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Hi guys, this is my first project, hope you'll enjoy it.

Back to basics. Let's start from scratch again : no paints, no minis, no brushes, no supplies.

Everytime I use a tool, brush or paint, I'll deduct its cost. Let's see how far I can go with 98 euros.

Why 98€ ? Because minis are too expensive, that's why !
Actually, 98€ is what GW would charge for one rulebook and one army book. Let's see if I can complete this project and buy all the supplies, minis, rules and complete two armies before others could afford their very first mini.

One more constraint : apart from the minis, most of the stuff must be bought in brick & mortar stores. In Paris.

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First of all, I have to buy the rulebook and army books.

There are rules around here. I've chosen Hordes of the Things (HOTT), because it's damn fine, I already know the rules, it's efficient, easy to learn, fast, and fun.

By the way, it doesn't need huge amounts of miniatures. And it's free.

Which means... 98€ left.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Now, the minis.

I've chosen to build two semi-historical armies : one of republican romans, one of carthaginians. Scipio vs Hannibal, a classic match-up.

HOTT gives you lots of possibilities. And that's great, because there's one big constraint here. Basically, I have to choose between two scales : 1/72 and 6mm. 15mm would probably be too expensive. I won't even talk about 25/28mm.

HOTT in 1/72 feels meh... because the units are basically made of 3 minis. Not to mention the whole thing takes lots of space and don't look that good. I guess I'll have to go the 6mm way.

The minis come from Baccus. Irregular's are less expensive, but the website sucks, you can't even have a look at what you're paying for.


The romans (witch elf not included...) :

RR1 : Hastatii. Citizen soldiers with gladius or pilums. 6x Blades.
RR2 : Triarii. Elite soldiers, used only as a last resort. 2x Spears.
RR3 : Velites. Young, poor and inexperienced soldiers. 2x Bowmen/skirmishers
RR5 : Cavalry. Rich citizens. Yup, they had to fight too. 1x Knights.
IT3 : Italian Cavalry. Rome didn't control all Italy, and often had italic allies (and ennemies). 1x Knights.

The carthaginians :

CA1 : Citizens. Citoyens soldiers. Mostly like the romans ones. 2x Spears.
CA2 : North-African Infantry. Mercenary from the western side of north-african. 2x Blades.
CA3 : Lybian Cavalry. 2x Cavalry.
CA4 : Elephants. Hannibal = elephants. Expensive, but a big centerpice for any carthaginian army. 1x Behemoth.
CA5 : Veterans. Hardened warriors. Just to add some variety to ordinary citizens. 2x Spears.
CE7 : Barbarians. Celts minis, will be painted as african mercenaries. 2x Warbands.
SP2 : Caetrarii. Spanish allies armed with javelins. 2x Bowmen/skirmishers.
SP4 : Spanish Cavalry. Light cavalry, spanish allies again. 1x Cavalry.
IT1 : Samnite Infantry. Non-roman italians who somehow got tired of being invaded by Rome and fought with Hannibal. 2x Blades.

In fact, most italic and spanish allies could on the roman or carthaginian side. One HOTT army is made of 24 pts, there are 58 pts here, which means I can taylor the armies, add more or less cavalry, adjust the amount of light/heavy infantry and things like that.

The minis cost 37.90€. 60.10€ left, I guess.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
About the supplies...

Ok, I've got the minis, now I need some supplies.

As usual, we'll need to chose a watercolor brush... I'll choose an inexpensive squirell n°2 brush. 2.40€ at Rougier & Plé. Lots of art supplies here. The shop is located on Boulevard St Germain, in the Quartier Latin.

The paints will be chosen in the Prince August range. Huge range, and less expensive than Citadel (2.70€ each, 7.50€ for the primer). I'll buy them in a small hobby store in Versailles, rue des deux Portes. You could almost see the Château from there.
The shopkeeper is soo nice. She looks like Aunt May.

The bases will be cut in plasticard. Bought at Eol, a modelling shop, on rue du Louvre. The plasticard costs 3€, flock costs 3.50€.

I'll also need some stuff from the hardware store : cutter (1€), cutting pliers (3.35€), cyano glue (1.25€), PVA glue (1.50€), a cheap brush (1.05€) and some blu-tack (1.10€)

I made an exception to my B&M rule, for a metal ruler and magnets. Because I just couldn't find thin rare-earth magnets in B&M stores, so I had to buy them on the Internet. I suppose I could do without them anyway, include inexpensive washers in the bases and use regular magnets, but I decided to include magnets in the bases. Same thing for the metal ruler, I couldn't find one with both imperial units (for the game) and metric units (cutting the bases).
Bought this stuff at Dealextreme. 4.15€ for 100 magnets and a 15cm/6in steel ruler.



