It all started about one year ago….a good friend of mine who is a huge fan of Assassins creed bought some miniatures from Freebooters Fate, they resembled a lot like the assassins from that game. He also bought the rulebook and showed it to me, at first I wasn’t impressed because my history interests didn’t involve pirates. But after reading about it and looking at the other miniatures of the range I too bought some minis…I went for the pirates; we played a few games and the game system with the fate cards felt really promising. Recently three other friends took the plunge and ordered a starter each, so it was my turn to start making some scenery for the game.

When I think about swashbuckling adventures, I think about hidden treasure, ships, islands, etc….and I wanted to use all those things to start my next project, so without further ado.

The sketch before the start, which shows the first half of the island, when I am ready with this I plan to make the second half, so the island will be completely surrounded with water ( otherwise it’s no island right). Planning is crucial for such project, you constantly count with playability in mind. The island has to be easy accessible with multiple entry points to ensure that the defender is not invincible. On the island itself there has to be a good mix of cover and space for the miniatures to manoeuvre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first layout of the island

All spaces are wide enough to move a 50mm base through so I can use this terrain for multiple game systems like Anima tactics, although I don’t think it’s really suitable for warmachine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used wall filler to add some texture to the walls, I used a soldering iron to create the rampart cutouts, the walls are hand carved with a sharp dentist tool. All boarding planks have scratched grooves to simulate wood grain, and the planks on the stairs have little holes at the end so it will look like small nails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The palm trees are removable for easy storage, most plastic palm trees have a pin on the bottom, so I have cut some short tubes and glued them into the terrain.

Fine sand is added to the courtyard as well as the little beach section, small tubes are cut so the palm trees can be placed and removed for storage. Palm trees can be easily found if you search for cake/pie toppings and the other plants are just plastic aquarium plants spray painted with an airbrush.

Here are some shots of the almost complete port, I just need to add some paint here and there but that will be donin no time.

And the big mean giant who will crush everyone daring to touch the evil cow :p

Next will be a couple of islands with buried treasure, a native tribe and a jungle, I even have the idea of making some kind of giant octopus pulling a ship down, but don’t see the gaming advantage of such scenery piece despite from being an awesome piece of scenery.