Col. Whipstick

I do quite like the red decking... I remember making a ship out of basic bricks when all I had was a few pirate minifigs but no ships etc and back then I chose to use red because it's as close to brown as can be. Also consider that the rowboats of the Imperials were red in the official lego sets anyway. The name of the ship and it being red also give it an eastern feel for me, hard to explain but it certainly stands out and looks quite bold and impressive, if it wasn't for the red decking this ship wouldn't look half as impressive and powerful. Nice work Bonaparte!

Bugger that, there's no way I'm letting him take over Portugal. Did you know that the alliance between England/Britain and Portugal is the oldest in the world, dates back to 1373 and during the entire span of European colonialism even though these two were on each other's doorstep in Africa there has never been a war between them whereas every one has fought everyone else atleast once. I hope Wellington can still rally his forces with that hangover!

An Imperial Soldier... so a blue? Well I don't think the lego fractions are supposed to be representing anyone exactly or they would have done a better job of it. The Reds and Blues are just generic of European empires at the time. And anyway you're from a British colony, what are you doing supporting Napolean, shame on you. It's not like you're in danger of being invaded all the way down there. Well as lego didn't make any Privateer fractions or for that matter any kind of neutral or merchant set I'd still always consider you a pirate given the options. Some pirates surely had a few ships and were admirals in the losest sense of the word anyway.

We've probably done this before once upon a time but in that case maybe it's time to revive it. I'd like to run a poll so we can vote which fraction is winning the most support from our members. Consider this a declaration of war. X-D A poll that suggests everyone vote for what they consider themselves: 1. Pirates 2. Soldiers (Blues) 3. Imperial Guards (Reds) 4. Islanders 5. Imperial Armada

*Scratches head, flicks though his history books* Nope, nope, I thought I was right. What are you doing in Portugal Bonaparte? I thought we'd stopped you at Spain. Bugger, you must have invaded while me and Welly were out drinking last Thursday! *wacko*

Oh as you're new I don't know if you've looked at the index's and libraries but I forgot to mention that there's a bunch of Spanish uniform torso designs available should you ever want to use those.

My pleasure, the Portuguese flags seem the most appreciated of them all. Hope to see the flags in use soon.

Hey, wasn't me who chose that title. Don't see any Ph.D's about here either... X-D

I'll add him to the list but can you tell us a bit more about him? I notice the name is French or atleast Gallic and looking at my list it occured to me that for a major colonial power there didn't seem to be any French names so I'm sure there are names to be added. For that matter a few of the names are more notable figures, commanders and the like rather than true maritime explorers. My pleasure, any names you wish to join the list Bonaparte?

Don't get your panties in a twist :-P , he was always going to feature eventually along the timeline, it takes time and many edits to have a list like this and that's why I added the link on the list of all explorers until I was ready to carry on with the list.

Oh don't worry about Phred, he's getting an education from me. I think it's a case of one too many poorly made Mel Gibson movies teaching people half-history. *typical evil laugh of the Hollyood English villan* You can always ask him about what happened to the White House during the War of 1812 if he gets too cheeky. You can read my comments in his thread on the USS Constitution. In my defence as to why Cook wasn't mentioned in initially or for that matter Nelson is that the list was done in roughly chronological order and Cook came about after Jan van Riebeek. I had gotten a bit tired doing all those ones and wanted to post this and take a break so had I continued which I have done so now he most certainly would have been added. It's ironic that only a couple weeks ago I'd been looking for the DVD miniseries on him made in the 80's called Captain James Cook.

