Kwatchi

Who says chivalry is dead? That was a fun little scene. It's a pity you had to make the portraits so small as it is hard to pick out details of the minifigs, but I can see there'd be space issues otherwise. Maybe a 250 or 300 pixel wide pic of your protagonists at the top, as a sort of header, would be a good idea.

Captured in November '617 by a trade convoy led by the Sirrus , the Marvel was a pirate sloop-of-war crewed by a buccaneer band of little skill and worth. A prize crew sailed it back to port, where it languished for months. During the Night of Fire (which occurred in Charlatan Bay during May '618), the Mardier Royal Marine forces were hunted down and slaughtered. Facing certain death, force commander Fleet Captain Jardines fled with a handful of loyal men aboard the Marvel. After coming to realization that they were facing charges of cowardice and incompetence upon return to Dortanix for the loss of the free port, they chose to desert and start new lives. Since fleeing to sea, they have repaired the vessel as best they can and taking some work as escort to free trader fleets. Such work proved surprisingly lucrative, if somewhat boring and financed much needed improvements. Using what wealth they had, the Marvel was outfitted with a new set of 12 carronades. With her sleek lines and professional crew, she has proven to be a surprisingly skillful brawler on the fair seas. ===/===/=== It took ten months, but I finally got around to building a MOC for this MRCA capture. While I put a bit more effort into the masts and rigging this time out, it still falls in the middle ground between "playset" and "accurate model". It also stretched my brown bricks collection to its limit which forced a compromise on my spar lengths. I also realized I had run through my stash of white cloth after starting the sails, which is why I switched to having them furled. But I am overall pretty happy with it even if the photos don't do it justice, and hope to keep it on display at home for a while.

A big change for Charlatan Bay has occurred. I am stepping aside and @Roadmonkeytj has become the new mayor and keeper of the greatest free port in Halos. Once we get the bureaucratic "fun" of the ownership transfer out of the way, expect great things in the future. Congrats to RTJ!

A very nice scene. Nice to see those decorative garden arches used - I have never managed to fit them into anything myself. I also like the Hussar and the back to the crowd. Not sure why Bishop Meloche is on the balcony though. Rest assured, he remains quite dead.

A nice clean MOC, but the photograph is impeccable! Nice shooting.

That is a lovely jungle temple. Nice work.

Oddly enough, I just found out about Book III through a BoBS group pm. Just to add a counter-argument, the Sea Rats' group PM has always proven useful for previewing your MOCs and getting faction feedback before posting them. It also bred a certain esprit-de-corps. GoH is obviously not the brick-boardgame that BoBS has morphed into, but I would not discount the idea. I'm heading out on vacation and won't be back until after Aug 1. After that I plan to throw my hat in the ring, which is unfortunate because one poor faction is going to be stuck with my really lousy skills and miserable demeanour. Go Nocturnus!... crap

Pretty

Sea Rat =/= Pirate. Blackflag = pirate What did Prio do again? Let's go through this then and figure it out. So Prio attacked a legitimate owned ship without warning. Definition = piracy. What brought this on? Were Prio aggrieved? Yes. The forms were mucked up (again) by us. Did they contact us to fix it? No. They went to Corrington instead. Corrington. What the Megabloks?! What did they have to do with it? Not only that, but that wonky form cost us a ship in the same month. FTA never even bothered to complain about it. Wrong button was clicked. Lesson learned and move on. Except Prio never did. They escalated. Every time a Sea Rat trade convoy messed up their forms (and it took 3 tries to get ERA 2 right... not a model record but we figured it out eventually. None of us signed up for Traders of Trade Seas mind you) things were worked out with the other side. COR got MkJoshA to play war games with them. ESL got the Bruhaha mini story & a colony level bump. Terraversa was simply ignored (out of exhaustion if nothing else). Prio attacked us without warning the next month and we are now defending ourselves. Why doesn't Prio get chastised? Why are we the only punching bag? At this point Prio is sailing a black flag fleet by the definition previously given, and now do so with corporate support no less. Calling it anything else is deliberate obfuscation.

It is about time the Council addresses this exact issue. If Romatiprio had at least given notice diplomatically beforehand I could stomach it, but as of right now an NPC nation is playing "dirty pool" and the Sea Rats are being essentially told to simply take it & like it or fight on all comers. They were pirates and we acted accordingly. The fun factor drains away with needless shenanigans like this.

Yikes. Working with Lego around a baby is a challenge. Glad you stuck things out with this build; it was a fun read.

Ha! Nice tongue in cheek write up. And even in LDD, the building is a treat to stare at.

Prio/Romantica (could we pick one of these btw and stick to it? Real confusing at times) is hardly flush in coin like other nations, or even players, and down to three active ships. Something of a failed nation state. OOC: Honestly, I think that @Captain Genaro & council have played this hand wrong but that is my opinion. It was a great story-line the SR created for themselves that is kind of mucked up now by inviting everyone else into a free-for-all. My 2 dbs.

Brothel my eye - that looks like a Caribbean resort hotel. Nice work.

The faux lighting on the "Smit" pic emulating sunlight was impressive. The fact you have pulled it off using Photoshop makes me lament my lack of skill. :)

Congrats Bart! And a gold mine is a fun build. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

The bow looks fine to me. It fits the build nicely now that the head-rails appeared.

Nice scene and story. The horse jumping through the wall is a bit disconcerting - brilliant use of the piece as a sign but it would maybe need to be on a brown background I think to get the proper effect.

Glad to see you back on the water.

Dismantling. I need to free those bricks to work on a project with my kids. I have ten weeks of summer vacation to fill up. Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Oddly enough she does have a tumbledown but I can't make my camera show it off and can't be bothered to take all the lamps in my house to light it properly ("never working with a black hull again" is another new rule for me) Frankly, just another reason this project needs to be put to bed.

The frigate Hand of Fate was commissioned by Bishop Meloche from the shipyards of the old world long before his untimely demise. The two decked warship was to have served as his flag ship, but found itself without ownership and was sold to a private concern. Its whereabouts are presently unknown. ===x===x===x=== This is a project that I am finishing simply to get it off my workspace. It was begun almost a full year ago and built up in stops & starts. When the Shipwright Guild Hall deemed it too short to fit the class 8 template in November 2017, it was torn apart and restarted once two new prefab mid sections showed up in the mail. Since then the bow & head rails have been rebuilt four times and the stern twice. Today I found myself with two hours of free time. I pulled it out of the closet and simply decided to finish it as best I could to end the odyssey. I declare it as done as it will ever be. I'm not completely happy with it aesthetically but as a "game piece" it will suffice. I certainly will never try my hand at a ship this large ever again; my collection doesn't allow me to work at this magnitude successfully. I was originally planning to do some rigging work but I just don't have the impetus anymore.

Captain Tom Howell seems considerably angry about losing his shirt and shoes. Someone should buy him some clothes to cheer him up.

lol

That is a clever roof idea on the blacksmith hut. Nicely done Phred.