Port Nelson for Pirate Borg

You may remember ScratchFort from a previous post? Well, here she finally is...

Port Nelson is a small port village found in the Buried in the Bahamas adventure from the creator of Pirate Borg. You can find the adventure over here.

The Easter Island monoliths are fish tank accessories bought from Amazon.

In that adventure, the port is little more than a collection of shacks and a quey. My interpretation puts it behind a palisade wall. When the player characters arrive, they will find it under attack from the natives, who in this case are goblins. The port itself will be run by a handful of Pirate Orcs and the PC's will gain the orcs favour by helping to defend the port against the savage's assault. This gives a logical reason as to why a group of orcs would permit Skeleton Pirates into their presence.

The Port itself is only meant to be a throw away scenery set and so isn't going to have any extra detailing, paint or features such as vegetation added to it. It's a one scene wonder that my crafting brain decided had to be built. I may turn it into an orcish fortress for something else later on. I'm thinking 15mm Dawn of Warhammer...

The lads within the port are a test here to see if everything can fit. The tents are from the boardgame HATE and are perfectly orcish. I haven't painted them yet, however.

The tower over the main gate permits up two miniatures.

The port side gate has a small, elevated platform to permit shooting and accommodates two miniatures.

The main gate should permit two models to fight side by side.

The main gate tower also permits the ability to shoot down at attackers.

So, that's the fort done. Now on to the next key things to finish for the game. The scatter terrain of crates and a bar and also the quey itself.

Borderlands - Bandit Leader Skullcap

 Meet Skullcap.

This is a Psycho Raider from the Borderlands Mister Torgue's Arena of Badassery (by Monster Fight Club). I wanted to make a low-level Bandit Leader in the vein of Nine Toes, the first Boss encountered by the player in the original Borderlands. So, I added some skulls and a gun to make the standard Bandit Psycho clearly stand out on the tabletop.

I then painted him up and added a LOT of blood to his buzzsaw axe. I envisioned that Skullcap kept the heads of his most ardent opponents as mementoes, with the skull of the worst protagonist being worn on his head and using it as both a cap and a drinking cup. He is a Psycho after all.

Not the clearest of photos, but you can see the blue eyes.

Now all I need to do is paint up his group of Borderlands Bandits. Yet another project to add to the painting table.

ScratchFort for Pirate Borg

ScratchFort (not its official title)

So, what do you get when you go to the 2 Dollar store, buy a round cake base, match sticks, stirring sticks, tongue depressor sticks, hot glue (for your glue gun) and some white glue for about $25 all up?

ScratchFort, that's what!

I'm going to need a small outpost for our next foray into the islands of Pirate Borg. In this next gaming session, the lads will encounter the beleaguered survivors of a small trading port under siege by Savage Tribal Goblins. The survivors themselves are also going to be a more civilised, sea faring goblin faction. They will have to save the port if they wish to have a future safe haven and trading hub to pawn all their ill-gotten gains. Enter ScratchFort (not its official name, but it will do for now).

The gates. A main gate (comprising two parts) and the single port gate

More to come on this but it's always good to post about the craft you do so as to potentially inspire others to make their own stuff. I could have 3D printed something. But I felt this would be a more useful employment of my creative skills. I'll show the finished product later when it's done.

Pirate Borg roleplaying game

 

The lads adrift at sea

Recently the lads and I have been playing a mini campaign of Pirate Borg using the excellent roleplaying ruleset (modified by my homegrown D20 ruleset of course).

If you haven't ever seen it, Pirate Borg from Limithron is a fantastic setting using the Mork Borg d20 lite ruleset located in the haunted Carribean. The book is a wealth of information with easily accessible charts that make running any pirate based roleplaying game incredibly easy.

So inspired and busy have I been in painting up miniatures, scenery, critters, boats and ships, that I haven't had time to post on the blog. So here is a summary of last Sunday's game where the lads escaped the Abyss, were attached by a ghost kraken met and traded with a Mermaid, came across an uninhabited island, then went to another island and ended up in a tidal Blue Pool where they were attached by Murder Crabs. Finally, they used coconuts to make cocktails from their run suppliers. And yes, the lads are all playing as Skeleton Pirates, because why not? It's a long story!

Anyway, enjoy the photos of their meanderings.

Murder Crabs!

"Ah, it's got my leg!"

Cresting the only hill on the deserted island

Exhausted, their NPC takes a rest at the tiller whilst the lads go exploring.

All the miniatures here are from Reaper Miniatures. The terrain is scratch built or cheap stuff I found in the $2 store. The mat is a Games Workshop Dreadfleet cloth mat.

Hi boys, have you seen my sister?

These waters are treacherous!

"I think I see something moving under the boat."

Back to more painting!