In the course of my library work I ended up with the newest issue of Warhammer creator Games Workshop's White Dwarf magazine on my desk. Now, I've never owned any of the products or played any of their games, but when I saw a bounty of glossy images showcasing twisted fantasy pirate vessels waging battles on a turbulent sea - strewn with wrecks, pirate coves, and skeletal sea monsters - I must admit that the little Jack Sparrow inside of me started to swagger. Look at this!...
So imagine my delighted surprise when I realised that every item that was pictured (plus a LOT more) could be purchased in one big box!
That night I dreamt about Dreadfleet. The next morning my co-workers said, "How are you this morning?" and I said, "Dreadfleet." And then that evening I bought...
DREADFLEET. Let's unbox this monster and feast our eyes on the treasures within...
I am so out of my league.
Even entering the Games Workshop store was daunting because I had no idea what I'd actually need. Sure, it all comes packed in one big box, but it's not going to be all pretty and assembled like that earlier promo image. I'm going to have to piece it all together myself like a model kit, and then even more intimidating is the prospect of painting it all from scratch. I've never done that before (although I've always wanted to) so I'm accepting that it's not going to be anywhere near as nice as the official publicity images and I'm just going to learn as I go.
Thankfully the guy at Games Workshop was incredibly helpful and friendly and hooked me up with the basic stuff I'd need. So this works out to all be a pretty significant investment. The game itself is $190 and then I had to spend around another $100 on paint, brushes, and my own copy of the magazine to act as a guide (it has a lot of detailed images of individual ships and some painting guides). And already I'm realising that I'm going to need far more paint. I bought a starter paint kit, a couple of brushes, and some select basic colours to fill in the gaps. I figure I can always mix them together...
With all that established, we can finally open it up...
Holy shit. Are you kidding me? Look at all this crazy stuff...
Sprues upon sprues (sprue = plastic frame the parts are attached to) of unpainted dissassembled plastic puzzle pieces. Enough to make 10 large ships, 10 large scenery pieces, and a lot of miscellaneous smaller stuff like shipwrecks, monsters, and the tokens for playing with. Did I mention I am out of my league here? My heart was racing like the box was filled with spiders.
The sculpt detail is absolutely incredible though - even on the tiniest of pieces - so I'm already excited at the prospect of trying to bring out these intricacies with my amateur paint skills.
Under this ton of grey plastic there's a few other things in the box...
A thick rule book filled with some truly stunning art, and a pile of cards and dice for gameplay. Truth is, I haven't even really looked at this stuff yet. I want to get everything assembled and painted before even thinking about playing. So I'll get to reporting on how all this works, but it will take me about two years.
One other item of note though. The game "board"...
Yes, it's a huge ocean cloth. Five feet long, in fact. You could sleep under it. You will not be playing this game on a conventional table. You'll be pushing all your furniture to the sides of the room and playing on the floor. The cloth is designed to not crease when flat, so you can slide the miniatures across it easily. I will be sliding them gingerly, because after all that work I won't want to risk breaking them.
I decide to assemble everything first. I'm going to have to pull each item apart again before painting it, but that's OK because the pieces snap together and I won't glue them until I'm 100% done. But I wanted to get a real sense of all the pieces and how they looked and worked before even attempting to splash my virgin paint brush. The assembly process took at least three hours. But it's pretty impressive when you see the vessels form...
Each ship has its own style and personality. There's a fleshy monster ship, a skeletal ghost ship. An Egyptian ship, and a ship powered by the breath of a genie - just to name a few. Check out the main villain's ship which has a host of sails and a ruined castle right in the centre of it...
By this stage I'm pretty keen to slap on some colour. I know that pro painters will file off mould-lines, and fill in assembly gaps with putty and all sorts of other hard work, but I am an impatient man of action. I'm just going to dive right in and see what happens. I watch a couple of youtube tutorials to get me started and then I have at it like a wild man.
I start with a piece of scenery first - something where I'm not going to have to worry too much about tiny details. I undercoat it all in black so that if there are gaps it will still look pretty badass. This is my first attempt with a couple of stone skulls...
So far so good, and I'm enjoying it more than I thought it would. There's a steep learning curve and I'm constantly applying too much paint or too little. And I don't quite have the range of colours that I'd like, but I'm persevering.
I should do more scenery before tackling a ship, but I really want to see how I'll go with all the tiny details, so I take a stab at the dwarf vessel which is relatively small and simple compared to the larger ones...
It's not 100% there yet, but close enough to suit my needs. I'd like to tidy up some of the details and get some more texture on the silvery parts... maybe get a darker wash in between the steel panels. But it's a start. If that's as good as I'm going to get, then my game will be serviceable.
And here's some work-in-progress stuff that's about 80% there.
Temple attached to a lava pit (which I want to add more colour to)...
A tower on some rocks...
I want to add a lot more detail to the tower with some lighter blue highlights. And I need to do something to that red on the roof. My rocks are pretty mild too. Could probably push them some more.
And here's the current ship I'm working on, The Black Kraken...
A fair bit of detail and touch up work required here, plus I need to add in some more colour (the cockpit windows will be green, and that should be seaweed and goop dripping from the tentacles).
Overall, I'm both excited and daunted about Dreadfleet. Excited because it's something I've never done before, and daunted because there's just so much of it. Terrified that I'll paint three ships, pack it away and never pick it up again. But if you'll indulge me then I might do a series of these posts showing my progress and that might help keep me on track.
Who else has Dreadfleet and how are you going with it?
This is great to see in progress - I'd really like to see more as you go!
ReplyDeleteYou are completely insane! But your paintwork looks really great.
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