Mesabi

Early 619.... Agnes Mesabi knew that the odds were grim. With only 120 decently trained soldiers (4 Companies), she knew they would need some intel if they ever wanted to succeed. She ordered any and all supplies moved from the Blue Moon Tavern, and waited until order was restored to the city by the Nameren Government. A warehouse was procured, licensed under the WTC name, and loaded with their supplies. The WTC stood guard, and bribes kept the city watch at bay. From this point of operations, the Rebels began Agnes's plan. They waited for things to calm down in the city, and quietly began observing troop numbers and positions. Foot Patrols were logged, and a count of Soldiers began. And an Inside man was able to gather more intelligence with some hefty bribes. With these, the Rebels were able to get a decent idea of the amount of Troops in the city, and a count of the Palace Guards. With calculated Note Taking, Agnes's Plan came together..... TO BE CONTINUED... So, I've wanted to continue this AMCRA for a while now, it's been one of my main goals since returning. Originally, I kinda wrote myself into a corner a bit the first time around, as I was leaning for a more conflict oriented story, but that really didn't work with the rules well at the time, and with my low troop numbers, poorly defined goals.... ...well y'all should get why I hit a block. Anyways, I'd say that I hope this set of builds fixes the issues with the story, and gets it up and running again. I backdated this to Spring of 619, and I hope to bring the story forwards to the present. The Warehouse build I built for this sometime last year, probably in the spring. I originally had a street scene for it planned, but It just ended up taking away from the build. I popped off the street part, and it looks pretty decent on its own, so I'm pretty happy with it. I will license it as a small commercial in the old world. The Sewer scene turned out decently, I feel. Originally it was supposed to be filled with trash, or at the very least a bit of junk, but I couldn't figure out a good way to make it look decent. The Palace I think turned out pretty well. I was running a bit thin on bricks then, so it might look a bit sparse. I also should do a figbarf with the Nameren soldiers. Namere's colours are defined as Grey and Purple, but the options for those colours on minifigs are decently limited. I decided to go for First Order Officer Torsos and white legs for the default Nameren soldiers, and Kylo Renn's body and legs for the Officer. My original plan was to have more variations for different provinces, but It would just get a bit too confusing at a point. So, for future reference: Gondovian Rebels = Light Grey with fewer formal uniforms, some small colour accents Nameren Military = Black Uniform with White accents, officers having different variations. Story Wise, I might do some retcons for character backgrounds. I like the Promethean stuff, but looking back I think it kinda took over some aspects of the stories, so I'm definitely going to change the details going forwards. They were originally 'Secret Society-Religion / Ninjas' but I think I will replace it with "Offshoot of the Faith with secretive tendencies, a slightly warrior culture, and more than a few anarchists." But if anyone has any suggestions, let me know. C&C appreciated, but please hold off for a day or two if you have any comments on the lighting, I'll be fixing that tomorrow or Thursday. I have fixed the Photos! You may proceed with photo criticisms! It was a rainy day, so I grabbed a second lamp, but it had a yellowish tinge to the lighting, which clashed with my usual Sunlamp. I like the effect, I could see some shots where it would look great for sunsets, but here it doesn't work great. I got a 1600 Lumen lightbulb for the second lamp today, but I did not have enough time to retake the photos before work. GM STUFF: Goals: GMs, please let me know how feasible / achievable these goal are. If they do not fit within the system, let me know and I will change them. Also @ GMs: @Bregir, @Ayrlego , @Capt Wolf (and whomever else) I'd like input as to how many soldiers the city has. If possible, split into these areas: (See map) The Palace: The Docks: Midtown: Uppertown: Additionally don't forget to deduct funds for bribes. C&C appreciated, please let me know if I'm asking too much in the AMCRA, or if there's anything I should be doing differently.

Any particular story? Or just behind the scenes stuff?

Turned out very nicely @Keymonus, Can't wait to get those MCRA results back! Will be cool what happens, no matter what.

Thanks Bregir! .

Can someone tell me what's up with " Aurelia" and "Dragonstone" ? As far as I can tell, y'all just renamed the settlement, but I can't find any forum posts detailing that happening. Or are they separate settlements?

Indeed! Thanks for letting me enter late. Thanks for the link! Now that you mention in, it does look a little crooked. That should be an easy fix for the next one, but do please call me on it if it's still crooked. I'm using phone, but I could definitely find something to stabilize it.

