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Ahoy!
I noticed TRU Chatswood still had a few of these left at the pre-Christmas
price of $A109, and after umming and ahhing for a while I decided to
purchase one.
I knew its reputation as the worst of the large ships, its dinky battle
damage function, its skull transom, and its sub optimal colour scheme. But
I've never owned a large pirate ship, and I was pleasantly surprised by the
Armada Flagship, so I decided to take a chance.
THE GOOD:
A decent sized crew (far better than the Armada Flagship) who seemed well
suited to different positions aboard. Not only is there clearly a captain,
but there's also a clear (in my eyes anyway) first mate.
The size is impressive. The ship is beamy, the masts are tall. There's space
in the cabin. You can put cannon's out the gun ports (and there are gun
ports) on both sides at once.
The size of the set is impressive, and the cost is not too bad
($A0.16/piece). Much better value than the Armada Flagship (which is not a
bad set in itself).
The skull transom really impresses me. I like the way the white half-arches
are used to add some depth to the design. Very cool. Though I suspect it's
not entirely realistic ;-).
THE BAD:
The sails. Not only are they printed with piratical designs and shot full of
holes, but there simply aren't enough of them.
The battle damage. Well, not so much the battle damage, but the design
problems which arise: the forward stays/ratlines don't reach the deck, there
are holes in aft cabin.
The cannons. Well, the (firing) cannons are great, and I can even understand
them giving us only a single broadside's worth, but including only three
cannons - when there are four cannon slots in the model - is just cheap.
THE IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE:
The forward ratlines need to meet the deck. This shouldn't be too difficult,
either by raising the rail or adding a ladder.
I need to go out and buy some unbleached calico to make some more sails. I
reckon two the size and shape of the included ones, plus two slightly
shorter and broader one's rigged below, and a jib or two (definitely two),
should do the trick. And come up with a better aft sail too. Early
experiments indicate that simply double ranking the sails will make the ship
look *a lot* better.
Fill it with cannon. I can fill the cannon tracks (both sides) using my
stock of red based cannon, and still have a pair of cannon left.... and
there's definitely space for another cannon track on board ;-). Shouldn't be
too difficult to build another one in.
ARMADA FLAGSHIP Mark II
As an experiment, I built an Armada flagship (with an extra centre hull
section from a second set)using the RBR instructions (more or less) for the
bow, gun ports and aft cabin. I fitted in four low level cannon slots and
gun ports (though I couldn't fit the raised aft slot in).
The revised flagship keeps the fore and aft masts of the original, with an
extra mast added amidships (also with a big armada sail). The spare lanteen
sail works very nicely as a jib.
CONCLUSION:
Anyway, I highly recommend the RBR. It may not be anywhere near as good as
the earlier big ships, but it has huge potential.
The Armada Flagship is cool too, but I think you'll need two to build a
great ship, while the RBR is much closer to being a great ship on its own.
(Just stock up on those cannons from S@H!)
Pics soon.
Cheers
Richie Dulin
PS If anyone coming to LUGFEST wants either an Armada Flagship ($70) or a
RBR ($109), let me know, I'll be able to pick them up during the week.
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: In praise of the Red Beard Runner (6290)
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| (...) I also note that the rigging of the sails in the RBR is much better, and have modified my AF accordingly. Anyone who wants to be in on Brikwars and doesn't have a ship, I can bring it if you want. You'll have to provide the crew, though. BTW, (...) (23 years ago, 21-Jan-02, to lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: In praise of the Red Beard Runner (6290)
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| In lugnet.loc.au, Richie Dulin writes in praise of RBRs and rightly so. Its a lemon of a ship, a sodden, gap jointed, high riding, under-gunned, badly strung tub, destined for Davey Jones' Locker on her first encounter with anything more (...) (23 years ago, 21-Jan-02, to lugnet.loc.au, lugnet.pirates, lugnet.reviews)
| | | Re: In praise of the Red Beard Runner (6290)
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| (...) [snip] (...) I've made some minor changes and added some sails. I used the RBR sails as templates for the topsails and the gaff, used an Armada Flagship lanteen as a template for the jib, and extrapolated the mainsails from the RBR topsails. (...) (23 years ago, 12-Feb-02, to lugnet.loc.au, lugnet.pirates)
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