ZCerberus

Not off the top of my head. Alot of people from Minnesota have either Norweign or German ancestors, I happen to have both. My grandmother might know of a region, but after you have lived in the US for more than three or four generations, you usually just say your ancestry is from a country without knowing much about them! We still eat lutefisk and leftse for major holidays when my grandmother cooks. Well, technically she cooks the lutefisk, I never actually eat it!!

Correct sir! In fact, I think the Emperor's ship is the only way to get old brown ones! Duke used the smaller version in his Xebec, and I think the larger ones on the Sienna worked out a little better than the smaller ones on his ship. Yes, this is a good piece! It looks like there are several useful pieces there, but I think some of them are already very system-y. That boat could be useful!

Ahh. Well then 30 to 40 isn't out of the question. I think the Arbiter II is on pace for 38-40.

I am pretty sure you mean Pheasant! Yes they are upgrades. I don't think iwas clear when I first showed the ships just how old they were! I might have to do something to harmonize the Fortune and Adventure as well! I am also considering building a final Imperial ship. I am planning on it being a schooner, but we will see!

Since the invention of Bricklink, we have a way to find some rather unique and strange pieces. One source that may have been unavailable to us previously are 'Fabuland' pieces, or pieces that would have been in the 'Belville' line. Since I have spotted a couple of pieces out there, and a few system builders have been using them in their MOCs, I thought I would find out if there were any pieces out there anyone has found particularly useful! Here are just a few I know of... 1. Belville Bucket. I have seen it used as a bell (by me) and as the end of a cannon or deck gun. The piece is quite useful for things that require a 'flared' end! 2. The Fabuland Oar eventually ended up evolving to a slightly different oar like the one in the Viking Sets, but it originally looked like this... Then we got this one in various colors in the Belville sets. It is avaibalable in some odd colors like lime green and yellow. When it made it to the system level, we got them in brown and black as well! 3. The Fabuland roof. This guy was recently featured in Phes's MOC. 4. Fabuland and Belville also have a slightly larger rowboat... I haven't used one, but it could be useful! I don't want people to just mention every Belville piece out there, we could search Bricklink for those ourselves, what I am hoping for is some suggestions on how these pieces are being used in our Pirate MOCs, or piece we know could be useful!

Indeed! But I think the bucket is actually a Belville bucket now that I think about it. Your roof sections are Fubuland all the way though. I also think Fabuland uses a larger, wider rowboat as well, and a couple different oars. I don't have those, but I would imagine they could be a useful part to have since the LEGO longboats just aren't all that long! Maybe we should start a topic for Fabuland and Belville elements that people have found useful in MOCs!

Well I tried to find some history books with information on Viking weapons and siege weapons, and none had anything! They always talked about long boats and that was about it. Yes, every history book on Vikings ever have mentioned that the horns are not realistic. This is LEGO® though, so it is okay to imagine them more as 'fantasy' Vikings as opposed to real Vikings! Also, I am from the state of Minnesota in the USA. We have a large Scandinavian population. I am of Norwegian and German descent, so I really liked the idea of the Viking line, even if it wasn't very realistic, at least it was fun!

Also, what is the vegetation springing out of the water btw? Well the initial idea is sound, and I think it could work as a single wall on a larger fort. The logs are okay if you were to think of it as a stone wall as the base, then a fort wall built on top out of wood... I guess the tower in the middle kinda hurts that view of it... but maybe they chiseled out the lower portion then built with wood on top of that? I would say all that really needs to happen is to just get some consistency... whichever approach is taken is fine so long as it is consistant!

It is a LEGO

Look at how much more <insert that tiresome argument> castle has become! I would fear the same thing in a rebirth of Pirates! Yes, it does sort of remind me of those, but I think just about any gray fortress would.

