Island Natives from Firelock Games

Island natives are must when playing adventurous pirate games in the Caribbean. My buddy Jens got some island natives from Firelock Games to form a "crew" of their own.

Firelock Games released their Island Natives as part of their No Peace Beyond the Line kickstarter campaign last year. The minis arrived some time around April this year and Jens sent them to Poland based painting service Den of Imagination to have them painted. As you can see, the results are rather nice:

Vauban Fort from More Terrain

When it comes to pirate settings Vauban Forts are greatly iconic "buildings". I have been wanting to add such a mighty fortification to my collection of terrain pieces for years. In this post I take a closer look at my recent acquisition: the Vauban Fort from More Terrain.

Dogs Ahoy Pirate Campaign 2019

This week we had our half-yearly pirate campaign. At 5 and a half days it has been the longest yet and also one of the most productive ones. Here's a brief summary with some photos.

Days 1-2: In the Town

The first two days saw our crews fighting it out in the town. This is our usual start to allow for collecting treasures to purchase weapons and equipment, hire new crew members (such as the highly popular surgeon and scholar) and - of course - earning experience to improve the characters' skills and earn new abilities.

Legends of the High Seas Resources

Legends of the High Seas cover

Just a short update: After a recent request I have just uploaded some old resources for Legends of the High Seas to the LotHS section of the blog:

• Crew reference sheet
• Random Happenings
• Scenario: Mine, All Mine!
• Scenario: Dock Raid

Anyone of you still playing this great classic skirmish pirate game?

Review: Merchant Shop from Tabletop World

The Merchant Shop is the latest addition to Tabletop World's range of medieval/fantasy buildings. In this blog post I take a closer look at the model and explain why I believe that it is their best building yet.

In November last year, Tabletop World (TW) released the Merchant Shop. I own nearly all of the many buildings that were released over the years and I have to say that this one stands out. Literally. TW already said it in their announcement on Facebook:

The Merchant Shop from
Tabletop World

We proudly present you our new Merchant Shop in heroic scale! This is the first in the line of models that will take your gaming experience to the next level! Apart from highest attention to detail we had game-play in mind when creating the model. You can easily use it with miniatures that are in 28-32mm scale. The whole building has plenty of space to move your miniatures around, with several floors connected with stairs. All doors, window shutters and hatches are hinged and fully operational so you can open and close them to your liking.

Résine Miniatures

Résine Miniatures is a French manufacturer of 28mm scale terrain and scenery for historical and medieval fantasy games.

I stumbled across their beautiful buildings on Pinterest where photos of their great work kept on appearing in my stream. It is rare that I find manufacturers that I hadn't heard of before. The photos show the Résine Miniatures logo but I couldn't find a website for them. Thanks to the messaging function of Pinterest I got into contact with Christophe Samuel, the man behind the company. While there is no website you can purchase Résine Miniatures products on Etsy and eBay.




To get an impression of the products, my first order contained the Medieval Buildings #3 and #7, the tomb and door #4.

Inspirational Amsterdam

I spent the last days of 2018 in Amsterdam. As someone who is interested in old buildings and shipping, the city has a lot to offer in terms of sight-seeing and museums. Thus, the visit was my first inspirational boost for hobbying in 2019.

Buildings

The most obvious and probably most famous thing about Amsterdam (marijuana consumption aside) is the grachten and the houses with their decorative gables.

Walls from Games of War

A few months ago, Games of War released some Spanish-style walls as the latest addition to their pirate buildings range. I finished painting my lot this weekend to show them off just in time as my last painting project for the year.

I have been loving the products from Games of War for years now - not only their nice pirate buildings, but more so the fantastic ships and boats, such as the British cutter, the longboats and small ships. With the release of these walls they have expanded their buildings range which should be interesting not only for pirate games such as Blood & Plunder but for a variety of other settings as well.

Animal tokens

For a long time I have been wanting to do some animal tokens. Now I finally had the time to do some.