I don't think the War of 1812 was quite as one sided militarily, that was just the problem, neither of the two sides ever conclusively got the better of the other. Yes Great Britain was a world superpower compared to the US at the time which was something like a moderate European country but in the end of the day the problem with all empires and the British Empire in particular is that they had limited resources that were always stretched across several continents. You also have to remember that the energies of all England and later Britain had been put into the 13 colonies so when those got independence Great Britain had lost a hell of a lot of it's manpower, wealth, resources and the country was heavily winded. Don't confuse the British Empire at 1812 with the British Empire at 1912 which was more like the huge superpower you're implying. Whilst the navy was indeed impressive and still the world's largest until after WWII the British Army has always been fairly miniscule and that's all the more reason that they relied heavily on the navy, had Napolean actually landed in Britain her land forces would never have been able to hold the French off. If you look closely at Britain's history, her army has always been used in a limited and strategic capacity, Britain has never been the Imperial land force that France, Spain, Germany and Russia have been, if anything Britain has only been there to frustrate and counter those because of the channel they just couldn't get across. So in terms of the War of 1812, don't think of it so much as the US versus the British Empire because particularly at that time the British were more worried about France and most their forces were dedicated to that threat. The war of 1812 is really more about a war between the US and Canada given that's the British forces concerned and whilst the war because of it's indifferent course and results has never been considered a focal point for either the Americans or British but the Canadians are quite proud of it as one of their few occasions to declare they gave their southern neighbours a run for their money. So ironically while Americans might see it as little them against Goliath Britain, the Canadians see themselves as the little ones fighting off an aggressive Goliath America. I'm a little rusty with the history in this area but I do believe that the first White House was actually burnt down by the Canadian-British forces when they invaded Philidelphia so the the White House we all know now is actually the second one. Going back to the War of Independence however I'm curious as to what made the colonists north of the St. Lawrence stay loyal to Britain whilst I know the reasons for those rebelling in the south. There is nothing to destinguish Americans and Canadians at the time, they were all simply British colonists if you follow... Generally the War of 1812 was just too soon after the War of Independence and neither side had the energy to really make much of it. I think the US saw that Britain was distracted by Napolean and figured they might have a bit of luck and get hold of Canada. Given that France helped the rebels substantially during the War of Independence and that the Americans already had poor relations with Britain at the time really from an American standpoint there was nothing to lose by going for Canada, they had the political climate to succeed but not the military ability to back this up. At any rate, the War of Independence, War of 1812 and the American Civil War I tend to see in the same light as the English Civil War because in the end of the day it's all just Anglo-Saxon/Celtic people fighting other Anglo-Saxon/Celtic people. One of my pet peevs these days is hearing some Englishman, Scot, American, Australian, Canadian etc slate one of the others. We're all the same people really and have much bigger threats out there. It's ridiculous why politics of the world have gone the way they have, especially considering the 20th century. A political union of the English countries should always have been our destiny. Why on God's green earth Britain is in the EU, Australia is a Chinese colony and the US is it's own little world is beyond me. It could all have been so much better...

This is the 2nd time I've had to write this, had an entire page of the history and the damn pc froze! >:-( Now, where was I? Oh yes, it was only a matter of time before I made a thread for American flags. After the big 5 Europeans it made sense to feature the main colony and New Europe itself. And despite this website being so poorly named 'Eurobricks' a good many of us are from the English speaking and other colonies, myself included and for that matter most Brits would rather catch a cold than reffer to themselves as Europeans :-P Now, as to the choice of American flags, I tend to do these thread batches in numbers of 3 or 6 and in the case of the United States I chose 3 flags typically American but decided instead of simply adding stars to make another 3 alternative American flags. For the initial 3, here is what I chose: Firstly, the flag of the Grand Union is a great flag because it points out that the Americans aren't Americans until they have won independence and during the War of Independence it's much better to consider them Rebel British. The flag of the Grand Union highlights this with the use of the Union Jack (older version) accompanied by the 13 stripes fighting for independence. George Washington used this flag and it is ideal for MOC's set at the time of the war. It also highlights the evolution of the United States from Great Britain and that today it is still considered a powerful English speaking nation in everyway assuming the role of the British Empire 100 years ago. One point about this flag however is it's striking similarity to the flag of the British East India Company for which I shall make a seperate flag to point out the difference. Our 2nd flag is the Betsy Ross which I find very attractive and is the start of the American style we've come to expect though this flag has been very influencial in the design of many flags and is symbolic of the New Republic and independence in the New World, not to mention that the flag of the European Union is no doubt heavily influenced by this one. Unfortunately this flag is the first flag of the United States and it's limited lifespan means it only flew in peacetime so it's unlikely to make it onto wartime MOC's. The next flag really is my 4th flag and I didn't intend to make it except as a request from Phred for his USS Constitution. This is the flag of the US at the time of the War of 1812 against Great Britain but what makes it truly distinctive is not so much it's 15 stars but rather it's 15 stripes. By 1818 the Americans had gone back to the traditional 13 stripes which has stayed constant to this day. The 3rd and now 4th flag is the one with 25 stars, in reality this would have been flown in the 1830's, at the dying days of our lego era and in all likelyhood the lego western enthusiasts may have more use for this one as well as the alternative flags coming up. The orignal 25 stars looks a little untidy at the time Arkansas joined the union so mine is a little neater. I also felt it interesting given that the US is now 50 states to have something representing the halfway mark. Now, to represent alternative choices I've designed the well known Confederate Navy Jack which most people tend to associate as the actual flag of the Confederacy as well as the first official flag of the Confederacy which in it's own way is an attractive and kinda revived version of the Betsy Ross. Lastly the Lone Star Republic has joined the others for it's American design despite Texas being an independent republic for around 9 years. Whilst these flags might seem more western and 19th century than pirate era one has only to remember than Santa Ana was the Napolean of the west and his Mexican army closely modelled the French in dress so suddenly the Texican rebels and later Texans aren't such a stretch of history as they may first seem. Well that concludes our American thread. In all likelyhood the next flag thread will feature one off flags and popular requests rather than have a national theme to it but in the meantime I hope you enjoy waving your red, white and blues... For more information and reading, which I always recommend, please visit the link: List of American Flags

