“Here, Clerihew,
you take my elven shoes! Titchy, hang on to my elven socks, will you?”
“Not even if they
contained the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Seen! I like to be able to
breathe!”
“Gnawbone, you’ll
look after my fine elven socks for me, won’t you?”
“Precious mithril
socks?”
“Knitted from
dragon-spit silk, actually. Very rare.”
“What are you
playing at, elf?” demands Getrude.
“Can’t you see?
Look! There’s a beach. There’s waves! There’s the vast mystery of the
gloriuous waters stretching before us with its overwhelming lure – the scree of
the seagull, the ululation of the undine, the eternal whisper of the wandering
islands of the west. At the very least I need to have a paddle…”
“What do you call
it when someone keeps stealing seaweed?” asks Gnawbone.
“I don’t know,”
says Merlissa. “What do you call it when someone keeps stealing seaweed?”
“Kelptomania.”
Getrude holds
Elfbow back, dragging him aware from the lure of the salty waters.
“Can you not feel
it?” he cries. “The possibilities of sand castles. The glories of tiny little
rockpools where stinging starfish hide just below the sand ready to turn your
feet into pumpkins? I cannot deny the saltwater of my destiny. Look! The sea!
The sea!”
“Also look,” adds
Getrude. “A massive fleet of invading ships and dozens of uniformed men with
wicked looking weapons wading to shore.”
“How come they get
to paddle and I’ve got to keep my shoes on? Let me go!”
Elfbow makes a
lunge seaward. So Gerald makes a lunge elfward, tripping Elfbow spectacularly. He falls
flat on his face in something that apparently was left behind by an untidy
donkey.
“Speaking of
lunge,” says Titchy dreamily. “ I vote we head for the Larder.”
“And how will we do
that?”
“First syllable,”
says Merlissa. “Saw.”
“Second sybbable,”
says Gnawbone, “Knighthood.”
“That’s ‘sir’,”
says Titchy.
“Third syllable,”
says Getrude. “Snake? Oh, ‘S’.”
“Woof!” says
Scruff.
“That’s right,
Scruff. Sorceress!”
***
This submission has
two parts. Firstly, another batch of invading troops. These are 20 Wargames
Foundry SYW Prussians, which I think I’ve had since they were first released. I
really like these models, and they paint up well, but I game SYW in 15mm, so
I’m using them as Hessians in AWI games. No-one will ever know.
The second part is
the ships on which these villains are arriving to plunder the Chambers of
Challenge, the cads! These are two 1/700th 3D printed ships which I bought
ready assembled from a Facebook contact. They’re designed by Simon
Mann, I think, and are in some ways better than Black Seas ships as the designs
are more accurate for particular classes of ship, but the printing obviously simplifies
some detail, which means they’re not as crisp as the Warlord castings, the
sails are clearly far too thick and there are weaknesses in the printing.
Both ships are 2nd
raters: one is Barfleur class
and the other Temeraire class.
There were four
ships built of each of these classes.
Although the paint
scheme of these ships (and some others from the British fleet I’ll finish
later) are broadly the same, I like to individuate them a little with
variations in the detail, to make them a little easier to distinguish on the
tabletop. I rationalise this as based on the variation in materials available, the
different approaches different captains will have to painting their ships, and
the likelihood that paint jobs would weather in different ways depending on the
ships stations and histories.
Pointswise, I’m
following Adam’s notes on scoring. As he’s suggesting 25 points for 3rd rates,
and I think he noted 28 for 1st rates, that presumably makes a 2nd
rate 26 or 27. He’s also suggesting 5 points for rigging and 1 or 2 for flags,
so I propose:
2 x rigged 2nd
rates @ 33 = 66 points
The Aquifer: 20
points
20 x 28mm figures:
100 points
That's also 66 points for the Naval Challenge and 2 more Squirrel points. I guess I could count the ships as points for the Napoleonic Challenge, too?
TOTAL: 186 pts