Here is the official bricklink name of the piece you have... It is a Red Fabuland Roof Slope (with or without Chimney Hole) If what you are after are regular ol' slopes... then the 'classic' LEGO

So what you mean to say is it will have one gun deck, and a main deck above that which will have some guns on it as well... I guess to me that is a 'two-decker'

The problem with LEGO minifigures is that they take up more space than a human would because of their inflexibleness and inability to stand at an angle. Crews of a ship that would normally take 100 sailors often get crowded at 40! Additionally, there are often at least one, and often more decks below the sea line where some men are sleeping etc. so you can often only put about half then men actually required to crew the ship since many of the men who would be below deck can't be. For this reason, I am not sure it matter how many I would think is sufficient, instead, given the constraints, I was just curious how many you thought you could fit, or were going to try to fit! 100 seems like it might be a realistic amount for a real ship, but I doubt you can fit that many on the ship.

30 to 40 guns on a single decker! Wow... that is going to one LONG ship if you are going to stick with the 3 studs between cannons spacing! You say that while both you and I are making two deckers on top of standard hulls! :-P

1 and 4. With the changes, how many guns do you think the ship will have? 2. What kind of sail plan are you going with. It looks like it will be 'fully rigged'. I definitely would add both main sails and roylas to the main and foroe masts. 3. How many will be in a completed crew?

Yes it is! It is even historically accurate to do the same thing to tall masts on larger ships as well, like on a Man-of-War!

Cool beans. I was a little disappointed with the bucket part though, I thought it would have a technic pin whole or something in the bottom of it, but alas, all it had was a stud receptor piece. Anyhow, thanks!

That isn't what I meant. I will be more constructive... I like the background picture. I think it is inline with the 'classic' pirate type structure, but I think it would need some more accessories at the least to be inline with a REAL system set. I don't mind the roof, but it is definitely not 'SYSTEM'-y enough. Torches or a lantern would be a good idea, but I think you are right in thinking for something this size LEGO® would use the pillar pieces and not a bunch of 1 x 1s. PM sent about what I was really trying to express...

Well I like the background picture. But I must be honest, I think there are MUCH better things to talk about on the forum besides this MOC. EDIT: Since this comment was view as potentially disparaging, at least by one member of the Eurobricks community, I apologize to anyone who thought I was being overly negative or expressing a view that this MOC is not worth discussing. All MOCs posted by our members are worth discussion, no matter there size, theme or purpose, this MOC included.

None got a lot of attention. Maybe because I posted so many, everyone just wanted to comment on one. I personally like the 'Bull' and the 'Double Engine' best, even if they are highly unrealistic. The Viking line from LEGO® was in general very 'technic-y', so I didn't really think much of it. As I said before, I am not sure Vikings used ANY siege engines, so realism wasn't the goal, expansion of the LEGO® viking feel, playability and a 'coolness' factor were.

So if you know how to use a sub-model and plan a head a little bit in MLCAD, you can quickly add similarly shaped sections, even large sections, to an MLCAD model. Since this is the case, I wanted to get an idea of the size of the Arbiter II. Good thing too, because I was considering adding two mid-sections, but reconsidered after seeing the size and I am only going to add one midsection as the pictures will show. I will also redesign the bow before I get to rebuild. Here was the quick MLCAD shot of the boat- without bow and details... the thumbnail takes you to a larger version of the same picture. And here are some in progress shots. The first one is the regular ol' sailors that will be rounding out the crew, and the other three are some of the building that I had enough pieces to do. The bell is a little big, but it is the only bell shaped piece I know of really!

The Covenant is done. It can be added to index. Link http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=223319

So I think I can official say the Covenant is now complete. Final images. The Brickshelf Folder

The upper portion will only hold well when connected with the rigging to the ship. the lower section and the upper section are not 'connected'. Look at boney's ship and see the cannon ball pieces he used to connect the two parts. While I was writing this boney replied, and said basically the same thing, so also see his ship. He also looked at the mast construction in my Arbiter II thread, so you can see that too.

Well in the United States discombobulated is not an unknown word, it is, in fact, probably in the vocabulary of most people who have graduated high school. I would even say we use it to describe objects more often than people. I would agree, the MOC seems a bit discombobulated. You still need to turn in your English homework though, I didn't get your metaphors and similes yet. (I am especially fond of the hyperbole parenthetically)