Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 1 May 2017

Shipshape

As promised last week, here's the toy pirate ship I bought via Evil-bay a few weeks ago.
I hunted down this model having first seen it on fellow blogger Ptr's site Hugg Och Slag a couple of years ago. 
I must admit that on first sight it does look very usable (even more so on Ptr's blog), but unfortunately it's a little too small, even compared to the rather small toy ships I worked on recently.
Nevertheless I have a couple of ideas how I'll use it.
Fresh out of the Packaging
So here's what I found unboxing and 'disecting' the model:
It is quite an attractive model, despite its proliferation of stickers and very soft plastic bits (the orange parts).
There are no deck cannon, but the figurehead is good, as is the rear cabin decoration.
Pointy end figurehead (looks better of you squint in subdued lighting)

The blunt end - no silver !
"Yarr, we be calling you  'Short-arse' '"
The figure included are of course oversized for the model (I do wonder though why manufacturers continually do this sort of thing - but I guess it's a toy thing).
In their defence the figures are easily recognisable as to what they're meant to be despite their lack of eye-patches and peg-legs! 
"Room for two - just" ?
All the upper bits stripped from the hull,,,
...leaving access to the bare bones of the hull
The relative scale problems can be more readily seen when a 28mm figure is place on board.
The photograph to the right show a 28mm figure at the ships wheel (fairly good sized wheel btw), but with little to no room for anyone else  - and stay away from those very low sides!
The problem is magnified when trying to get cannon on the decks (with or without figures), as the same problems emerge.







"It be a bit  tight getting through that doorway"

Two cannon on deck and it's full!

It should be obvious from the last few photo graphs that as the model stands, it's completely unusable in it's current from with 28mm figure, though I suspect that it would be an ideal size for use with 15mm figures *unless they too have also fallen foul of scale-creep)
I haven't completely given up on using this toy and have a couple of ideas how I'll use it,  after some severe conversion, so onwards with the dissembling...
All the remaining bits separated out (obligatory boring pic)
Equally boring pic
So what are my plans for this ? Well it's obvious to me at least that it can't deploy a broadside of cannon, but could mount a couple of swivel guns or maybe a small chaser. If I use the original deck, it will have to have either raised sides (health and safety) or the deck itself will have to be lowered -(maybe a combination of the two)
The aft deck will have the ships wheel removed; in any event ships' wheels were not commonplace until well after the golden age of piracy and were introduced in about the 1720's.- Blackbeard probably never saw one!
So currently I have two ideas for this model:
Firstly turn it into a small civilian coastal vessel, a yacht, small sloop or similar, where the rear deck would be nothing more than a roof for the rear cabin (not unlike a Bermuda sloop)  
The second idea and the one I currently favour, is turning it into a governors barge. The rear deck would be removed as above, the vessel would maybe have a lateen (slanting) sail on a central mast and  the gun-ports would be utilised for oars (Rollocks !  - no honestly they would!)
Of course I'm always open to suggestions.... (hint, hint)

8 foot by 4 foot - in case you were wondering...
In other news:
I made up my mind to complete the tidying up of my games room, now that the shelving had been sorted, so I now have a table usable for games, though currently I'm working on palm trees and jungle and may have to hold off on games - more on that next time.








...and converted quickly to the Caribbean for this photo-session)
Next time I'll be posting the results of some palm-tree experiments and the progress I've made on my jungle terrain, plus for the first time in over a year I've slapped some paint on some 28mm figures, though not Pirates (or Zombie related for that matter) - more news on that particular foray when they're finished!.

So that's it for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

16 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Michal, but a bit too small for my liking

      Delete
  2. That's a great find Joe and my word that's a decent sized table - lucky you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks you Michael (but see above reply to Michal); my ideal home wargame table would be 8 ft x 6 ft. but the mlst I had in my current situtaion was a very nice 9 ft by 5ft (a table tennis table) and yes, I d o consider myself lucky.

      Delete
  3. The Armada grows yet again.
    If those cannon fire the ship would topple over.
    And
    I may need your professional help on my tidy up now I have seen your results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Clint it does, but I think the recoil from my cannon on this m
      High shelving ! That's the answer, oh and another room for more shelving (and th living roomfpor paints and books too.

      Delete
  4. Great looking ship, I think more suited to 15's like you said.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ray, I thd o thinkit would make a stunnunf 15mm ship, butnevertheless I'll try andmake something out of it for 28mms.

      Delete
  5. i think you're better off with the barge idea Joe as you'll struggle with any kind of military vessel. Still not too bad a find and I'm sure you'll do it proud like your previous efforts (which were stunning imho). Im lucky enough to have an 8x4' table but wish it was bigger.....there's a joke there somewhere i'm sure....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks dGG, thebarge idea is still favourite atm and any idea of an armed vessel is gone. N
      I'm guessing that no matter our table size we all want something bigger (*snigger).

      Delete
  6. It's called "table envy" ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Another pirate ship is in dry dock for repairs and up-to-date modifications and customization. Looking forward, Capt. Zab, to the finished masted sea terror.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jay, it'll be sometime though before this vessel decides what it is and leaves for the open sea.

      Delete
  8. Great report Joe and now I don´t need to pull everything into snmall pieces thanks to you.FYI: I will make the top of the rear part of the ship removable to be able to put figures inside the officers-mess.Looking forward reading next report with the ship painted.Please keep posting. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ptr,it'll be a while before I finally decide how to use this model.

      Delete