Navy Blues

I previously posted that I placed an order for some 16th century ships from Tumbling Dice. Well, they have arrived, and I have some mixed feelings about them.

First some pictures of the unpainted product (sitting on my new sea mat)

First up - caravels. The one on the left is tipped on its side so you can see the profile a little better.
Note that my mat has a 1 inch grid. That should give you an idea of the size of the minis.

Some small galleys. I did not remove the flash from the two on the ends.

Two large galleys. The one on the left is on its base while the one on the right shows the base separate from the galley, and the galley is tipped on its side.

Finally, a galleass (left) and galleon.

Note that the above pictures do not show the separate sails, which need to be glued on. The galleys include a selection of furled and unfurled sails.

Thoughts

So what do I think about these miniatures?

Pros
The ships themselves look nice. I expect they'll paint up well, even for a bad painter like myself. I am especially pleased by the size. The galleass is slightly bigger than 1" but all the rest will fit into my grid well.

Cons

• Flash - compared to Tumbling Dice planes, these seem to have more flash. I suspect that it is easier to mold planes than ships however. I just finished prepping the caravels and small galleys and it wasn't too onerous.
• The bases - the bases are just too bulky and long for my 1" grid mat. Before seeing the figures, my plan was to ditch the bases and mount the ships on clear Litko bases. Alas, some of the ships are molded directly onto the bases. On others, the galley oar banks are molded directly onto the metal base! If I dump the base I dump the oars, too!
• The sails - the last time I bought sailing ship minis (back in the early 90s I think), they had the sails molded to the masts and I just had to glue the masts to the hull. Well, TD minis have the masts molded to the hull with the sails separate. It seems a bit fiddly to glue the sails onto the masts.

The Plan
I decided to start with the easiest and work my way through the rest.

• Caravels - these require minimal prep work. The bases fit into a 1" square so I can leave them be. Everything is molded in one piece so no gluing required. I just cleaned up some flash and will paint them.
• Small Galleys. the bases are a bit long so I chopped off the ends (the middle ship in the picture above show one with the ends removed). The ship is molded to the base so no gluing there. The sails are separate, however, and will need some gluing. I may just ignore them. After all, galleys generally used oars rather than sails in battle.
• Large Galleys - generally the same strategy as with the small galleys. The bases are separate so some gluing is required.
• Galleass - the base definitely needs to be chopped down; right now it measures about 1.5" while the ship itself is only slightly larger than an inch. Sails are a bit bigger and therefore less fiddly than the galleys so I may add them.
• Galleon - the base will get chopped. I definitely want to add sails; the galleon just looks bare without them.