The basic idea is to have a number of "empty" bases that accompany my normal miniatures. Obviously, they have to be the same bases as usual so they are, as always, from Fenris Games:

• 25mm DS round Innsmouth Cobblestones (Fenris Games)
• 25mm round Deep Recess (Fenris Games)

Over the years I have collected a number of animals. These are the ones I used:

• Chicken flock (Black Cat Bases)
• Cats (promotional miniatures from Black Cat Bases)
• Animal set (Stronghold Terrain)

So what to do with these bases? In a number of scenarios that we play, the characters can move across the board unseen. Sometimes they hide as civilians, sometimes they move as shadows or street animals. For each of my pirate crew members I have one respective character marker on a 25mm round plywood base. These markers are secretly placed under Civilian models or under these new animal tokens.

Character markers for my pirate crew members

Battery by Slug Industries

In this post I take a look at the battery terrain piece which was produced by Slug Industries as part of a kickstarter project for their Spanish Fort.

In my recent review of the 28mm Spanish Fort I already mentioned that I also got the battery piece that was funded via the kickstarter project. The battery is a solid piece of resin. Aside from the main piece there is a planking piece, similar to the one that was provided with the Spanish Fort, and an MDF kit for a ladder - again, same as with the fort. So, beside filing off a few sharp edges and assembling the ladder, there is no further assembly required.

The battery, the planking (right) and the ladder kit (bottom right)

Pirates of Treasure Island

In August this year, there was a kickstarter campaign for releasing a range of 28mm pirates of Treasure Island. I'm not only going to say that these are really nice miniatures. But I have also been waiting for almost ten years for them to be released.

Mr. O'Brien from the
Pirates of Treasure Island range

It was back in December 2008 when I first blogged about this range of pirates. At the time, Legends of the High Seas was slowing growing to become my skirmish game of choice after having played Mordheim for many many years. Wargames Foundry and Black Scorpion Miniatures were the pirate manufacturers of the time.

Through a Polish forum I got to know sculptor Flis Wojtek, who had been working for Black Tree Design and Warlord Games. He had shared photos of greens of a lot of characterful pirate miniatures that were supposed to be released through Black Hat Miniatures. However, that never happened, until ...

Personalized Movement Gauge from LITKO

While I was browsing the LITKO website recently I came across their offer for personalized movement gauges. With its lengths of 1/2", 1", 3" and 6" this is a very handy tool, not only for Age of Sigmar. The surface can be customized with your own logo and text. The gauge will be very useful in our games of Dogs Ahoy. I would have liked to use the free space for a summary of the turn order or some other quick reference notes. However, since the rules are still work in progress I chose not to and only went with the Dogs Ahoy logo.

Two movement gauges from LITKO with the Dogs Ahoy logo

Since I was ordering anyway, I chose to also get some flame markers. There are a few scenarios in Dogs Ahoy where crews set a ship or building on fire and these work quite nicely.

Spanish Fort by Slug Industries

The Spanish Fort by Slug Industries is a terrain piece modeled after the actual Fort Matanzas and successfully funded via a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. In this article I take a closer look at the model and present my painted version as well as some gaming ideas for the fort.

Night Watchmen

After I have been gathering a number of highwaymen and other 17th-18th century scoundrel over the last years it is time to bring some appropriate opponents for these criminals to the table. I always found night watchmen to be equally stylish and characterful and here they are at last!

Night Watchmen are a great faction for 17th to 18th century games. Be it highwaymen, pirates or other criminals, watchmen are a great group of non-player models that players need to avoid during their nightly operations. For missions at daytime they can serve as guards or militia. Because of this, I found it all the more surprising that there are almost no suitable models available. While collecting highwaymen and robbers is relatively easy - mostly thanks to the excellent range from Outpost Wargames Services - this is not the case for night watchmen. The one true night watch model that I had known for some time is Squire Mortimer Bush from Foundry's Smugglers set (CIV007) from the 18th Century Civilians range. This is very much the prototype of what I was looking for: A model in a greatcoat, wearing a tricorne and carrying a lantern.

