Teeny Tiny Pirates

I had sworn that I was done with rigging tiny ships, but being gifted a pair of 1/700th Warlord Games Black Seas Brigs by Andy (a covermount giveaway on one of the wargames mags a few years ago) unfortunately meant the glue, tweezers and swearing all made a quick reappearance as I conjured these two little ships up into a pair of Pirate brigs.

Other than the rather obvious "Pirates are COOL!" malarkey, flagging these with the Jolly Roger does open up trying a couple of the scenarios from the Black Seas rulebook - and with my French and British fleets now stretching up to 1st Raters, the 6 brigs I already have flagged as French and British are more than enough anyway.

 

Being covermounts these were missing the sails, which come pre-printed on thin card in an actual Warlord set. 

 

Luckily Warlord provide a downloadable set of sails for Brigs and Frigates to print out at home. 

Matching up the front and back on my printer proved rather more tricky than I hoped it would be, so in the end I just printed them on two sheets of paper and glued them together - which gave the sails more robustness anyway compared to a single sheet of paper.  

The other thing "missing" would be ratlines, which Warlord provide as black-printed acetate sheets. These ones feature the more expensive and sophisticated laser etched metal ones which I ended up buying from Ali Express in China as a bit of an experiment in seeing how long delivery would take - which was not that long at all.  

I think they do look good, but whether the extra faff is worth the squeeze I'm not sure - maybe next time I might buy some sails and ratlines from Warlord anyway for a few quid?  

On what are gaming pieces after all, I doubt anyone will notice the difference, and the Warlord acetate sheets are far easier to cut out and stick on than the super-fine laser-etched ones on these little guys. 

The Skoutatoi

If you'd been worried that I hadn't posted any pictures of Byzantines in 15mm for a couple of weeks, then worry no more, as here come the Skoutatoi for my Byantine army! 

FiB tend to chuck in a couple of extra figures into each "24" blister pack, to leave the officers and standard bearers as extras.  

I used the extras up by making a couple of bases with 5 spearmen in the front rank rather than the usual 4, with the theory that I can occasionally use these bases as "supported spearmen", or just call them even more Skoutatoi as needed, depending on the design of the army list.

Shields are of course LBMS transfers, sold to me by Forged in Battle. 

This padded armour is Warlord Games Blood Red from their Speedpaint set.

TheLBMS transfers are smaller than the shields by some margin, so these blue 'blokes face' ones I painted in with a dark blue (and also a mached red) up to the edges of the shields.

This armour is GW Aggaros Dunes contrast type paint. One of my favourite contrast colours. 

These rather odd looking shield transfers seem to be missing a bit  - possibly a cutout for a shield boss? 

Anyways, as they too didn't reach to the edge of the shield I painted in a red edge to each shield before sticking on the transfer (which already has a red edge...)

That also didn't really look right, so I then added an outer edge of yellow with an AK paint pen, which I am finding is much easier to use for touchup than a brush.

This armour is GW Militarum Green - a contrast type paint.

Viewed from above this close up you can see a load of casting lines that I perhaps should have spent more time shaving off .. but, "three foot rule" and all that I guess ?!

An extra shield transfer was cut down and used for the standard bearer. 

Some "Yuge" War Wagons !

 Having sold a few of the textbook Essex War Wagons in recent years, I've accidentally drifted back into owning more than I will ever probably use as a result of picking up some because they looked interesting, and more latterly being given some 3D prints as giveaways along with competition entry. 

Mixing metal ones from different manufacturers, 3D prints in resin and even an MDF one does however lead to some serious variations in scale, or perhaps more accurately, "size" between the different ranges - and that is very much reflected here! 

This one was a 3D print handed out to competitors at the Akra Leuka Tournament in Alicante in January 2025.  I've added some Essex & Mirliton crew who are sort of randoms, all picked out of the bits box. The wagon is enormous and I needed to sit the crew on 2 lolly sticks to give them the extra height to see out. 

This cute little box on wheels is the Fireforge MDF kit of a 15mm war wagon. The wheels are a bit "Fred Flintstone" and it comes without the oxen, again from the bits box (I think Mirlitons Carroccio wagon comes with 4 which was too many to fit on a base) so these have at least got some wagon-pulling experience in a previous life

The lid of the Fireforrge MDF kit does however lift off, and they supply this folded-out lid that becomes a pavise shield thingy too. Even so its a huge blocky wagon.

Here is the 3D print and the MDF kit side by side. 

And, for a contrast, the 3D printed wagon and a Museum wagon side by side. 

I guess I know which one I'd prefer to be defending!

From the other side the sheer scale of the folded-out roof on the 3D print is even more striking.

Here is the front-on view. No room for horses or oxen on an 80mm long base with the 3D print.

This is the Museum wagon. They are ridiculously good value, especially in the annual Museum sale when you can pick them up for under £4 each.

Having draft horses as well is a bonus - my bits box is only so deep after all!

This is the 3D print again - the flag is one I Googled looking for a Hussite Flag

The imposing wall of defence - ideally they will only attack from this side!

I haven't glued the crew in though, so if needed they can turn around as a block of 4 and fight over this side too.

All in all a real mix - I suppose there is no reason all "wagons" would be the same size (unlike say, people or horses) but if I do get these all on table at the same time I am sure some eyebrows will be raised nevertheless!