SkaForHire

From the ground going up, I really like your tower. The one part I would change is the telescope. I feel like it looks unnatural, because even a telescope made today would not be able to hold the stresses of weight how this is attached. I feel like the telescope needs supports closer to the middle so it looks more like a large telescope. I know you have limited roof room up there, so perhaps even enlarging the roof surface, or draping the holding mechanism over the side (although that would limit some of the visibility / movement of the optics). Otherwise, Pretty awesome. I love that you added something unique to your tower that was clearly meant for more than just defense. It has inspired me to create a Royal Navy tropics magnetic and celestial observations post for my colonial harbor town I have been working on.

Has the LOTR theme actually been announced? I am sorry, I haven't seen the post. I don't think fleshies are the worst thing in the world. It gives a bit more diversity, and we can finally have mini-figures that are African. Which really mostly effects those people who work in Pirates / colonial themes most often. They look different, but I have no problems putting them into my armies. I guess it would look strange if you only had a few minifigs, but when you have thousands, it kind of seems like a good idea. Castle has not had this infiltration yet, so perhaps those who work primarily within that genre are still hesitant, but I think everyone else but townies are used to the slow surge of flesh colored figs. I think we see it as a tradeoff between getting cool sets with new pieces but having to deal with odd figs, otherwise it is not like we would see new sets in our themes as often. Back to this set... Looks beautiful, but I wish the back wall closed so that it could be used in a castle setting instead of just a display.

I would like to see a few more angles, but great subject. I like what I see!

I am currently away from my main collection (which includes most of the first wave pirates and the castle sets of the same period), but it is stored at my Mom's house where my nieces (3 and 5) frequent often. My rule is they can play with anything they want that does not have sails (I would not want them to get icky or ripped) and no mini figures that are not space or town (I don't really care about those themes but I do have a lot). They mostly want to play with the bricks anyway and build structures, and I have no problem with that. I have a MISB collection, but they are not getting into those. I play with the girls when I go home twice a year, they are pretty creative and give some fun ideas for possible MOCs (of course not building techniques, but just ideas). I have a godson that is too young now, but I plan on dumping lego on him over the years. I think playing with kids and Lego is a great use of time.

There had actually been a case some years before where Lego sent representatives to China to ask the government to shut down the factories. I don't think anything came of it, but in Europe I know they have had success keeping exports out, as in the case you mentioned.

Still, it is all the same. Shifty is a pretty good name for it all though. I heard that they were two different companies, one is a Knock off of Lego, the other is a knock off of the knock off. Anyone remember 11 years ago when Lego tried to convince the Chinese government to shut down different clone companies? I see it never panned out.

I don't think Indy 4 was all that bad, if you can erase a few of the scenes from your mind it is a good homage to die hard indy fans. Although they really should have just made it the end of WWII and detail his duties as an intelligence agent that they hinted to in IJ4. I did like a lot of the sets, but I didn't buy any because they didn't fit into my lego budget. I was really tempted to pick up a few when they started to clearance during the last wave but I didn't. When they first came out I was still collecting Exo-force (god only knows why) and Castle, didn't really have enough for a third theme. Then I went to grad school and never had money again lol. Still, getting back to the point, I think the Indy sets were well designed for the most part, just too expensive. I also agree that the theme had more legs under it, and we could have seen some more sets. Fast forward to today, the POTC theme is poorly designed in parts and extremely expensive. the QAR should not be more than 99 dollars. No lego set geared towards kids should be over 99 bucks. To think of the days when only the Metroliner topped 100 American, I miss the pricing back then! Out of curiosity, did the SES debut at the $99 price point? I feel like it was $89. Which is another problem with PoTC, the original pirate sets for the most part had more play features and were much cheaper. Even the last wave of pirates was much cheaper. I want some pirates of the Caribbean, I just can't justify buying any of them without a sale. The minifigs are great, and some parts of the sets are really attractive. I do hope they continue with the line, at least for a few British ships. Does anyone know what the sales figures were like?

I will say that I am tired of these fake pirates flooding ebay... It was ok when a few people were trying to offload Enlighten ships (if they were not all in china, I would have been tempted to buy one.) but now there are so many shifty and enlighten dealers that results pages are coming 50% or more of them. Nuisance! lol. I have two ships from an off company that I bought back in 1999. I cant remember what they are called though. All I remember is that it took two flat pieces to make a whole unlike Lego's 1/3 pieces. I know Tyco used to do this when they made bricks, but it wasn't them. Anyway, if the ship would have held together it would have been really nice, and at the time it was a good rival in war games involving large ships. I have since packed them up somewhere so I have no idea what they were called. But for my purposes, they were only good for war gaming - I couldn't modify them at all because their bricks would not stick well with lego and were off color.