Supplies, brushes, primers, I think I've got everything I need... apart from the paints.
31€ left.

Not a lot of answers... I should have chosen Imperial Romans, maybe.

So I can label the thread "98€ Imperial Guard army"...

New pics !


My paint selection :
Model Colour : Buff, Chocolate Brown, Red, Dark Prussian Blue, Black, Sky Grey, Pale Flesh and Matt Varnish range.
Games : Goblin Green. The paint is tougher, and more suitable for bases.
Air : Silver. The metallic look better in the air range.


Close-up on some riders, with white coat, and a pile of magnets for handling. I also use it to hold bases while painting.


The first painted minis : 2 units of Caetrati (Spain).

I needed 10 paints, 2.70€ each.

Which means... 4€ left.

A small pic of the roman cavalry unit (Knights). And the Hastati (Blades). The weird green patches are shadows cast by the 2nd light.

Update.

1,30€ left. This is getting interesting.

Aparently, the pieces of armour and helmets of the Republican era weren't made of steel...

I thought I could get away with it with a glaze on the metallic silver, but it doesn't look too good. Not to mention having to apply a glaze on 200 6mm minis. I had to buy a new paint : Metallic Brass. PA Air, as always for metallic paints.

Here are the hastati, and velites on their flanks. Hastati were middle-class citizens, armed with a heavy pilum for throwing, and the classic gladius of course. Velites were poor and inexperienced citizens, their heads covered with pelts. They were usually deployed as skirmishers, screening heavier units.



Closer look at the Hastati.


And velites.



Not officially in the project : the transport case.
Take a steel sheet, cut it to size, drill 4 holes in the corners, put some nuts and bolts as spacers... Put your magnetized minis on it, stuff everything in a file case, and you're done. Two standard armies can easily fit in a A5 format file case. Works great and costs less than 10 bucks.




Two more pictures :





here's Quad-DBA (or HOTT). Keep exactly the same rules, but double the size of everything : units, ranges, etc. The board size is doubled too and you play on a 120x120cm square. Not too impractical, fits well on the typical wargaming board.

It's more like a long-term goal because I'm such a slow painter. But I really like the look of the roman unit, and fielding eight of them would probably look quite nice on the board. What's great with 6mm minis is their size - two quad armies would probably fit in a single A4 file case- and their value. I'll just have to drop something like 20-witch-elves bucks for two quad-sized armies.

Almot one thousand infantrymen and two hundred riders for two armies. Without options of course.


Damned, Baccus have just released a new range crusaders, and the minis are very, very nice. Would work great for brets.

I'm doomed.

Clever idea. I always fancied a Bacchus army, but I've not got the gaming circle where his models would be useful.

Magnets are definitely the way to go for transporting models!

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Clever idea.

Thanks !

 Charles Rampant wrote:
I always fancied a Bacchus army, but I've not got the gaming circle where his models would be useful.

Two solutions :

1) Build a WHFB army with 6mm minis. The idea may sound stupid, but appart from TLOS, you will probably have no problems with it. Minis are just pretty counters. Keep the same ranges and base sizes, and just put more minis on your bases.
So, basically, instead of fielding a "horde" of 40 goblins, you've got 350-400 of them now. This unit of bret knights on your flank ? 9 bases, 80+ knights. That's more like it ! And if a bow/bolter has the same 24"/60cm range, it's now 100x the height of a soldier, and not only 20x...

It will be less expensive than GW (what isn't ?), but it has its problems : GW players tend to be very conservative, and may not like the idea of fielding a 6mm army against a 28mm one. You'll also have to paint hundreds, maybe thousands of minis, will probably have to buy for more than one manufacturer, and still not have the full range. Just forget about skavens.

2) Build a matching pair. Romans vs Carthaginians for example. These two armies costed less than ten-witch-elves-bucks.
You could also chose Scots vs Brits, Chinese vs Mongols, Napoleon vs Wellington, Brets vs Orcs, anything you like. Either use a system everybody know (maybe mini-WHFB with half-sized bases/ranges/everything ?), or a synthetic one.

