re-base singly on round steel discs (well, one casting of a woman and two children will be on one larger base).  The groups will be:

Well dressed women
Women, just folk, with children (two castings rather than three with one including a child or baby in arms)
Children (one casting is a woman with two children following her)
Servant women
Armed women

Also, one dead figure per group.

The best part of the above is that except for the dead, all the figures are painted.

I've also, temporarily, set aside two groups of 18 men to use as unarmed civilians from my FIW collection, all painted - but I shall be hunting for more and, hopefully, more appropriate figures.  Will be posting a request for recommendations shortly.

That only knocks my existing women and children down by half, other 'knock downs' will be substantially more than half in most (all?!) cases.  Most of the figures - not all, some relatively 'recent' acquisitions are only primed - are already painted.

I think it will be one each British, Dutch, French, (maybe two) Spanish uniformed troops, 18 figures each.  Will be pulling out as many painted gunners as possible and any 'cool' figures - like treasure parties, musicians, peg legs, grappling guns and blunderbuss guns and, especially, figures with parrots on their shoulders (yes, they have them in 15 mm).  Have more than enough pieces of artillery, perhaps enough already painted - but if not plenty more already primed and ready.

Probably do four pirate units.  I have some pirate captives, drunks, and such that are most of the figures that will need painting. 

I hope to reduce from around 2400 figures all told down to closer to something under 600 - though maybe a bit more, especially bringing in the already painted 'men in the water' from shipwrecks.  Well, and boat crews, have a LOT of boats and crews.  Too many.

Now, this is Captain Blood's fault, more or less: I am likely to be buying in some additional 3D printed buildings!  Not his fault at all if I also buy in a quartet of ships from Bluemoon's 15 mm pirate range - to add to 8 long owned sloops and other smaller craft. And, if I can find them and like them, maybe another 'destroyed' or sinking ship or two, already have one. 

One small step at a time but the first step to get the ball rolling - 90 women and children.  I did say 'too many' for some didn't I? 

[FifteensAway]

Went out to get a start on sorting the pirates - and got distracted by the civilians, again.  But it worked out great.  I sorted it so I now have 24 households of unarmed civilians with six folk per house.  Ten of the households are three men and three women with six of those households being the high society folk, both the men and the women, the balance are ordinary folk.  Then there are fourteen households with two men, two women, and two children each.  That's pretty cool.  And the best part is 98 of the 144 are already painted!  That's even cooler.

Well, there are 13 more figures, dead folk that need to be painted/finished but already primed.  And then there is that one lone girl child that didn't quite fit.  I'm afraid either she - or perhaps more likely one of the boys - will be sacrificed as a dead child.  How terrible of me.   .

I still have a dozen stands of three figures each included in that total that I need to pull off the square stands in order to base on single figure round stands where possible (but sometimes two, and once three, figures per stand for multi-figure sculpts).

I have, or have on order, or are awaiting pulling the trigger on ordering seventeen 3D buildings and I have more than enough other buildings, not 3D, to easily get up to 24 and more (and all painted).  And that 'more' may matter since I think the three 'pirate hideouts' in transit to me will be just pirates - though I do have enough female pirates to make that work out, just not unarmed.  I'm okay with that.  Undecided how I will use the "old fisherman's house" but I'm guessing it will be a nest of either pirate spies or pirate hunters - or alternate back and forth as the scenario calls for.  So that is four houses (or buildings) that will need different occupants likely, pirates or hunters, for which I have more than enough figures, mostly already painted.

Color me happy. 

[FifteensAway]

Figured time to at least post a photo - and the image shows a bunch of multi-based figures with their 'feet wet' to make it easier to separate from the base prior to rebasing individually on round bases:



And mixed in that lot are enough additional already painted civilians to reduce that paint load by about 75% so only about a dozen to paint there.  The rest will be soldiers or militia.  Perhaps not all of the figures in the photo will be in the final retained collection.

