Skipper

Looks great! Really nice to see battlefields that aren't just a field or something of that sort, reminds me of the Bayonets at Dawn contest. Looking forward to the rest of the modules, and then of course seeing your wonderful army marching across them.

After a week and nearly 600 fame, my Necro finally died this morning. He was stuck against one of the walls surrounding a Sphinx and ate an entire shotgun. He earned a lot though, among the loot were an Elder and Exa HP for my future priest, a Mnova, various T9-11s, and about 15 def in skittles besides. So I'm quite happy. I'll buy a Divine Tome, if anyone has one.

Wow! That's not what I was expecting when I clicked the link at all, I was expecting a more conventional approach but the underwater build is awesome. The stacked clear studs look spectacular as water.

From Wikipedia: A star fort, or trace italienne, is a fortification in the style that evolved during the age of gunpowder, when thecannon came to dominate the battlefield, and was first seen in the mid-15th century in Italy.

Thanks for the pics, she looks fantastic, as always. How does she look in comparison to prefab ships (ie can she be displayed with the Pickle? Praetorian seems less likely to look good next to it)? As for the rigging references, maybe you could take a look at this? I can't make head or tail of all the jargon in it, but you seem much more knowledgeable about these things and as a period book aiming to be "a comprehensive English textbook of rigging, seamanship and naval tactics," you might find it useful, there's pages and pages on studdingsails, tops, and blocks just to name a few, there's really a lot in it.

Thanks again everyone. Holy MegaBlocks, are you a LEGO designer? Congrats! Thanks for 'working your megablocks off for us.' If TLG were ever to release a huge, realistic, exclusive set for the Pirates theme though, I'd really prefer it to be a ship. My previous 48 gun frigate was only about 3000 pieces, sure there's a lot of special pieces in there like 24 prefab cannons and such, but I'm sure they could make a really nicely detailed smaller frigate (the Surprise for example ) for around $200, if only there was a market for that sort of thing.

It seems sketchy to me. Besides, you can get the Black Pearl used off Amazon (since you don't care about having a box or instructions anyway) for less than from Coffeehots, because of the free shipping (Amazon = 77.88 + free shipping, Coffeehots = 69.99 + 10.00 shipping fee).

. . . Ouch. At least he had a good run, and you didn't lost too much (besides the dye). Are you going to max again? Maybe you should try maxing a different class this time, as you have 5 stars on the Necro slot already.

May I ask why the project got terminated? I love each of these little MOCs, I'd love to see then unified in a diorama. I like how you updated the Islanders, with the brickbuilt canoes and island for the head statue, while keeping the original charm. The rocks in the archway are crazy, how are they all connected?

Just wanted to point out that series 8 of the Collectible Minifigures Series brings with it . . . lace collars! Didn't know if it warranted a new topic, but I figured I would post it in here in case some pirates don't come in through the frontpage (I usually don't). I definitely need to get some of these.

Oh my. I've never been much into the CMF series, so I just gave these a quick glance when I saw them on the front page. But looking at them again, I see . . . pirate minifigures!! All three look fantastic, I'm going to have to get a bunch of those. Really, they look amazing. I've wanted neck-gear like that for my figs for soooo long.

:wub_drool: This ship is too awesome. The innovative techniques, attention to detail . . . megablocks. Edit: after staring at the pics for a while longer one thing that bothers me is how the side of the very first gunport of the bottom deck is exposed. Can't think of a way to fix it besides shifting the whole thing back one right now though. I assume you would've already changed it if it were really conspicuous in real life though, so I guess maybe it's just the camera angle.

It's a very nice start actually. Nice to see some USS ships, us Yanks are lacking in seapower atm. All the major things are there, just needs some refinement. A couple things I would change: - Instead of railings all the way around there should be a partial gundeck on the top deck - The Constitution doesn't have a beakhead, so, unlike most of the ships on this forum, your prow should not dip down, rather it should look like this - The cabins on the bottom deck aren't very realistic, I think it should be the hold so rather it should have stores and a magazine. Cabins for the officers and such should be on the same deck as the captain's cabin, just forward of it To deeplink your pictures: 1) click on the picture in your photostream once: 2) click "view all sizes": 3) click "medium 800": 4) control-click on the image and choose "copy image URL": 5) paste that into the image thingy on EB.

Thanks for the brilliant review ISC! I really appreciate the closer look at all the parts of the set (esp. the interior side) that the previous review didn't cover as much, really helps me make up my mind on whether or not to sink $130 into it. For me the problem is, like you said, that the Helm's Deep from the movie is so iconic, so ingrained in my memory that when I see the set, that's all I can think of. To use it as something else would take quite a bit of modding, which is what I'm planning to do when I get it, actually--I think that, minus the Hornberg and with some other edits, it would make quite a spiffy dwarven fortress. I disagree. No doubt she was influenced by LOTR, as many modern fantasy writers are, but to despise the Harry Potter books because you think JK Rowling "flat out stole her ideas" is ridiculous. Besides the fact that borrowing other writers' ideas is an accepted practice (and Rowling definitely doesn't cross the line from 'influence' to plagiarism) , Tolkien himself had numerous influences. And while, as countless other stories do, they both follow Campbell's hero's journey, the difference between them all is that they each simply repackage it into a different world. As your own article says, with a quote from Prof. Tolkien, "It is precisely the colouring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count."