I really like DBA and HOTT (and Kings of Wars) because they are very elegant and work very smoothly. Nice systems, especially if you play with beginners. Even if you're a veteran wargamer, there is a time when you just grow tired of overly complicated systems with lots of special rules hidden in extra books.

DBA and HOTT core rules are so synthetic you almost feel it's a joke. Actual battle rules : 5 pages, tables included. Yup, that's a five.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Magnets are definitely the way to go for transporting models!

I used to use foam, but have switched to magnets. And will never, ever go back to foam cases.

Time to update this log...

Four more units in the Roman army : two hastati (red) and two triarii (dark blue). Colours were chosen for quick identification on the gaming board. It's pretty difficult to be historically accurate, since we know very few about the colors that were in use back then. All the soldiers of the same unit were supposed to have similar shields, and that's pretty much all we know.

All hastati are played as Blades, all triarii as Spears.


A closer look on the hastati.


And the triarii.


The roman army is almost completed, with eleven units. I really, really consider moving to Quad format, even if it take years to paint everything : 8x64 infantrymen, that's beginning to get interesting ! I'll keep that for later, I haven't finished this roman army, and I may field this army in a HOTT tournament in a dozen days.

Will be fielding this. One unit of spanish light cavalry will join the roman army for the occasion.



Two complete armies fit nicely in this A5 folder. Which means a A4 will be fine for a Quad army. Pretty convenient.

Two more units for the roman army.

Which means, I can compete in the HOTT tournament.

The original roman army. Typical DBA Republican Roman army.


Let's have a closer look on the wings and the center.






The two latest recruits for this tournament : light spanish cavalry, and heavy italic cavalry.



With a small free-hand painting, a laurel wrealth on the shield of the italian leader.



This army is so tiny. It fits on a postcard. I love it !




Next step : the carthaginian army.
Good news : the skirmishers and spanish light cavalry are already painted. Only 18 riders, 120 infantrymen and 2 elephants left.

All of these shields require an individual free-hand painting.

Well I played with the idea of A Hordes of the Things Army. Micro Worlds fantasy range and some paints that I already have but never started.

Shame your project don't attract much attention. Because your armies are looking great.

 livanbard wrote:
Well I played with the idea of A Hordes of the Things Army. Micro Worlds fantasy range and some paints that I already have but never started.
Shame your project don't attract much attention. Because your armies are looking great.

Thank you very much !

Actually, I didn't really expect people to jump frantically on this "look at my 6mm army" thread. Because it's 6mm. Hence the "2 armies on a budget" aspect to try to spice up this log.

People tend to stick to their habits, and their favorite scale.

I totally understand why people would say "come on, painting 6mm minis to field sixteen of them in each unit...". Because that's exactly what I said when Warmaster came out.
I will upgrade these army to the Quad format. Because it really looks nice, and plays on a 120x120cm (4x4ft) board. I could have done that from the beginning : 6mm minis are quite inexpensive. Just didn't want to face 2x500 unpainted minis.

I also understand why people may think 6mm is "too small". But didn't we all said that when we saw our first 28mm minis ?

Switching from 28mm to 6mm was surprisingly easy. Really. It's no Golden Demon material, but more like "tabletop skavens". You just put blobs of paint, apply a wash here, some dry brushing there, a small highlight on the capes and banners, and voila ! Definitely easier than painting the eyes of a 28mm mini and making them look right !


I've painted two more units : carthaginian citizens and veterans. And trees. They're not included in the 98€ budget, but they're not so expensive, with less than 10 bucks, you can make dozens and dozens of them.



Another interesting effect of 6mm minis : the increased consistency between horizontal and vertical scales. Just ask any Epic player.

In the present case, the 28mm equivalent of these trees would be more than 20cm/8" tall. Of course, this wood is only made of a dozen trees, since it's meant to be used with a 60x60cm board. Just multiply that number by four for the quad format...


Just a sponge cut in tiny more-or-less-cubic bits, painted in green, then pinned on some wire, with a tiny blob of PVA glue to make things hold together. Finally I just dipped the sponge in PVA glue, and put some coarse flocking on it.
Quite basic, but from a distance, these trees look okay.




I still don't know if I should paint the oval shields or not. Some sources say they were painted, some pretend they weren't. I've decided not to paint them. These guys are supposed to be citizens and veterans, not mercenaries, having some kind of uniformity in this kind of units is not a bad thing.

Which also means I've just skipped something like 50 free-hand paintings.


A quick close-up of each unit.