Longboats from Games of War and Firelock Games

In this blog post I take a look at the longboats from Games of War and Firelock Games.

Longboats from Games of War

As I had already bought some of the other boats (tenders and jolly boats) from Games of War as well as their bigger ships (such as the Cutter) I knew what to expect in terms of quality and detail. To my mind, their boats and ships are unmatched when it comes to the lightweight resin and the high level of detail and textures. Painting up the three longboats was easy and straightforward.

Three longboats from Games of War

Walls from Empress Miniatures

To complement my Caribbean pirate town I recently painted up a set of walls that I ordered together with the Spanish Church from Empress Miniatures.

Simple walls like these can be used in a variety of settings. With the pantile roof of the gateway these walls fit nicely into a Caribbean piratical setting. Empress offers all the various sections and posts individually so you can order the pieces that best suit your specific needs. I went for nine wall sections, four corner posts and four intermediate posts.

British Unrated Cutter from Games of War

The British Unrated Cutter "Fly" 1763 from Games of War is the latest addition to my shipyard. In this blog post I describe the painting and building process of the vessel, its sails and other accessories.

Gangs of Rome: Blood on the Aventine

One of the new games that I have been following with keen interest recently is Gangs of Rome by War Banner. Since I prefer small scale skirmish gaming with a focus on the individual fighter and great terrain, Gangs of Rome appears to be just right. As a member of the Gangs of Rome Facebook community I was super lucky to win a copy of the newly released starter box set "Blood on the Aventine". So now is the time to take a closer look at the game and boxed set.

Ever since the first photos of Gangs of Rome surfaced on the web, I got increasingly interested in the game. Granted, ancient Rome hasn't been one of my preferred eras for wargaming (yet), but the photos of small groups of fighters roaming the streets of an ancient Roman city look so cool that it's hard to not want to try this out.

Gangs fighting it out in the streets of Rome

Roman fighters in front of a mighty temple

The new box set "Blood on the Aventine" is the perfect way to get into the game. For only £35 you get a lot of stuff: 7 miniatures, an MDF temple under construction terrain piece, a rulebook for Gangs of Rome, dice and lots of other accessories. Check out the full list of contents in the product description in their online store.

The "Blood on the Aventine" starter box set (front)

The "Blood on the Aventine" starter box set (back)

Photo of the box's contents

Close-up of the miniatures

One really has to point out how much value this is: the temple set by Sarissa Precision alone would be worth the price. Speaking of Sarissa, I am very impressed by the terrain range they created for Gangs of Rome. In general, I am not a fan of MDF terrain. I prefer the higher detail of resin models. However, the Streets of Rome range features a huge variety of nice buildings and other terrain pieces: different buildings, walls, cranes, a temple, a fountain, a bridge and a giant amphitheatre. I especially like the many "under construction" buildings - something you rarely see in other terrain ranges and a nice "trick" to create accessible terrain pieces without going the usual "ruined building" route.

The impressive amphitheatre (source)

The raw amphitheatre with miniatures for reference
(photo taken from the Gangs of Rome Facebook group)

So far I had only had a quick look at the rules when the game was first released (the rulebook is available as a free PDF download from their website!). Now, with a printed copy of the rules and everything else at hand, I can't wait to run my first game of Gangs of Rome.

Spanish Style Church from Empress Miniatures

No village is complete without a church. To complement my Caribbean pirate buildings I got the Spanish style church from Empress Miniatures.



I had been tempted to buy the Church from Empress Miniatures for quite some time. Then, while I was painting the pirate buildings from Games of War, I decided that those few houses would not be enough to form the nice little pirate settlement that I had in mind. The church would be the perfect addition to the lot.

Spanish Pirate Buildings from Games of War

A pirate gaming table for the Caribbean is made up of more than jungle and a beach. Interesting games require buildings so I got me some Spanish-style pirate buildings for my Caribbean pirate table.

Captain Blackbeard raids a Caribbean town