Kwatchi

I'm not that experienced a builder (more of a collector), but this has me rather excited. Being a big fan of the Hornblower books, I've always wanted to try my hand at historic british-like builds. I won't commit yet of course, since things are still in development and I have far more Oleon blue related minifigs in my collection, but hopefully Post Captain Odysseus Pelter will be hoisting the Corrington colours sometime soon.

There is always the Lego Friends/Tarzan Minifig series chimp.

Well done!

I really liked the raft for a reason I can't put my finger on. Regardless, I'll enjoy following this thread until December 24. Who says my kids can have all the fun? :)

I'd concur. Those are very accurate reproductions, but Lego minifgs are very simplistic which causes a clash of asthetics for me. Not worthwhile to replace all my bell ended muskets at this point. One new thing I wouldn't mind are some clip-on bayonets. I can make my own of course using a grab tile and a tooth tile, but I'd rather have something a bit thinner; pure wishlisting on my part though.

I recently did the same and there was no issue for me as well.

Thanks for the taking the time to do the write up. I'm afraid I am personally a bit of a purist, but I still appreciate the effort you put into this.

I let my son make the decison for me. PS: Sorry. Not flogging my blog (which is more a personal diary), but I couldn't figure out how to post it directly in the forum.

I've been watching this thread for while as well (guess that makes a lurker), and I am also curious if this will ever materialize. I'd also like to know why it was titled "guilds of" rather than "fleets of"; the latter seems more appropriate imho.

Being in a somewhat similar situation Diggydoes, I may be able to pass on some advice. I am a long time castle/space collector, though I did have a few of the original smaller pirate sets from my childhood (Sabre Island and smaller). My son recently got into tall ships so a spent an evening pricing out the cost of buying the Imperial Flagship (10210). Just the pieces for ship alone came up to a whopping $365 US. Now over $120 of this was for the six mast pillar pieces, who's red-brown colour was unique to that set (the incoming ship may have them as well, so that price might eventually come down from ludicrous levels). With some judicous colour subsitutions for the sake of finanacial sanity, it comes down to a more palatable $250ish before shipping, which is still quite the investment. I had been slowly collecting bits via small orders once a month as a project, and keeping to a set budget was proving a fun challenge in itself. But, I had a huge stroke of luck last month and managed to acquire both the Black Seas Baracuda (6285) and smaller Carribean Clipper. The BSB is one hull section and one mast smaller than the IF and immensely cheaper on Bricklink. Were I to do it over, I would have simply bought the BSB (which is big already) and expanded upon it while using white sails I made myself. It would be far cheaper in the long run and I think the BSB had a better build concept for the mast/sails/rigging anyway. Speaking of which, there are a couple of good tutorials to read in the Pirate Index: "Building Frigates" by Captain Green Hair and a few making on your own sails. They gave me a better comprehension of what I was getting into, along with a touch of inspiration. Best of luck.

I am certainly looking forward to these sets. As a long tiem castle collector whose three year old son has a fascination with pirates, I could not come at a better time.

I normally just look on and enjoy the MOC pics. But I decided to come out of the shadows to say that how you built in the footprints that the troll left in the snow was a sheer brilliant idea IMHO on top of a top notch build. Kudos. Now back to under my rock.