You are right. But a there's also the ongoing Epic community. Game setting matters. hehe

Still alive.

Some companies seem to think otherwise, but some wargamers actually have other-hobbies that can take some of their spare time...

Or all of it. But I'm back.

The third carthaginian spearmen unit is finished, so are the two units of lybian cavalrymen.





Not exactly GD material, but from a distance, it looks nice.

The contrast between the uniformity of citizens and the variety of the mercenary troops is nice.


Carts vs Romans. Again, there's a nice contrast between the romans that basically all look the same, and the carthaginian.


Still have 2 Elephants, 24 North-African infantrymen, 24 Celt Warriors, 24 Italian Warriors to paint. I'm getting somehow more confortable with freehands, which is fortunante, because there will be LOTS of them.

Not quite sure about how I'll use these minis, though. I think I'll save one or two Africans guys to add some life to the Elephants bases, and mix Italians with both Africans and Celts to add some variety to the infantry troops.

More minis, with carthaginian auxilias, this time. Moar freehands.


4 bases in square formation. Probably having a oneitis on that Quad-DBA concept.



Bases of the front rank.



Bases of the back rank.

Who's this chick in dress that's found on so many shields ? She's Tanit, the most important god of carthaginian pantheon. Often assimilated to Princess Luna Astartes, the god of the moon. That's why some Tanith's drawings have a crescent moon.

Carthage has been completely destroyed by the romans at the end of the second punic war, but it still has a strong legacy in the North African spirituality. Especially in Tunisia. It's not unlike christians: funny how Jesus was supposed to be born the same day as Sol Invictus.

Not to mention the Lupercalia. Back in time, romans celebrated a festival dedicated to love and fertility. Around februrary 14.
Young roman guys ran in the streets, wearing only their pants, and gave (gentle) whiplashes to the girls they encountered on theyr way. The gods would give them fertility, love, and all these kind of nice things.

If you run out of ideas for the next Saint Valentine Day...




Calling for your indulgence again...

I'm starting to realize something. I'm working on the very last units of this projects. After these celts, there's only a unit of 2 elephants left.

Feels like the end of the Return of the King, when you begin to slow done your pace, because you're just realizing the story ends here, and you're leaving all these characters who participated to this saga.

I'm really slowing down. As a apology, a small WIP picture.


There are minis on this picture, please stay focused.

For close order infantrymen, the minis are painted by blocks of 4. For all others, they're painted indivudally. Each bloc/mini is blue tacked to a 1 cent coin, which allows me to handle the mini without too much hassle.
After the painting session, I put a small magnet under each coin, and put them on a metallic support. My desk is so tidy I tend to lose these minis.

It's a kind of mix between chain painting and individual painting, using Adrian Wood's Holy Precepts of Painting : first step is done on large (30+) batches of minis (hair, clothes, helmets, swords, shields).
Then, I split the large batches in smaller ones (3/4 minis) to put the details, correct the mistakes. A coat of matt varnish, and they're glued on their base. Last step, I work on metallics again, as they tend to be tarnished by the matt varnish.

Oh, the background's just there to see if anyone's still there...

What are the Giant Swordsman representing?

OMG HOTT is HAWT!

I just got into Epic to try out the scale. So far I'm really digging the tiny models... but this game... this game, its love at first sight, I tell you. This I can totally get into... I mean elephants, dude! ELEPHANTS! I used to love running Elephant armies against my buddy when we played Rome: Total War.

 livanbard wrote:
What are the Giant Swordsman representing?

WHFB Witch Elves from the 90s. I just put some 28mm minis here and there to give an idea of the scale.

 djphranq wrote:
OMG HOTT is HAWT!I just got into Epic to try out the scale. So far I'm really digging the tiny models... but this game... this game, its love at first sight, I tell you. This I can totally get into... I mean elephants, dude! ELEPHANTS! I used to love running Elephant armies against my buddy when we played Rome: Total War.

I can understand why you like this scale. This is my second 6mm project, and I really enjoy it.

I plan to expand to QDBA, and my carthaginian army will probably include 30-or-so elephants.

More nerd porn.

Yeah, it's still that book I found for 4€. Tzeentch is my best buddy. Maybe I should play to the european lottery?

There are also some barbarians on that pic. These are celt warriors, so they're more variety in their hair and clothes color, some basic freehands... and awesome moustaches, of course.
Took some time to paint them. The end of the project.

