[REVIEW] Renegade Runner

[Admiral]

In battle, a small section of the enemy fleet is always a bunch of renegade runners, simply because they are fast, manouverable and harder to hit, they are better for exploiting weak spots in the enemy line rather that the BSB which just blows things up

[Captain Ka-Boom]

Arrr

Firstly I must tell you this i do not own this set.

I gave it a two. It has very simple design. The blue is out of place. It seems very bare and not enough pieces. One mere cannon. The only thing that stopped it from being a one was the accesories.

Will

[Al7]

Im 24 years old and i always wanted in my childhood a pirate ship i was dreaming about the Black Seas Barracuda and when the Skull's Eye Schooner came out i was dreaming all the way about having the SES but my father couldn't affort the money for it but i could have the RR and i was really happy cause finally i could have a pirate ship with sails and strings it was just lovely ... time changed and now i own the BSB, SES, CC, RR etc etc still i like this little ship so much so i gave it 4/5.

[Captain Blackmoor]

I gave 4/5 for this ship. It has a lot of good aspects, like the weaponry, minifigs and sails. It had only a few flaws for me, no steering wheel and no cabin.

However, it's still a nice addition to your fleet.

[SBCMayor]

I give the RR a 4/5. 

Despite popular culture and the mythology surrounding pirates placing them in large, fearsome, intimidating ships, more often than not pirates operated small maneuverable sloops. The Renegade Runner is a great depiction of this. If I have unlimited space for my display (and unlimited funding of course) I'd have 10+ of these easily. As it stands I have 4, with two of them in their original form, and two others fun little projects for customizing. One of these I've converted for use with the Imperial Guards, but it may get a deeper redesign along with the 4th one to mimic the color scheme of the CC and BSB. 

As for the original design, I actually love the black and white striped sails with the skull/crossbones. I think it makes for a fantastic "fleet" design along with the SES (which I don't own). I love the idea of a large pirate flagship (some notable pirates such as Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and Henry Avery had them) with a couple sloops as escorts, scouting vessels, or as the tip of the spear when attacking a plunder. 

I'm really glad Lego created this model to enable that reality-based play scenario. 

The lack of a cabin doesn't actually bother me on this model. Even the largest sloops were not really big ships and would have had flush deck lines, so the captain's cabin would likely have been below the main deck. Given this model's budget conscious design, it's hard to capture that and keep piece count under control. Since all Lego ships are designed "from the water line, up" one already has to imagine the existence of a hold and bilge, even on larger models like the CC, BSB, and SES. So I just imagine the RR has a small hold and below it a bilge/ballast area. Sometimes with Lego you just have to use your imagination to fill in the blanks. The lack of rigging actually bothers me way more than the lack of a cabin.

As for missing a wheel, the ship's wheel didn't actually begin appearing until the early 1700s or so, but even after its implementation in ship design, small sloops such as the RR would likely be steered with a till until the late 1700s. 

I don't like the swivel gun, and not liking the swivel gun is a big part of why I can't get myself excited about spending the $$$ on a SES. With that said, given the hull design and pieces they were working with, I see why they went swivel gun instead of the wheels you would have expected to see on a ship's guns. I am actually working on a few small changes that will raise the lower deck and enable the removal of the swivel in favor of those awesome wheel carriages like on other pirate ships. I'll upload some pics once I've completed. 

Overall I love the RR. When I decided to get back into the vintage Pirate series Legos the Renegade Runner was one of the first bigger sets I took a chance on. I also think it is a significantly better looking set than the comical looking CBC. 

And of the five ships offered in the first and second wave, I actually would place this one 4th: Below the BSB, CC, IF, and above the SES. 

Edited January 2 by SBCMayor

[Mister Phes]

9 hours ago, SBCMayor said:

I give the RR a 4/5. 

Oh blimey! This topic takes me way back - thank ye for weighing in!

On 6/11/2007 at 4:09 AM, El Bucanero said:

Annoying how in the time since PhotoBucket has monetized and now watermarks images on free accounts.

Searching me archive, it appears I still possess the original image:

 

[SBCMayor]

Love those pics! Makes me wish I was artistic! 

[SBCMayor]

While I was taking some photos of the rotating display I am working on, I decided it was also time to share a few pics of the mods I've made to a few of my Renegade Runners. I now have 5 of these, with 2 maintaining their original form and serving in Captain Ironhook's fleet. I've modified one to sail in Captain Redbeard's fleet. The last two I've converted into Imperial Bluecoat ships, where they serve as escorts to the larger vessels in the fleet, pursue the smaller, faster pirate crafts, or conduct security patrols around the Bluecoat's base of operations when the fleet is at anchor or on an offensive operation. 

So I'm sharing some pics of the modifications I made: 

So there's the Bluecoat's ship. Obviously a smaller ship like this would have a less senior commanding officer. I think the most significant change is the increased deck space created by using some small plates to raise the main deck. Not only does this increase the deck space but it enabled me to replace the swivel gun with the classic wheels used in the BSB, CC, and IF. I also extended the poop deck. 

The changes I made to the pirate version are virtually identical, with the predominant color being red to match the Black Seas Barracuda. 

Looks like Redbeard is celebrating a nice bit of plunder here! 

One of the biggest differences between the Bluecoat and Pirate versions of this ship is this figurehead. Recreating the naked pirate lady was not expensive, but it turns out that solid yellow parrot on the Carribean Clipper is a super rare piece which would have made my otherwise inexpensive conversions a little too cost prohibitive. So Redbeard's ship benefits from this decorative element but you'll notice my Bluecoat ships do not have their corresponding element. 

I actually really love the way these modified ships turned out. I have another set of sails and some additional yellow elements so I can give Redbeard another ship for his fleet if I ever stumble upon another Renegade Runner that is incomplete and inexpensive. And in hindsight, for Redbeard's, I may further modify and replace some of the yellow reverse slopes with black and do the same with blue on the Bluecoats ships to mimic the color scheme on that part of the ship for their Black Seas Barracuda and Carribean Clipper counterparts. But overall I love the way I've been able to augment both factions' fleets with these smaller vessels. 

I definitely welcome your thoughts, and will be sharing some additional photos of other vintage ships I've modified.