For reasons I still can’t fathom (no pun here), I decided to finish off my sailing ship project.  As with most everything else, its genesis occurred somewhere in the distant past, in this case as an adjunct to my East African Renaissance project.    After all, a coastal campaign should have ships.

I already had a couple of the old “Limeys and Slimeys” ships, but fabricating and fitting the various bits and sails needed to give the hulls some semblance of realism was just too difficult.

Some time ago, I found a Weapons and Warrior Pirate Battle Game that looked promising.  This Pressman kit boasts having “over 100 pieces.”  It came with plastic pirates (worthless), two ships, two pinnaces, a fort,  a small stockade (semi-worthless), along with cannons and mortars (all too large, and therefore worthless). Everything (except ships) was designed to explode if hit with cannon shot from the oversize guns.  While 17th century vessels, they are close enough to the period and had the advantage of fully rigged plastic sails.  The ships can be used with both 15mm and 25mm figures.

Not content with one box, I later bought another.  Both languished in The Shed for a few years.

I started painting one of the ships last Fall.   Things did not go smoothly.  I just couldn’t get the hull colors right, and must have primed and re-primed the damn thing four times.  Finally, things came together and, with the help of some photos of others’ work found on the net, I finished one.  The second followed shortly thereafter.

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Here’s the basic hull out of the box, along with a hull that I literally ripped the deck “prongs” from, and put down new decking.  While it looks bad, when painted and with a grate added, it works quite well.

Speaking of painted, the next bad photo shows the rough first coats of my latest efforts.  This will be “Red Boat”.  The others are green and blue.  I just slop the paint on at this point, especially red.  For some reason, red has never covered well.  Not even when ingesting PBR.  I’ll use crimson for the second coat.

Hopefully, this one will be finished off in a week or so – multiple projects going on.  The fourth boat will be a little problematic since it is missing some important bits.

Started working on my 15mm Turks last Friday.  Most of them are old Tabletop Miniatures.  These castings are deceiving.  At first glance, they are less than underwhelming, but they paint up really well.  Here’s a link   http://www.15mm.co.uk/collections/altuos-15mm-renaissance?page=3.

First started buying Tabletops when I lived in Iowa.  They had an outlet – with the molds – in an low density industrial complex just outside of Des Moines.  Used them for my Dark Ages Campaign.  There was a problem with relative scale, especially the European Renaissance figures.  Some seemed more like skinny 10mm than 15mm.  I still have some 12th century knights stashed in the shed.

I’m halfway through the 48  infantry figures.  I’ll finish up the mounted when I return home.  Just one step closer to the start of the East African Renaissance Campaign, now set for Thanksgiving.   More on that later.

I’ll try to set up Mission: Grenada, tomorrow.

Spent part of Sunday prepping 48 Ottomans for my East Africa Renaissance campaign game.  My plan is to paint them while I’m taking care of my Mother for the next few weeks.  I’ll still have some cavalry to paint when I return, as well as an Abyssinian force.

The campaign involves the Ottomans, Portuguese, Ethiopians (Abyssinians), Arab City States, Native Tribes, as well as Manchu Chinese.  The Manchus are  a quasi alternate history element, assuming that dynastic leadership encouraged, rather than forbid, further exploration.  I’ll rely on the Irregular Wars rules rather than DBR or DBA.  My initial one-off games using IW have gone fairly well.  But, more on that later….