Here we go... this is cheating a bit as I haven't yet announced the American flags and I hadn't planned on doing the 15-15 one but I owe you this one for organising an index, btw, perhaps we should have wikipedia links to these flags so people can better understand the history, I've tried to do that in the threads.

Sure you can have fries but by the time they arrive from England you might not be so hungry. As for the flag index, yes I think indexing the way the torsos were done should be fine, in part the flags were developed so people would make use of them and the torsos to really add national character to the various MOC's. So in some ways it's building on where Mosana was heading. The problem being as per my discussions with our Australian Conquistador - Mr Phes that the flags having been designed on MSPaint are very pixelated and need to be run through Adobe Illustrator to smooth out the jagged edges. I am totally unable to download the program but really the flags should only be indexed once they have been cleaned up so right now I'm hoping someone will do that with all the flags and continue to do so for future designs or unfortunately we will have to wait until I have a new PC capable of running the program. Until then there might not be much point in indexing the flags, unless of course it's easy to update them but I'm no expert there. You're really into the War of 1812 aren't you? It's a rather uneventful and inconsequential war, so much so that very few people even know of it so it's surprising to see the interest.

Well this isn't exactly McDonalds but your order went through pretty quick, largely because I've been busy with American flags. I wasn't going to bother with the 15 stars and bars but it's complete now, the design was unfortunately very difficult as I've found with most these flags given that the size and ratio of the designs work out usually a lot more rectangular than the official lego flags so Unfortunately the blue part of the flag is more dominating but I've managed to get all 15 stars and bars in their correct place, hope this will be satisfactory. Will add your flag here after a couple final touches.

I've already done a series of American flags which I've delayed for a bit though the 15 star might be difficult. I'll see if I can tweek it to get you what you want. That particular version with the 15 bars was very short lived before the 13 bar version was revived. If I can't make the 15 star and bars work I'll atleast have a workable Star spangled banner for you. Do you have Adobe Illustrator, Mr Phes has suggested a method on there to smooth out the pixelation from my flags as they were done on MSPaint.

Would you boys like an American flag to go with the ship the same as the others I've done?

Er... the whole reason I made those flags was for everyone to use so how is that self promotion? Besides, the guy is new to the forum and probably only just missed the postings of all the flags. [quote name='Tercio Espa

Ah yes, quite right... there were so many names but Captain Cook should certainly be there, I will amend the list to include him, others?

Hi guys, don't know if this has been covered before and I'm feeling too lazy to check the records. :-P Mr Phes, stop waving your sword at me... Right, I thought it would be useful to have a list of well known ships just to beef up the history around here and help with MOC ships of historical refference. This is what I thought of on the top of my head and perhaps we could organise a poll or something to rate and debate which are more important than others. I also want to include the name of the captain or explorer commanding these vessels to add to it's significance. I'm trying to put these in chronological order but there are many names, these are some of the earlier main ones I've put down and here's a general link for all explorers: List of Explorers Captain/Explorer: In The Service Of: Main Ship: Bartolomeu Diaz (Portuguese) Portugal - S

Very very nice... now that's how to make an enterance to the forum. I kinda like the old stone tower compared with the yellow-white brick. To me it's suggestive of your story, that the Spanish have taken over the old outpost but the newer yellow-white bricks could be considered newer additions they've made, more contemporary to say the 1500's. I guess being as there is a medieval tower structure there this place would more like the Azores, or Canaries or somewhere in the Mediterranean rather than the Carribean and from there they would be able to deal with the French and pirates too. If you're interested in some Spanish flags to add to it I made some only last week, here's the link: http://eurobricks.hosting.ipsyn.com/eurofo...showtopic=12886

The pirate scum I was reffering to was the pirates on the fortress who've keep caught napping by the imperials.

Run pirate scum run! That'll teach them for having a picnic in one of our fortresses. I quite like the look of the round beach under the palm and the imperial flag being used flat as a canopy is an interesting concept. Can you post a photo of the set this originally was?