Man O' War Sea Forts & Castle

I printed these at the same time I printed the other Man O' War fleets. They aren't quite as nice as the ships, and the rules for forts and castles aren't as fun as the ship rules. My printer particularly failed at printing the cannons. They look a bit lumpy. I've seen some well printed ones and they look pretty good ... so it might be more an issue with my printer and less with the stl models.

Dead simple to paint though. Start with a Grey Seer undercoat. Then Basilicum Grey (1:1 with Contrast Medium) with Admin Grey drybrushes and Agrax washes (around the base and any "floors") does most of the work. Then snakebite for any wood and runesteel for the cannons (with some washes of Nuln Oil) for finishing touches.

 

Man O' War: Khorne Deathgalleys

It's Khorne Deathgalleys today. These are the final 6 ships needed for my Khorne fleet. I kept the color palette dark since it hides some 3d printing anomalies. But overall I think they came out pretty good for the the cheapo printer I have. Contrast paints also do an excellent job shading the various bits that do matter (i.e. the decking and the oars in particular stand out). I wouldn't be embarrassed putting these on a table. As with all my 3d prints, I ended up making the masts separately.

Paint wise, the hull is contrast black with a light drybrush of Dawnstone grey. The oars and masts are just Basilicum Grey.  The deck is Darkoath Flesh followed by spot washes of Agrax (on the 3d print anomalies to further darken them). The skull is my standard skull recipe. Skeleton Horde contrast followed by Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull highlights (and IIRC some spot washes of Agrax to darken the eyes and horns).

 A shot of the entire Khorne Fleet. The Te(a)rrors of the high seas! A smidge over a 1,000 pts worth of ships.

 

Man O' War: More Merchant Vessels

I mentioned I had another 6 of the old Might Empire Ships without masts. Here they are ... with homemade masts! Once more, they will be used as merchant vessels to be captured. I probably have too many of these...

I was thinking a good scenario would be to give each player 3-6 vessels and require they escape off the opposite end of the seascape for victory points. You can get points by capturing opponents vessels and sailing them off the seascape as well. Sort of a dual escort mission.

These have the cool new water effect bases. I think I mentioned how I "messed" them up by not leveling the bases before I let the glue dry. I think it gives them a storm-tossed look.

 

Man O' War: Khorne Fleet

Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!

It's the first 1/2 of a Khorne fleet for Man O' War. The next 1/2 is still being painted. Like the Skaven before, these were 3d printed using Nathan Hunt's files on Thingiverse. I still only have a PLC printer (not resin), so there were some minor issues printing. These didn't come out quite as "clean" as the Skaven. I tried to overcome some of the print issues by keeping to a dark color pallet during painting on the areas that were particular deformed.

These have home made masts and yard arms too. It turns out I have a truly massive number of the flag poles. Man O'War used the same flag poles as the old Space Marine/Epic stands ... and I have several hundred of those. The masts are 1.6mm (1/16") polystyrene rods with notches filed so they kinda inset together (between the mast and the yard arm). Then thread tied/wrapped around the cross section and looped until the end of the yard arm (using a bit of white glue to keep the "rope" in place), where I wrapped it around the rod to make another thicker rope section. Last but not least, I flattened the top and glued an epic flag pole to the top the best I could.

I tried the same ocean bases as the last batch of pirate ships, but I messed up on them slightly. In particular, I made the seas too rough and let them dry in that shape before test fitting the ships. The ships are not flush with the sea. It's not too noticeable from 3 feet away, but it's not perfect. If I did it again, I'd do the bases before painting the ships, and use a ship to press into the ocean while the glue was still wet (to get a good indentation and mostly flat glue spot) and then let it dry. I think that'd work way better.

Painting wise, it's mostly contrast paints with some highlights. Contrast red for the hull, Contrast Darkoath flesh for the planks, Contrast Basilicum Grey for the Oars and Mast, Contrast Black for the flag pole and rudders. Then appropriate highlights/drybrushing. Onto some pictures:

 

Man O'War: Pirate Fleet

These are the basic wargalleys you get from the base Man O'War game. Once again, they are sans sails. They painted up pretty fast (I had them done 2 weeks ago), but I tried something different with the bases. I plan to use them as Pirate auxiliaries for the various fleets. If anyone ever makes some Empire Wolfships I could 3d print, I might expand them into a small fleet (3 Lone Wolfs and 6 Wargalleys is around 500 points iirc).

The bases are painted to match the Dreadfleet seascape fabric, and they blend in pretty darn good when you place them on it. I took tissue paper and soaked it in glue and made mounds on top, then took a second tissue paper and placed it so it covered the entire base and coated it with a generous helping of white glue (and some water so it soaked throughout). Painting wise, I tried to match the old white dwarf guide (found in issue 382 ... which you can find pdf's of online ... mine was lost when I basement flooded awhile back). So I painted it cornflower semi-gloss blue, wash of Naggaroth Night, drybrush of Caledor Sky, Wash of Biel-Tan, Drybrush of Caledor Sky, drybrush of Lothern Blue, drybrush of white, Wash of Guilliman Blue, and a final drybrush of white.  That sounds like a lot but it goes pretty quick (although it added a week onto the time). I'm a little worried that the ships might not be attached as well, since it's not a completely flat bond, but so far I haven't seen an issue.