Game wise, these Warbands are just average fighters. They're not like Blades that will just mow everything down, or Spears that are awesome in defense. However, Warbands are deadly against these two kind of units. DBA Rock-Scissors-Paper at its best. The roman player will want to send his heavy cavalry or his skirmishers to take care of the celts, or creat some kind of tactical superiority, to prevent the Warbands from winning the fight and destroying the heavy infatry.

Four more pictures of these warbands.









The flank of the carthaginian army:





The entire carthaginian army:



The numidians from the previous project. The minis also come from Baccus, and cost me something like 15€ :



Against the roman army:





In the small A5 boxes for storage and transport. Very small footprint!


I do have enough carthaginian and numidian extra units to field 3 standard-sized armies. With the roman one, I do have enough minis to make standard sized 2vs2 games, Carthaginians + African mercenary on one side, Rome + Numidian Allies on the other.

All these minis cost something like 55€.
Wargaming for the masses!

Okay. It's been almost ten months. Is that tale of one gamer a success?


[pause for dramatic effect]

Yes.


All the stuff involved in that project.



The roman army, on that nice postcard from Italy my gf sent me when she visited Calabria. Very small footprint.



Carthaginians, on their own postcard I bought there. Cute. Really. The roman therms are really impressive.
This army takes more room, because it has more options.



The elephants. The "standard" bearer was taken from the auxilias HQ strip, since I felt they didn't really need that one.



There are two intruders on these pictures... My next project.

Back to basics, let's do some minis for a GW game!

Hey, what would Admiral Adama do when he's not kicking some toaster/pilot/XO ass? Would he paint a marine? Nope. He doesn't paint marines, he headbutts 'em with their helmets on.

He builds his ship. Because if it has less than 20 guns, it's not worth modelling, that's why!

Ahem. I bought some 1/2400 ships, painted them, rigged them, to give a try. It's so different from just painting stuff. I don't know exactly why, but I like it!

Here's the first batch. Aren't they cuuuuute?





Time to move on... Same concept, new project.

Of course, I need to update the goal since GW's prices have changed...

Rulebook : 65€
Codex : 38€
New objective, 103€ for the minis, paints and various hobby supplies.
It's the very first time I don't complain about a price hike.

My goal is to build four 1/2400 fleets: 2x1500 and 2x800 pts. All ships must be painted (tabletop level) and fully rigged. In less than one month. Since I already have the two 700 pts fleets I've shown above, building these ones will expand my collection to four 1500 pts fleets.

Composition of the fleets:


I don't intend to play with the boarding rules, hence the lack of boarding upgrades like marines or grapeshot. With the four 1500 pts fleets, Blue Brits will focus on quantity, White on quality (lots of Master Gunners). Just like they did in history, Spain will focus on raw firepower (brutal 1st rate, lots of overgunned 3rd rates) whereas France will field fast vessels and will focus on crippling the ennemy ships.

I ordered some 1/2400 ships from Magister Militum thursday: the FNF-1 Pack, and one 130 gun ship (I already have the FNF-11 pack). I received them yesterday.


The nice box, and the ship.


Every ship is packed separately and properly labelled.

Total cost: 51.80€.

I cleaned them with soap (0€, even if you're wargamers, I really hope you already have one at home...) cut the extra flash and moulding lines with a cardboard cutter (1€), blu-tacked (1.10€) the ships on small coins and applied some Prince August white undercoating (7.50€) with a #2 Raphaël squirrel brush (2.40€).


From left to right: France, Spain, Great Britain (blue), Great Britain (white)

39.20€ and 29 days left.

Cool!

Your ancients look great! They remind me a lot of the minis I used to play with when I went to Historicon as a kid. Those boats are lovely too, but footsloggers are more my speed.

I've really enjoyed looking back over this whole thread! It's great to see someone working in 6mm. It makes me want to head home and dig out some of my older stuff and reassess what I actually have.

I'll be very curious to see what you do with the ships... I've always enjoyed waging war on the open seas.

Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated!

All the ships will be painted first, then rigged.

3 steps, nothing very fancy here.

1st step: flat colors (back row). I use Chocolate Brown for the darker wood (hulls of some french and spanish ships), Ocre Yellow for the lighter ones (hulls and masts), and Khaki Yellow for the sails and deck, with some Chocolate/Khaki mix for some details on the decks. The GW equivalences should be something like: Bestial Brown, Bubonic Brown and Bleached Bone...