That is pretty much the way it would have been. Spanish, French, and British Cruisers (and later Americans) were few and far between when in the Caribbean Sea, Coast of Africa, and Indian Ocean. This is why piracy picked up so much in the 18th century - all of those navies downsizes after the war of the Spanish Succession. I would wager that the odds were even worse for the navies of those countries at some points. I still wish Lego would make some more "good guy" ships. Especially with PoTC, let's see the Dauntless or Intrepid.

Porter's Essex, or at least his historic journey during the War of 1812 is a great role model for ship building. I don't know if you had this in mind when creating the ship, but I did appreciate the classic name (we had many Essexes in the early navy) and the look of an American ship. I built something close to the Brig Niagara from the War of 1812 about a decade ago, I had the same problem - keeping the decks looking the right size. I never really solved it. I hope you have better luck. Also, I agree, lengthen the ship it should look better. The stripe looks big now, but with length I think it will be fine.

He also diverted the question away from lego, saying in Total war that was possible for a first rate to go down to a bomb ketch, you said that was funny, I said it is very plausible. Back on topic, agreed with the SES, however the SES would have to have a superior crew and more men, and would probably have to win via a boarding action. Also, I would be so sure about no bomb ketches made by Lego, that Cross-bone Clipper is about as worthless looking as one, and has the same shape.

I am not sure what is so funny here, he has a point - mortars, bomb ketches, and fire ships are a big ship with low maneuverability's worst nightmare. I would say a rowboat with ten kegs of gunpowder could take down the IFS... However, the IFS is technically a small frigate, it would be almost as fast and just as maneuverable as the other large ships that lego makes. However, against and open deck ship (which all of the other lego ships are, even with a forecastle and sterncastle) the IFS would put the hurt on any of them. Just load the cannon with grapeshot, the opponent will not have crew to fire the guns any more.

Yeah, I had a big basement at one time, that's how we fought the battles, on the floor of a 30 x 20 space, with couches and stuff as "islands." I could never really display it. Even if I ever finish my port city, I could not display more than three or four of them I am guessing. As for the small ship from the trading post, I remember about ten years ago people were selling kits of these without the sails (you could try to get the sails on ebay, or just make your own.) I have not seen them lately though.

If I don't have 5 the forth one is a MOC. I am trying to remember. I am 1200 miles from my main collection right now - and have been for many years.

I don't think this has been said, but to the question of horseguard helmets, the dragon knight helmet does come in crome. I have a bunch of them from various sets in the late 90s and early 2000s. I think they may have made an appearance in one of the adventurers sets since then also. I have been wondering where the guard fits into my army also. I think as ceremonial guards, band leaders, or some other non-combat position. Although, at 3.59 a pop from TRU, it is hard to justify building an army. But it is one of the few I know the bump pattern for, and I do pick them up. (I also pick up the Dwarf, and I would pick up the gladiator too if I knew the pattern) Does anyone know of a site with the bump patterns for the newest set of minifigs?

awww.... this thread again! Just to let you know, there are at least two thread like this on this forum from over the years - I am pretty sure I may have started one lol This one has much more participation though. I found out recently that I actually have MANY more ships than I thought I had. I am thinking if I don't get a real job soon, I might start selling the fleet. At the house I currently live at: In box: 3 BBs, 1 new IF. Built: 1 new IF, One Skeleton Ship that my pirates have commandeered, the Ork battleship, now crewed by merchant marines. In storage: In box: 3 RBR 1 SES 1 IF 1 Time Cruiser Vessel ready for refit 21 Of the Adventurers Junks Built: 2 Adventurers Junks 3 SES 2 BSB 2 CC 4 or 5 RBR 3 AF 3 IF 1 RR MOC Built: 3 Large hull ships 3 Small hull ships 2 Pirates JR hull based ships I have the parts to build over 20 more ships of various caliber. We used to have mass fleet battles in my basement, now that I have no one to do that with, I am not sure why I am still collecting new ships once in a while. The New IF was just too beautiful to pass up on. I will probably get the POTC ships on deep discount if that ever happens. But, in reality, I am probably done buying ships for pirates other than one copy of the newest to come out. Always looking for figures though! I am slowly working towards building my colonial port city, but right now its looking more like a medieval port city since I keep using lego money on kingdoms, castle, etc... at least the two building styles are not mutually exclusive.