I figure to have, in order of 'strength' on the gaming table the following unit types:

Pirate Hunters (this will be the largest contingent in need of paint but still only a few dozen figures)
Pirates
Soldiers
Seaman / Gun Crews
Militia
Civilians (unarmed)

A rough calculation suggests, excluding dead and in the water, that I will end up with about 540 figures.  Oh, also those boat crews and their boats (many of the boats are already painted, most probably).

I do need to sort out about a dozen, maybe a little more, of my female pirates.  Those will also need to be painted.

Next soaking wet feet should be the pirates and seamen. 

One step at a time.

Edit near the end of my day: All of those figures in that tray now de-based.  And the current tally is 150 civilians with 135 painted, added back in six figures to use a specific unpainted figure that may be the Spanish colonial governor and the needed additional figures to create a 'unit' of six.  And then 168 armed uniformed figures including two 6 man units of mounted figures (and counting the horses) and twelve 12 man units of foot, and all of them painted - though one unit of 12 will need some work to make them truly 'uniform' but as militia so not needing strict uniformity and another unit of 12 that need to be differentiated and likely I will just, carefully, adjust the pant color on 12 and leave the other 12 matching figures as is.  These are the Soldiers and the Militia, 2 mounted and 6 foot for the Spanish, and 2 each foot for the British, French, and Dutch.  The foot will be evenly divided into regular troops and militia - though most of the militia could stand as regulars if desired.

So, out of 318 figures and horse, only have 15 to paint and 24 with some rather minor modifications. 

And an uncounted bunch of pirates, sailors, and gunners also de-based in the batch worked on today, maybe two or three dozen.

[FifteensAway]

Another day - and another 450 figures de-based with an additional 360 getting their feet wet as I type, hopefully debase them tomorrow.  Not enough time to get an accurate count of how many more painted figures, mostly the 'national' figures rather than more pirates, still to go for de-basing but maybe a couple hundred not counting the partially or too fastly painted figures, those latter needing some serious rework before they hit the table.

I did find all 40 of the Red Ann and Red Tide female pirates from Rebelminis, enough to have six teams or half teams of six figures; all with a painting start but a great need to improve upon that start, dramatically.  The downside is they only make five unique female sculpts so every team will need a duplicate figure, just have to make sure the duplicates on a given team are distinct in their paint jobs.  Debating about matching the female pirates with the pirate hunters or maybe just 'regular' pirates - or alternate again?  Probably go with the alternate option since I really only need three teams for one or the other.  I guess that means three female/pirate teams and three female/hunter teams.  Easy enough with what I have but it does up the painting/finishing load by about 72 figures.

Oh, and there are a couple of boxes of painted artillery figures that need to go the feet wet route and get de-based, around 100 figures. 

I am contemplating - maybe, big maybe - going down the 3/2/1 basing scheme for number of figures per base but I'm going to try and resist and stick with one figure per base since the whole goal is to get more characterful games going.  Of course, that also means I really need to reduce much further in total number of figures - or not.  Can have those few special figures as the 'stars of the show' and then a 'cast of thousands hundreds of extras'.  And most games will be much smaller than the final reduced collection will allow, just wanting to be able to have the occasional smaller mega-game for show piece convention events, just not quite so large a mega-game as in the past, 32 player games with 5 game masters is a circus! 

So, yeah, I am definitely well above 1,000 painted figures (1,000 - 1300 + 318 yesterday) plus the primed figures still in need of painting and then the dead and the in water figures.  I calculate if I end around 500-600  total 'in the pool of available figures' I'll be down by close to a third, certainly well over half, from where the reduction started. 

The secret hope?  Once I have the reduction done I will realize I need to go down further and will do exactly that and reduce even further.  Must be gentle with myself about this, can't be forcing myself into some sort of 'demolition' culture shock!   

For the casual observer of this process: Don't do what I did and let your enthusiasm run away with you.  Keep a solid lid on how many figures you accumulate for a given period.  You will be happier for it.  I recommend you trust me on this.  I speak from experience.