2nd step: Magic Washes! (second row). I apply a Shadow Wash (Devlan Mud) on the deck and sails, and a Sepia Wash (Gryphone Sepia) on the lighter wood.

3rd step: Detailing (front row). Gunports and ship bottom are painted in black when necessary, deck canons are painted too, and all sails are drybrushed white. Then the square sails are glued on the mizzen (back) mast . A 3rd hand helps a lot here, just hold the coind and these can be kept vertically (and steadily), so you dont have to hold everything together. Finally, I glue the main mast.

Some details aren't done yet, I'll take some time to finish each ship later, during and after the rigging.

The ships, and the stuff I used so far:


A close-up:


The bill: 6x2.70€ for the paints, 4.50€ for the third hand, 1.10€ for the cyano glue.

17.40€ and 28 days left.

This blog is brilliant in concept, as are the resulting armies, excellent

Oh, it's just a personnal twist on the good old White Dwarf Tales Of Four Gamers.

In the french TOFG, one of the players did choose to build a (mostly metal) skaven army. I wonder how many months would be needed to buy/paint a tournament-sized Skaven army now.


Painting mostly done. Details will be added later, it's "good enough for now".






Time to rig these ships.

26 days and still 17.40€ left.

Things look good so far.

Forestays, backstays, bowsprits are finished, for almost 2/3 of the ships: all 74-guns and all frigates.









Masts are pretty fragile, but with the standing rigging, the minis are a lot tougher. Works just like in real life.

The ships were rigged with fishing line, painted in black. It wasn't easy to find ultrathin lines (below 10/100), but I finally got one, at Des Poissons Si Grands ("So Large Fishes"). Strange name for the shop that sells the thinnest fishing lines.

I was quite surprised to find a "hobby" shop in that kind of place (sure, it's not our hobby, but fishing is a hobby, right?). It's located rue de Grenelle, just between the Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. Damn, they must sell miles and miles of fishing lines to pay that rent.

Yeah, of course, some of the stuff sold there was pretty expensive, but come on, those fishing rods are made of carbon fiber, with silicon carbide rings. They don't charge 200+€ for twenty 28mm minis and two transports made of plastics...

Whatever. 2.80€ for a 25m spool. Not exactly the less expensive (per meter), but it was the thinnest I could find. By the way, I don't really plan to rig thousands of ships.

To make knots with lines that are so thin, and weave them in an out of the masts, you need small fingers. Should be possible to rig these ships without tweezers, but at what cost! 3.40€. That's what my electronics shop charged me for the tweezers.

22 days and 11.20€ left.

Another one. Things are moving fast

All the 74-guns are completely finished: shrouds glued and painted, minor paint corrections done, flags painted and ships glued to the bases

The frigates are finished too. I still need to cut the bases and glue the ships on them.

The axial rigging of the 80 and 100+ ships is finished too. I still need to add shrouds on the sides and all the rigging on the bowsprit.

I also forgot one very embarassing mistake: no witch elf on any of the pictures of this project.















The 0.75 mm plexiglas sheet cost me 2.45€ (Rougier & Plé, St Germain), and the aluminium rule 1€.

I guess I'm allowed to use some blue-tack to make the rule stick to the plastic sheet when I'm cutting the bases, since I already bought some before.
That plexi sheet was damn tough.

Flags are painted to. I already bought the white (primer), so I just needed some red and blue (5.40€) paint. That won't do the trick for the spanish flag, but since I already have two yellows (khaki and ocre), I think I can do something without having to buy a third one.

2.35€ and 19 days left!

Frigates and 1st rate ships of the line are finished, as are half of the 3rd rate 80-gun ships.

The two remaining ships have their central rigging done. Still need to add the shrouds and glue the vessels to their bases.


The fleets. The ships I've just finished are on the front row.


Front to back: a 5th rate (44 guns) frigate, a 3rd rate (80 guns) ship of the line, which will be the flaship of the french fleet, and a 1st rate ship of the line (100 guns), that one will be one of the british flagships.


Another 44-gun frigate, and another 1st rate ship, that will be the flagship of the other british fleet.


The spanish 1st rate vessel, a 140-gun behemoth. The spanish were the only to field such huge ships, that had four complete gun decks. More than 1000 sailors lived onboard. They were "only" 800 crewmen on the 1st rate ships of the other nations, around 600 in the 3rd rates, and 250 in the "tiny" 5th rate frigate.

The living conditions must have been really, really awful...

17 days and 2€ left.