Do Ye Needs Some Pirate Terrain?
September 26, 2011 by beerogre
Not many of us have a pirate themed table just knocking around and even fewer have the luxury of a BoW-style gaming table that can be converted on que.
So let's have a look at what you can do by way of papercraft terrain and have a look at our pal Dave Graffam's website and see what he's got.
The first thing to jump off the page is the Maratime Bundle.
This contains a good mix of buildings, most of which are quite tall and would make an excellent boarder to a 4'x4' table. My idea is to have two adjoining edges of the board leading to a wharf (probably made using some wooden stirrers from the local coffee shop) and water, while the other two edges lead into a port city. Hence the tall buildings will indicate where the proper city begins... no self respectin' pirate wants to go there... too many Kingsmen for their own good!
Next then I'm going to need some boats to decorate the wharf... I see we have two... a Patrol Boat and a Smuggler's Rowboat.
With the Patrol Boat you also get some crates and casks, so I'll probably go for that set, so that I get some scatter terrain to add to the board, although I could just go for a complete set of Cargo Bales, but I think I'll settle for the Patrol Boat for the time being.
Finally I'm going to need some buildings to fill the centre of my board. There are some smaller buildings in the Maratime bundle that will suit and there's always the free download of the Hovel to fill up space. However, I want a couple of building with a bigger footprint, possibly with a stairway (although I can make this out of foam)... the Warehouse model seems to fit the bill... no stairway, but again, I can build one if necessary.
The good thing is this sort of board will work for any sort of historical or fantasy skirmish. I'm even considering making a modular board and building the models on 1'x1' sections so I can rotate them and reposition to mix them up... hmmmm... decisions... decisions!
What do you think ye swabs... shud I make it?
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ARRR! Get ee building matey
Reckon it would be good to see, Andy
Was looking at this bundle eartlier thanks to one of the ads
This would be great to see how a board like this looks finished, as a whole and close up.
I’m kinda skeptical towards the paper terrain offered. Probably because i just hated the look on the GW paper terrain from the late 90s.
Fat Dragon Games has a larger ship that would work well.
This one I’m guessing: http://www.beastsofwar.com/fantasy-wargaming/fat-dragon-set-sail/
Do it, do it now!
It’d give Darrell something else to do, the build time on the website says 1 hour!
Which for Darrell means 8 hours… 😀
Wouldn’t that still technically be 1 hour building and 7 hours unglueing himself, swearing and drinking?
Oh please do some paper terrain builds. I find myself in the Darrel camp of paper gluing and would really appreciate seeing how it’s done instead of just reading a guide that doesn’t seem to cover what to do if the darn things keep coming undone or if in your haste to get things done you make 2 degree folding error that becomes a ten degree error after a few more folds. Seeing how the glue behaves for someone else would also be helpful. I assembled one of those tiny free observatories on his website to get a feel for… Read more »
Yikes. The Observatory wouldn’t be my suggestion as an intro to paper modeling. I would recommend the free Hovel or the Coach House. What you did was choose the most complex model in my collection to start with, and you used a high-moisture glue that’s not suited for papercraft. By now you’ve figured figured out that you need to get the right tools and start over with something easier. For most papers, I recommend Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue, but you can use ordinary paper glue, carpenter’s wood glue, or even a glue stick in a pinch. If your pieces are… Read more »
The Observatory isn’t that bad a model to put together – a pencil with a runner eraser goes a long way to putting the telescope together, and the Mad Scientist house that it goes with is your best looking model. 🙂
I made comments about glues below, I have used Aleene’s Tacky Glue, but it did not make much of an impression either way. So, good, I’d guess, since I tend to remember problems better than things that work okay….
If ye be wantin’ a ship, me hearties, an’ not one o’ yon li’l boats then hie yesel’ te http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?view=product&product=24 – a proper ship the Maiden be…. More than two feet long, nearly that tall, the Maiden is my all time favorite PDF model. 🙂 She dominates a table, and is big enough for a proper fight on her decks. I just wish that Cutlass had rules for ship battles. World Works also has a set for Canals, Docks, and Harbors – the canals are the right size for Graffams Gate buildings to cross, so a battle with pirates trying… Read more »
Also, now that Christmas is hitting the craft stores there are some materials for putting together holiday villages and dioramas that would work well – in particular Lemax offers several wharves, docks, and both a 121.9 x 47 cm Ocean Display Mat and a like sized ‘Large Pebble Mat’ (i.e. Cobblestones) , all pretty much the right scale. 🙂
Definitely second a build vid of some of Dave’s stuff and would also like to see one based on lloyds stuff that went up on backstage.