From AndrewB: BOATAPALOOZA! (75pts)

Today we’ve got BOATS!

First, the challenge demanded a ship for the Pirate Ladies from my last post, which I have obliged!   This is a little tub from Printable Scenery, which I had my friend with an FDM printer scale up slightly and get rocking!  Boy howdy, this is different from painting resin printed stuff.  That said, I assembled some basic masts and rigging, which give off a taste of realism while still leaving the decks unencumbered enough to be played on.  I have loads of cannon already painted, so I haven’t included them, but I may pull out the whole collection next time I finish some pirates, just so you folks can get a taste, and they’ll surely be included! 

There should be more than enough room aboard for my 11 pirate ladies, so that’s nice.  In terms of size for scoring, the hull alone is almost a foot long, and 5ish inches across.  The masts obviously extend far over the 6inch mark, so I figured somewhere between one and two boxes might work, maybe an even 30pts?  For my time investment, I’d probably be better off painting six 28mm folks, but this was a fun aside! 

Next, I’m taking part in a bi-weekly painting stream over on YouTube on the ‘Not Jay’s Tabletop Gaming’ channel, and this Saturday evening’s stream(the first couple hours) focused on WWII Royal Navy vessels.  I painted up HMS Rodney, HMS Roberts, and a pair of destroyers!   These are all 3D printed models from Ghukek’s Miniatures scaled up to approximately 1/1200, as always, for floor-style games!  

First, HMS Roberts!  This relatively small vessel punches high above its weight class with a huge 15” twin turret!  It’s shallow draft, comparatively light armor, and slow speed make it most suited for shore bombardment type work, but anything getting hit but a 15” shell will wish it had picked a different fight.  

Next, a pair of destroyers!   The classes are written on the underside of the hulls, but I wasn’t smart enough to add them to my notes, so at the time of posting, I’m not sure, but the ship on the left appears to be a J-class or later, while the ship on the right sports the older style of single gun mounts, maybe an I-class or so?  Let me know what you think!  

Lastly, HMS Nelson!  I can’t get enough of this treaty-era battleship, and luckily, by the time WWII rolled around, most of the vessel’s wrinkles had been ironed out, leading to a productive career, notable tangling early on with KMS Bismarck!  The triple 16” turrets on the bow have always ready caught my eye, in a way that other similar designs(looking at you, Frogs) haven’t been able to.

With the wonderful resources of Mal Wright’s guides to British and commonwealth ships to guide me, I realized just how insanely varied most camouflage was, and elected to go with a unified scheme that might reflect a number of ships being pulled from minor refit/repairs at the same port facility being put to quick use in the channel or nearby.  We’ll see how it works out as I paint more ships!

As you can see, fine painters, I tried to make a high- contrast paint job that will make good use of the heavy shadows and high brights to allow players to pick out features from a further distance!   As for scoring on these four, Rodney is by all means slightly larger than the Spanish American ships you’ve been enjoying, so 15pts seems fairly appropriate, while the others are probably closer to 10.   

Total, that should hopefully bring my points for the post up to 75, with 45 from the WWII ships, and 30 from the 28mm pirate vessel!  

Look forward to my super hero post, I believe I’ve found something that may work. Keep painting, I’m pulling for you! 

From TeemuL: The participants wanted a pirate ship and that is exactly what Andrew delivers! Great job, listening the community in particular. It is a very nice ship, and those WW2 ships are great, too. I tried to move the last two photos in to the middle, but they don't want to be there... Your point request sounds reasonable, so I'll go with it.