Now, the real upside of all this?  Having a smaller number of figures - and a very much smaller number of figures to paint for this collection, I can really focus on the table environment for my pirate games, especially with the 3D items on order to join the buildings I already have.  Well, when I'm not busy moving forward on some other of my too many collections for all those varied periods of history or cinematic adventures.  But I have some cool ideas on the terrain front and terrain is, for me, the most fun element of the hobby of miniature wargaming.

[fred]

I'm kind of stunned by the amount of figures you have for this era - especially with so many mostly game ready.

Hopefully the sort through and rebasing gets you to a stage where you are able to play games - of what ever size suits!

It also feels you are aggregating together disparate groups of figures that have been stored apart - this is certainly one of the things I find helps massively is to have everything for a period together (well as much as is practical!)

[FifteensAway]

fred, the key is this statement "32 player games with 5 game masters is a circus".  This was a club project with 15 pairs of hands painting figures, buildings, working on terrain, rules, etc. for an Extravaganza Game at area conventions back in 2012, work started in 2011.  And included around 20 ships - mantle piece ships that were semi-water lined to have a flat bottom but came fully rigged, and all on the cheaper side.  My main role was to finance all the purchases and be the main terrain person and, of course, having enough madness to conceive of the whole thing.  And, yes, we did get full attendance at the games.  Alas, all the players were so focused on ship action that the great majority of the miniatures didn't get used - though I tweaked the later events to ensure they got more involved.  It was fun at the time but I've, absolutely, shifted my focus to running much smaller games, generally six players maximum. 

Back then there were a number of similar gigantic pirate games going on around the world, most notable being mine in 15 mm; the man behind Fistful of Seaman blog in 28 mm game, in the middle part of the US; and another in France also in 28 mm - that last, at its greatest extent, looked like it would take about half a basketball court to set up.

But the biggest driver now is to have games where the Characters are more involved.  Most likely I will be using Fistful of Lead (maybe Bigger Battles) to run games, likely with tweaks.   And on the ship front, I am converting over to ships designed for wargaming, some resin ships I've owned for years languishing about, a quartet of 3D ships just ordered, and the two smallest of the mantle piece ships to be retained as merchant vessels.  And for those about to suggest I should use 28 mm, well, not when you have so many 15 mm figures already painted!  Besides, with that many figures, it should be easy to have full crews with little to no duplication; there are literally scores of unique poses.

Extravaganza Game is my term for spectacle games so large that they require multiple game masters to keep the game moving and all of those mentioned fit the bill.

My biggest debate is whether or not to have 12 figure units or keep them to only 6 - or both, probably both if I can make it workable with the rules structure.  But Hero figures for sure per the Bigger Battles variant - they can be structured to have greater survivability and can handle more 'traits' and thus reappear in many games as Characters.  Such figures to do not need to be part of a unit.

One thought on the 12 versus 6 figure units, the 6 figure units get one die per figure and the 12 figure units get only one die per 3 figures the latter of which is allowed for in the rules when building units (or teams), just with a tweak.  A great element of the rules is they tweak easily without breaking.  Hmm, six players each with three 12 and three 6 figure units and 6 heroes is only 60 figures each times six is only 360 figures.  Well, add in additional figures to man the guns and the boats to go ashore - and there MUST be boats going ashore to put those figures to best use!  I guess the excess will be for variety and, maybe, the larger convention games - but NOWHERE near 32 players, maybe twelve tops. 

I sort of conceive of it like this: one player each for British, French, and Dutch players, maybe two (or just one) for the Spanish, two for pirates, and one or two for the merchants plying their trade.  So six or seven players plus game master controlled figures.  Not mentioned above is varied natives.  And the setting, generally, shall remain the Carobbean Sea (not misspelled) but with outings in the Pacific, especially now that I've acquired, via The Virtual Armchair General, a quartet of proper Polynesian war canoes in 15 mm to go with the crews I've had for some time.

This thread is documenting the process and a bit of my own 'stream of consciousness' about where it is all going.  Typing it all out and rereading it helps a bit with the focus.