Thanks @Ayrlego!

Nice build! I love how clean this turned out. The Footprints in the sand are a great touch!

Thanks Khorne! I can't take credit for the Bookcase, it came from the Dr. Strange Set, and I've used it as one of my default props. It's a fact of life that the more cute an animal is, the tastier it'll be!

Great build, I'm very impressed!

Actually, Dolphin meat is a very rich meat apparently, due to all the blubber! Still need to get the TNT out of storage. Thanks! ...and don't even get me started about Sea Horses! Thanks @Ayrlego! Yeah, they have a little blowhole to fit a fire piece in so it looks like they're being cooked thoroughly! So I'm guessing you would say "Neeeeiiiiiiggggghhhhh" to eating horses?

I am US as well, and if he posted his at 6pm his time zone, and myself 16 hours after that, I am most certainly late

Ok, story time / word vomit. I get your points. My main point is Quality over Quantity, a lesson I learned too late. Far too late. Yeah, sounds about right. And I'd like to make a point very clear, I was a terrible player until about January of 2019. The WTC abusively Metagamed for the good majority of its existence, put out subpar builds, and soured the game for more than a few people. I started the WTC as a certified insane version of the POTC East India Company. Darnok joined me, as we have a very similar sense of humor, and love of metagaming, and we've been causing chaos on the brick seas ever since. That hasn't always been a good thing. Mesabi Landing holds the highest rank of city in BoBS. Why? Because the rules were written in a certain way, and Darnok and I worked to level up the city as fast as possible. We wanted to have the biggest and best city in the Brick Seas. Well, we reached the 2nd highest rank, but in doing it, we tainted our reputation, and the game for quite a few players. As a result, no one (other than us) builds there, no one docks there (even though the trade value is great), and we're shunned from quite a bit of the community in the game. (I suppose the last point is debatable, but that's the way I feel, accurate or not.) Did we game the game? Yeah. (again, see the ML paragraph) There was a time Darnok licensed 20 some prefab rowboats as class 0 ships to make a giant attack fleet. Completely against the "spirit of the game" to build ships, but completely legal at the time. I have more than a few spreadsheets that calculate out the % chance of how a ship battle resolves. I cared more about the "game" aspect than my build aspect, particularly because I'm not an amazing builder. Additionally, our combative attitude, and our general "letter of the law" rather than the "spirit of the law" attitude pissed off more than a few players. There was talk at one point of Darnok and I leaving COR, which we couldn't even really do because SR had enough issues with us. Anyways, between the two, the GMs decided to do the 'Tsunami' thing in spring of 2019. Granted, it hit me at a really bad time in my life, but with some time, I really think it was the shock I needed to really improve my builds. But even now, I still know that people aren't happy with my presence, and status on the Brick Seas. I have the third highest land income of any player (last I checked) but I would happen to guess more than a few people would feel that this is unearned. And I know, for the foreseeable future this probably won't change. I do take some offense to the idea of "Don't encourage the WTC," especially after near a year and a half of calm from us. But I do understand the sentiment, and I know that if I want to change it, I need to behave, and be a positive influence on the Brick Seas. Anyways, my two point is twofold: 1. Quality over Quantity. I would say, imho every post should be a unique build, and each build should exist as its own story, or chapter therein. That was the main point of my above comment. 2. I get why people don't particularly appreciate me or my stories. I screwed up, tainted my relationship with the BoBS community, most of which was due to ignoring lack of feedback on my part. So yeah, sorry for the word vomit, and all the chaos I caused over the years. Don't be an idiot like @Mesabi and sacrifice build quality, it's the path to the dark side.

Catergory A&B from myself! Feel free to exclude as it is late.

@Professor ThaumThaum any chance I could get a late entry? I'm just finishing up mine.

