Buccaneer and merchant pirate ships

Well what would all those Pirate figs I have painted be without some ships to sail them on! So here is a post with a couple of 15mm ships. The first is a ‘buccaneer’, which is more of a fighting ship. All the pictures have the same pirate fig in them so you can see the scale and size of these models. However, I’m sure these can be used for my French Indian Wars and even American/Napoleonic wars as well. That’s because these are all roughly the same time period/style of sailing ships.Again these are from the Blue Moon range. I must admit they were a bit of work painting, and quite different than the normal things I paint. However, I think they have come out really well considering. Here the the second ship, which looks more of a merchant vessel. You’ll notice, I have not glued the masts solid on the ships, so they can be removed. That allows for an easier playing mode as well as making it much more convenient for transport! I’ll see how that goes but so far the masts are fairly easy to put in and are solid in the bases when pushed in. The cannons have also not been glued in place so that I can add or remove them as needed for gaming purposes. Below you can see the stern of the larger buccaneer ship, which has golden painted wood rather than the merchant vessel, which has more white and gray.Here is the shot from above with the masts out, to highlight the size. I decided in the end not to add any yards on the masts as I’m not trying to use these models for display purposes but for gaming. So adding yards – which do not come in the kits but could be created by kebab sticks, would be extra work. I’m not sure it would gain much and if using the masts they would likely just get in the way of play.You can see here the merchant from the same view, but I kept the cannons on that ships for this photo so you can see what the ship looks like with those in the system.I must admit I’m quite happy how these have come out. I like the overall wood effects. One thing which bugs me in gaming is when the ground scale and vehicles is out for games. That’s not an issue with my 15mm pirates now as these really are reasonable size for ships of the period. So one final shot of all the pirate figures and ships safely tucked away in their storage container. This is a metal tool box all ready for travel. This project was likely 100 figures and fits great in the toolkit box. I added magnets on all the figures and the bottom of the ships to reduce their movement around in transport, which works well. Now all I need to do is decide on the rules to use for them and get them on the table!