Wow, too expensive for a small ship, but then again QAR is too expensive too. I still have not got any of the POTC stuff... I think right now deep discount POP and Kingdoms is much better for the money. Although, like QAR, if BP goes on a buy one get one I would be tempted. More on the ship itself, The build seems pretty rudimentary to me. However, didn't the Black Pear have more than just the black coloring to it? I could have sworn there was some reds, greys and dark browns on the ship. Lastly, why is it Davey Jones and not Barbarosa? This should have been Barbarosa and his crew! I am guessing we are not getting a Flying Dutchman then. Why would we want bootstrap bill and that hammer head guy for this set? Maybe some redcoats as filler, along with Barbarosa's pirates.

Structural Racisim? No, realism is what I say. Life isn't all cheery, and unfortunately the line was historically in line with the timeline of the pirate line. People of the main island regions, Micronesia, Polynesia, Melanesia or the Caribbean all were at distinct disadvantage when facing European explorers / aggressor. Furthermore, a request to see more of the life of these islanders is not really needed because the sets that were included portrayed religion, fishing and their modes of transportation. Since these people are arguably Melanesian or Polynesian, their whole life is reflected in these sets. By all anthropological accounts their lives revolved around sorcery, religion, warfare, and most importantly fishing. IF they are Melanesian, then there actually needed to be more warfare in the sets, many more spears and warriors. There is no political correctness in history, it happened, it was unfortunate, but we shouldn't censor it from children. Besides, I can't think of a islander promotional picture / commercial where the islanders did not win. So i don't think anyone was portrayed improperly. But more importantly it is a toy.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I am just saying I would hate to discourage a certain type of building technique; either because a game was created or the board adopted an "accepted ship building practice." My main point for the game idea is, if someone is building a game, they should just run it and not discuss it for two months with everyone else. That is the best way to design a game in my opinion. I have designed a few games in my earlier career, and this seems to work the best. Going back to your post -On top of brackets, there should be a round robin or a season that lasts a month (maybe even with direct challenges) and then a playoff bracket at the end to determine champion of the season. That might spark me to actually break my ships out of storage and build something new. To reiterate, I am not saying we shouldn't have a game, I just don't want to see something become so dominant that people really don't build with their full imagination anymore.

A long time ago (maybe up to 12 years ago), in a whole different pirate forum we had a fleet listing which were put together in order to determine whose fleet would win in an overall contest. Only a few people wanted to participate because some people had very large fleets. So we made different fleet size categories, and a "build your own fleet" with a ship amount limit of 5 category. It really just ended up a long debate on what made some ships better than others. It was also clear that the guy with 50+ ships would win any battle and could take out the next 3 largest fleets on his own. What I am getting at was that this debate actually just sputtered and made people angry. I see that doing this to make a game would be interesting, but I think taking input on rules is a slippery slope. In all honesty, two people should just come up with some rules, post them, and play a game or two with them. IF the rules look too biased, then others don't have to play. They can even come up with a competing game. Then after two games or so, an open forum to discuss improvements would be good, because then others would know the game mechanics. I would like to see a rating system, the wargamer / boardgame geek in me says that would be really cool. However, I don't want to see 75% of the MOCers here limited by a set of rules. In fact, Evil Stevies Pirate game already creates a set of rules that some people try to build by - I find a lot of those models stale because they are conforming to the game. Although I applaud mass war-gaming at any level. Still, I would be interested in seeing what you all come up with.

Maybe I can add some clarification, I am a naval historian... There are two thoughts on the American uniforms, but in 1803 was when congress finally set a standard of Blue and Gold. The first thought was that blue was chosen because France wore blue also... but since the United States was involved in a quasi war with France in 1797 when the first actual regulations were written (in fact the whole American Navy was re founded that year to fight French commerce raiding) this is unlikely. The second thought is probably more likely, British officers wore blue coats. Every navy in the world wanted to be as up to date and as powerful as the Royal Navy. Emulation happened around the globe. It is likely that the United States copied the Royal Navy. Lastly, American Marines also wore blue coats, but they were much darker than the ones that Lego figs wear. By the style of dress, I would say that the redcoats would be British and the Bluecoats French during the 7 years war period. That is only if we HAVE to assign a nationality. So I would not say the blue coats were Americans, although I could see them as revolutionary officers, but not the Navy itself. Actually, on another note, the white duck uniform came about in the 1820s when it turned out that the American Navy did most of its work between the tropics and in South America. So by 1820, you had "white coats."

Which is silly, as they let the transaction go through. Actually, unless they really don't have them available in stock, it might be false advertising. boo.

So this worked for my order, but then I got an email today saying they could not fulfill my order! Doh! I don't know if it was related to the coupon or the set (PotC QAR)

Awesome... wish I was good with decals, they never work very well for me. Thanks for putting so much effort into these.

Interesting question. New Imperial Flagship BSB SES Eldorado Fortress Imperial Trading Post