@Count Vroskri Very nice microbuild at the end there, a lot of this build seems recycled, so I'll leave my comments where they were at last time. First, you're photography has improved, but I hope to see it improve a little bit more. If you could get some cheap foam sheets from your local hobby store, you can use that as an easy white background to improve things a little bit, by softening the square edges. Second, I've got to say, You're rushing out builds. I used to do the same thing, and when I started, I literally built so many things that they had to start lowering the number of builds that could be licensed in a month. ( @Darnok helped too, credit where credit is due) But, it lead to some really sloppy builds on my part. This, is an old shame of mine. (Granted it was done when I was in a dorm when I only had about a shoebox of lego) It was rushed, underbuilt, has too much empty space, and served no purpose other than to further my story, and give ML a plantation. now, of course I got more lego in the dorm but it really only lead me to build bigger things that were equally undetailed, or much of the same. These two were probably my last builds in the dorm, and you can't see much improvement overall. Sure, it's better, but we're still not cresting 4 / 10. Now, these builds aren't as terrible as my old ones ! Additionally, I don't want to discourage your enthusiasm! But I'd suggest a look at the structure of your story, and the builds you've put out. Part 1: A shoreline, and an introduction: Not at all a bad story, or build, and a good introduction to your characters. Part 2: Doors and a story: Probably the worst build of all 5. and doesn't further the story a ton. Also released 2 days later, so I do know you were rushing This build could very easily have been combined with 1. or 2. Part 3: A boardwalk. Probably my favorite build of yours in total, but it doesn't really do the build justice. Looking at your flickr, this shot shows a pretty awesome build, that I would have loved to have seen more of. Your post really just shows off the one corner! Part 4: A shoreline, and a small catacombs. It's a decent build and an interesting story. I don't have any complaints about this... Part 5: The Same shoreline, and a microbuild. ...but this is the same shoreline, recycled, plus just a microbuild. Why not just combine the two? What does the 2nd post add that the first one was missing? Third, if you want to use someone's character's / story / elements, PM them. Everyone I've PM'd to borrow their character / elements has at the very least given me a friendly no, and an explanation. Aditionally, I've gotten some great build ideas from it as well. So, since I know you're rushing to get things out, I'd really say, slow down! The brick seas will be here next week! Make sure that every build is built as well as good as you think it should be, before you move on to photographing. I'd also encourage that the shots look clean, well lit, and properly placed before you are even ready to post. There are plenty of technique tutorials, and easy things you can do to improve your builds, and photography. I'm telling you this because @Bregir told me this in 2018, and I 100% didn't listen to him. Additionally, at a certain level of laziness and metagaming, (Note, I have no idea if you've been licensing these builds, but if you are, definitely take not of this!) The GMs will step in. Granted, you need to be licensing way more than you should, and it requires a spectacular amount of Laziness (many, many magnitudes high) before this happens. This is was the straw that broke the camel's back for Mesabi Landing. So, I don't want to discourage, only suggest. And you'd need to try to be as lazy as me. I'm liking your stuff so far, and I want to see you go places.

Hands down, this is the cleanest build I've seen so far here. It looks amazing, and I love the use of all the tan parts. Bravo!

Thanks @Professor Thaum. I got a CMF giraffe guy, and I'm determined to use it! Thanks @Ayrlego! I really think the 2x2 Jumper plate floors always turn out well.

This turned out very nicely, @Count Vroskri. I really like how the treasure room below looks, it kinda reminds me of the scene from Indiana Jones 1. Overall the build is pretty nice, the vegetation looks good, and the story holds up as well. To improve your photography, I'd recommend getting a dedicated light source to put next to your builds when you photograph them. Honestly, you can just use a lamp or two, but what I've found to work amazing is a Sun Lamp, like the ones they use for Seasonal Affective Disorder, since they put off a ton of light. I know because my early (and a decent amount of later ones) had the same unlit tinge to them. As to the WTC marines, as far as I'm concerned, anyone on the Brick Seas is free to use the WTC for mishap, but we will deny any unofficial actions on our part (unless it makes us look good)

A Small Commercial Office in Port Raleigh

Thanks! Thank you! I really hope I have, I think the time off helped lol. Thank you @Count Vroskri! Good to see another Count on the Brick Seas.

Excellent build @Ayrlego, clean and neat as always. I'm not a huge fan of the brown vents being used for the roofing, I think red jumper plates would have captured the look of the shingles a bit better, but that's just me. Overall, great build though, and look forward to your next one.

Excellent scene! I love how busy and detailed the build is. I always like the technic of using masonry bricks as flooring and it works great here. And Large City! Nice, but it might take you a bit to catch up to Mesabi Landing

Great MOC, and I love the art and story that accompanies it.

Definitely a neat little build and a great addition to @Professor Thaum's contest.