 

Man O'War: Merchant Vessels

Sails Ho!

The first set of Man O'War vessels that actually have sails. In case you don't recognize them, these are GW ships, just not Man O'War ships. They are tokens from the old Mighty Empires game. I have another 6 of these, but for some reason I don't have the masts/sails. There are 11 (unfortunately, since MoW groups things by 3), and I painted the sails so that they can be used in 3 groups of 3 (red/green/blue) with 2 extras (white/black). I'll use them as treasure ships that the fleets can fight over. I tried using post-it-notes to stencil the lines on the sails, but that proofed too fiddly so ended up free-handing most of them.

I like these, they were easy to paint and the sails came out pretty good.

 

Man O'War: Chaos Dwarf Fleet

Another Man O'War fleet. This time it's the dreaded Chaos Dwarfs.

In the Old World, Chaos Dwarfs are Dwarfs who've succumbed to the lure of Chaos (namely the God of Darkness Hashut ... who may or may not be an actual Chaos God).

These were an odd inclusion in Man O'War given that the Chaos Dwarfs are about as landlocked as you can get. They had a river that stretched the length of a continent that they needed to travel down to even get to the closest sea (across Orc and Goblin lands), then sail 1,000's of miles down and around and back up the Southlands, just to make it anywhere near the Old World where most of the action in the game happens. After doing all of that (in barges no less), their ships had a tendency to explode when they fired their main guns. But look at the size of those main guns! They are the shootiest faction in the game!

It was a fun fleet to paint! Lots of oranges and warm colors. The giant squid thing is from Dreadfleet.

 

Man O' War: Skaven Fleet

Hide the round pastries! The Pie-Rats are coming!

It's a Skaven fleet for Man O'War. These are all (except the dead fish thingy) 3d printed using files found on Thingiverse (credit to Nathan Hunt at https://www.thingiverse.com/barnebiss2/designs).

I have a PLC extrusion printer (~ $100), which is not the ideal type for printing things at this scale. I hear resin printers are better (and more expensive and slightly more difficult to operate). I hit some consistent flaws in the prints. Namely the bells on the Doombringers and the wrecking balls on the Deathburners. Anything with significant overhang. This is more due to my incompetence than the designs, but where my 3d printing inexperience failed me, my conversion experience came to the rescue. They were not too difficult to fix. I used some left-over morning star bits from my Chaos Beastmen (for the wrecking balls) and/or greenstuff (for the bells). I also never got a good print of a mast, so I made my own using thread and some polystyrene rods. As with the Dwarves from before, I still don't have access to a color printer to print out the sails/banners, so these are currently banner-less. Overall, it's about 1200 pts (not including the dead fish ship from Dreadfleet ... which should probably be about a 300 pt ship ... so 1500 total).

Color-wise I put the base colors down and hit the whole thing with an agrax wash (i.e. liquid skill), then hit each areas with specific highlights. The colors: Wyldwood Contrast sides (highlighted with Deathclaw), Blood Angel Red Contrast roofs (highlighted with dragon fire red), Guillamen Flesh Contrast light wood/ropes (w/spot highlights of ushabti bone), Runefang Steel metal (highlighted back up to Runefang Steel), Retributor Armor gold (w/spot highlights of Mithril Silver). I based them all using Flames of War Medium Bases spray painted with a satin blue (Cornflower).

I think they came out pretty good for 3d prints, and should look even better once I add the banners.

 

Man O' War: Dwarf Fleet

All hands to Battle Stations!

These aren't on my master list. Quarantine has caused me to veer off into old projects and try to get them finished. Here is a dwarf fleet for the old (25+ years ... late 80's to early 90's) GW game Man O' War. I think Man O' War was only supported for about 2-3 years by GW, so some of these fleets are kinda hard to find.

The color scheme is light gray with a teal spot color. I think they came out okay, but maybe a brighter blue might have made them pop more. I thought that would be a bit too close to the old 80's color schemes GW used to use.

I used the turquoise contrast paint and had to highlight it through with sotek green and temple guard blue for the spot color. The light gray base is Grey Seer, followed by a 1:1 diluted wash of Contrast Basicilica Grey and then a dry brush of Grey Seer again.

Pictured in the group picture is the Dwarf Dreadfleet vessel (some type of Battle Carrier). I painted him a while back.

I will probably put these on blue bases at some point, I need to find some I like. My favorite were blank plastic bases for Flames of War, but I don't think they make them anymore. I've gone back and forth several times on the best way to base these up and store them.

MOW: Lizardman Fleet

A Lizardmen fleet for Man O' War