The Flaming Scimitar

With its arabic theme and djinn's, The Flaming Scimitar is one of the most characterful models in Dreadfleet. It's got a real feeling of motion to thanks to those swept forward sails being inflated by the air djinn's great gust.

The Flaming Scimitar and Cog

It also turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to paint. Not the purple, or the gold. Purple and gold are pretty easy. Those sails though - those drove me a little mad. Many, many coats of paint were needed to paint those up and get a solid coat down. The worst bit was the designs on them though - even being slightly embossed, it was still a challenge. I'm not that pleased with the air djinn either; I think it looks messy and I may go back and redo it someday.

Overall though, despite it taking me over twice as long as Grimnir's Thunder and The Black Kraken combined and still not looking perfect, I'm pleased with it. I like the fire efreet, I like the little water spirits riding the waves. I am pleased with the overall look of the sails, even if they're not going to win me any prizes!

Next - something dwarfen.

Something from the Deep...

Without a doubt, it was the Black Kraken that really sold me on Dreadfleet. It made the set something interesting I might like into something I needed to have. Immediately.

I mean, how could I resist it? It's a giant mechanical squid piloted by a single mad dwarf, driven half insane by jealousy and half by daemonic possession.

Oh, and the model is awesome.

The Black Kraken and her Cog

I'm really pleased with this one, even if the highlighting on the cog is a bit scrappy. The thought of all those tentacles ripping and tearing the ships of the Grand Alliance (Dreadfleet's 'Good Guys') apart fills me with childlike glee. I am grinning now just thinking about it.

Next - something completely different.

Dreadfleet + Grimnir's Thunder

Dreadfleet is incredibly pretty. It also looks fun. It's not quite Man O' War, but in some ways it looks even better. I especially like the system for damage on the ships - I would love for something similar to be implemented for vehicles in 40k!

I love how each ship is a distinct individual with an interesting back-story and fancy pirate Captain. A self-contained game like this needed something like that to tie it all together.  If the box had just had an Empire vs Vampire Counts fleet in it, it would have been fairly soulless.

Unfortunately, I've not had a chance to play it. I'm not sure I will for some months yet. The reason for this is I've decided to paint everything up first. The idea behind this bonkers notion is primarily one of practicality. Most of these ships, particularly those with sails, will be a nightmare to paint once assembled and I don't want to risk damaging them by dry fitting them and trying to pull them apart - some of the bits, especially, again, the sails, seem quite flimsy. So, in what is a near first for me, I'm painting before assembly.

The other reason is that I've spent what is, for me, quite a lot of money on this game. When I finally play it, I want it to look like it was worth £70! Grey plastic ain't gonna cut it.

With that in mind, I present the first painted ship - Grimnir's Thunder! I knew that I wasn't going to be able to resist painting the great dwarfen dreadnought first!

Grimnir's Thunder and her Dirigible

All in all, I'm quite pleased with how she turned out. There's a couple of bits I might want to touch up later though, but I won't point them out! I think this does highlight one of the reasons I'm usually loath to paint before assembly though - joins stick out a mile. Once painted, it's a fair bit of hassle to fill them in again and make it look any good so, for now, I'm just going to leave it. Hopefully it won't notice so much on the other ships!

Next I'll have something else dwarfen for you.