October 2020 Totals

Another month down. I'd hoped to be finished with all my Man O'War stuff this month and moving on to other things. It wasn't meant to be. I still have about 12 ships to paint and a few sea forts. Then I'll put that project on hold until I can print the sails. I'm hoping I can do all of the sails in one sitting.They are all ready to go.

Now onto the totals:

• 9 Khorne Ironsharks
• 2 Khorne Bloodships

October Totals: 11

Year to Date: 143

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:

 

September 2020 Totals

It's already October! Still plugging away on the Man O'War project. I'm hoping to be finished with all of my ships by the end of October and maybe get to paint something bigger.

• Pirate Man O' War Fleet: 6 War Galleys
• Merchant Man O'War Fleet: 11 Merchant Vessels/Cogs 

September Totals: 17

Year To Date: 132

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.

 

August 2020 Totals

I have totally veered off my TODO list, but seem to be picking up painting speed. This month was mostly 2 Man O'War fleets, a project that wasn't even on my radar when I made the list.

I also got a game of Man O'War in with the Boy. He crushed my Dwarf fleet with his Skaven. Highlight of the game for me was my Monitor who only had 1 crew left and kept getting boarded, winning and counter boarding until he left a string of abandoned Deathburners and Warprunners behind him (the crew finally died when the Bell rolled double 5's and killed one crew on every enemy ship within range).

Last but not least, me and the Kids finished Shadows over Hammerhal. I got the final kill of the game, with my trusty Grudgeraker auto-shotgun! It was close, the Gryphhound almost sniped the kill again (like he did with the Gaunt Summoner) but couldn't seal the deal leaving the Chaos Sorcerer on one wound. I picked up Blackstone Fortress and so that's on my paint table now too (although I'm saddened by the fact that you can't get all of the expansions anymore...)

Totals for August 2020

• Skaven Man O'War fleet
• 2 Doombringers
• 9 Deathburners
• 15 Warprunners
• Chaos Dwarf Man O'War fleet
• 2 Great Leveller Battle Barges
• 2 Thunderfire Battle Barges
• 3 Thunder Rollers
• 6 Hull Destroyers
• 1 Great Taurus Rider

Total for August: 40!

Total for 2020: 115

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.