At some point, the considerable number of excess painted figures will go up for sale - with first option going to the members of the club who helped.  But that is out there a ways into the future.

Enough for now.

[Captain Blood]

Now, this is Captain Blood's fault, more or less: I am likely to be buying in some additional 3D printed buildings!   

It's often my fault

Looks like you have your work cut out  Good luck!

[FifteensAway]

Sometimes it's called fault, sometimes it's called 'credit'.  You, Captain Blood, may put which ever spin makes you feel better.  And thanks for your teeny pirates thread and its inspiration to get moving.   

Though you've also distracted me from my other projects! 

All good fun.

[FifteensAway]

Those 360 feet wet from yesterday now de-based and the rest of the painted figures still needing de-basing with their feet wet including some Peter Pig female pirates mixed - but need to be in their own unit, won't mix well with the Rebelminis figures, too different in size.  And only a 'quick sort' at the end of the day.  If all goes according to plan and I get it done tomorrow, that will be well over 1,000 painted figures de-based in three days.

Two more units of soldiers now in the mix.  Debating whether units will be six figures or twelve figures still. 

And I found I have four figures with monkeys on their shoulders, from Rebelminis.  I'm thinking some of the parrot on shoulder figures, a couple of different versions, and all of the monkey on shoulder figures will be first and second mates of the pirate 'crews', current plan is for four such crews.  Probably one group of musicians per crew and also a 'treasure party' to each pirate set. 

One thing I plan to do different is to allow each player to control two ships so that seven players can get all fourteen ships into action - though most games will use a sub-set of the total.  And often times the ship's will, mostly, be set dressing for land based games. 

Pirates are just a great source of fun. 

[FifteensAway]

And now all of the fully painted figures are removed from their bases, something around 1200 or so.  Can subtract 20-40 figures from the total that will be 'retired' from pirate games, a bunch of Nappy era figures that I used to fill gaps back in 2011 - and never liked using them.  Maybe use for some sort of skirmish game one day - or move on to someone else.

The rough sort is almost done but for the artillery and unarmed sailors. 

[FifteensAway]

Didn't quite finish but 96+ F temperature chased me indoors from garage - even with a large fan blowing.  But only two boxes of relatively few figures to account for, mostly the highest level officers and the painted dead.  Mostly just counting up what I had, listing below

However, a bit over 1,500 total fully painted figures - not including about 70 Napoleonic intruders that are also fully painted.
There are 15 groups, maybe one more, of twelve figure uniformed units in the mix on foot plus a couple of six figure mounted units.  There are also around 230 or so men, women, and children mostly unarmed but around 40-50 of the women are armed, these are separate from the female pirates which are only primed.  Same with the pirate hunters, only primed.  Those are in line to get painted and there might be a dozen primed figures in the rest to paint.  The rest of the primed figures likely not to get painted, at least not by or for me.  Probably paint the primed dead unless I decide I have enough already which is probable.

I think that is considerably more than enough.

So, now it is the logical me getting to argue with 'emotional' me about letting go of the excess figures.  That should be interesting.  I'd love to convince myself to stay under around 400 figures total.

Except the odd maybe a dozen primed figures, all of these are painted:

226 artillery figures
112 unarmed crew figures
117 musket armed figures
211 sword armed figures
159 two drawn weapons
87 'specials', with telescopes, lanterns, parrots, monkeys, etc., grappling hooks
123 treasure party (41), music (33+10?), and melee weapon only (39)
180 soldiers
250 or so, need to verify, unarmed civilian men, women, and children but including around 50 armed women

From that I want to sort out crews for a total of 14 ships and at least 14 landing boats (lots of primed figures to paint for that, boats mostly already painted - edit: so add in another 140 figures to paint at 4 rowers and 6 passengers per boat); populations for towns, and the soldiers.  Still to paint will be the pirate women and pirate hunters but that is probably less than 100 figures to go.

And now I think but for the odd moment I need to turn back to my pulp game in preparation.