Go find that thieving kid who took your castles and beat him up. Welcome to EB! Not really a train fan myself, but I the classic Castle and Exo-force sets. Peeron has a pretty comprehensive library of instruction scans. As for Chowren toys, I've never used them myself but Brickset seems to have endorsed them so I'm inclined to think they're ok.

Looks great, I love the stern decorations, I'll probably steal those at some point. The red colorscheme is really nice as well. I am wondering though why you attached the winch thing in front to the sails? I think it's supposed to be a capstan, just a different version used on smaller ships, can't think of a more specific name right now though (I'll try to find a pic). it's called a windlass, here's a pic: Pic from here by 'Cindy Vallar'

RIP, everyone. If you're going to play Archer, I suggest getting enough pots to max him 2/8 (Attack and Dex) first. Should cost around 25 def. At that point the Archer becomes a powerhouse, capable of tearing through all godland mobs. Good for Oryx, too; with their pierce effect, it's easy to get all three arrows to be hitting Oryx during minions and artifact stage (something Necro doesn't do very well IMO) for almost 200 damage, and during other phases you can feel comfortable standing back because you've already done enough for a soulbound (don't have to risk doing the dance or moon phase, for example). The quiver is also nice for the "If I see you" phase as well as paralyzing Oryx when he starts running around.

Nope. They're really lame though . . . my mules shot off a bunch in the nexus just for fun and it was really underwhelming. Might as well just play Huntress and shoot off a couple traps.

During the summer I do more stuff outside of the house so when I get back I'm too tired to fight with Oryx. Also, I started getting bored (blasphemy! ) of the game a couple weeks ago so I just quit. But heck, I'll come online now and level a wizard or something.

Wow, this is fantastic! I love how organically everything's laid out. Lots of cool details in there but my favorite is the pikes (?) in the Templar Chapel's windows.

Thanks all! Thanks! Yeah, the cannons bug me too. I had them all brickbuilt at first, but then I thought it was ridiculous to have a land battery mounting guns of a smaller caliber than a ship. Looking at the pictures the fort does look very cluttered though, so I think I'll experiment with swapping out the 'official' barrels for some kind of brickbuilt solution so the cannons overall look smaller but still have a heavy look. And about the SNOT bastions, I think the beginnings of the idea came when I looked at the prow of Matt22hew's HMS Gauntlet. Then I forgot about the idea for a while until I was on a plane going to California maybe two weeks ago, and when I looked out the window as we took off there was a Vauban fort right in the middle of Boston Harbor (later found out it was Fort Independence)! Which was awesome, and inspired me to get going on designing again. HMS Reliant, thread is here. Sure, here ya go. If you want the individual modules too just let me know and I'll upload them too. Looking forward to the tutorial update!

Hi all! Haven't posted a MOC in a while as I've been too busy, now that its summer work has cooled off quite a bit though which is great! This is just an improved version of my original fort design, I've been wanting to update it for a while. Built this in the last couple hours and as it's really late now I won't really say much, anyways, here's a couple overall shots: How it might look were you a minifig attacking it: Birds-eye view, showing off the geometry of the bastions and ravelins, which was the most major change from the last version as I thought of a way to capture them better, which I'm pretty proud of: Like V1 the fort is modular, with these four parts (actually there's another one that's just the door section without a door, but I didn't bother to screenshot it), so it's possible to make the fort much bigger than it is now--I built it this size, however, because if I ever get the chance to build it in real life (already very unlikely) then this is probably the maximum size I could do it in. And lastly here's the Reliant sailing by, saluting the newly built fort. Despite its size (I think the fort would fit nicely on a diorama for four 48*48 plates), the fort is still dwarfed by a properly sized minifig-scale frigate so I think my next project will have to be a couple sloops to go with the fort, I've been itching to try out Perfectionist's NewGen technique anyways. C&C welcome!

I agree with this. I just don't like the direction TLG's going right now, one of the worst offenders being the minifig designs--too much detailing, distortions of the classic minifig shape, etc. (Jabba's Palace comes to mind). The quality decrease (debatable, I guess), increase in licensing (my two favorite themes have been licensed) . . . these 'problems' are enough of a turnoff for me to have stopped buying fresh Lego from TLG (haven't bought a new set since 2010, I'm collecting the classic Pirates line to satisfy my Lego addiction =P). I see why a lot of people love where LEGO is right now though, and they're certainly doing well--it's just not for me.