Fleet update

Reinforcement day has arrived, fleets are bolstered, pictures are taken. HMcT added a Flagship and a pair of Heavy Cruisers, while I added an Airship, a pair of Krakens, and a pair of Heavy Cruisers. In keeping with my promise to myself to not buy new ships until everything I already have is painted, I got my Battleship done, finishing it up this morning. Sort of finishing at least. I only got one coat of gloss varnish on before heading out to get the new ships. It's been raining on and off since then, so more varnish will have to wait. The ship itself is painted though, so I say it counts just fine. One day I'll put together a nice setup and get some quality pictures (especially of that mortar), but for now here are some quick shots. First the starter fleet:





I kept to a limited palate here: wood, red, black, white, bronze, steel. I had toyed with the idea of doing a white Battleship, a black Battleship, and then a red Flagship, but I really didn't want to paint a whole ship white. I also think it'll keep the fleet cohesive if they're all mostly red. Here's what my fleet will now look like at 650:


The list is such:
Battleship - 120
Airship -85
Cruiser/Heavy Cruiser squadron - 135
Cruiser/Heavy Cruiser squadron - 135
Kraken - 35
2 Frigate squadron - 70
2 Frigate squadron - 70

650 total

Sharp-eyed readers will no doubt note that I'm down a frigate in this picture. Whoops. The camera and ships are put away, so you'll just have to imagine. To help with that, the whole fleet:


The first 650 point match is on for tomorrow, so I hope to have everything assembled and primed by then. I work tonight though, so realistically I want to get the Airship assembled and the Heavy Cruiser turrets attached. Since most of the new additions are metal I'll have some extra cleaning to do, but it should work out.

In related news, I put my plan to cut some custom foam into practice. I have a case from when I worked at Blockbuster that I used. Once upon a time it held the gun for Lethal Enforcers on SNES, but now it holds something far smaller and more deadly. The case with a US insert for scale:


There are 4 layers of foam inside. The case itself is also lined with foam. Naturally templates and whatnot go on top.


A cutout for the Battleship smokestack.


And the starter fleet in custom glory.


The worst part of this was getting the sheets cut to fit the case. The actual ship cutouts were pretty easy. There's another uncut layer underneath the ships here, so I'm using about 1/4 of the case as it is. Hopefully it will hold the entirety of my Iron Dwarf fleet when it's completed, but we'll see if that works out or not.