Blood and Plunder: Painting the 6th Rate

I have been in a painting slump ever since November 2019. I have had this happen to me before where I go months without painting anything, however with the lockdown and the fact I really wanted to play with the amazing 6th Rate Frigate from so I found myself back at the table. I was fortunate that Firelock gave me a copy of the ship to try out last year during the Fall-In convention and I wanted to really do a good job on this ship. However, as many of you know I am an average painter at best.

First Steps
When you take the ship out of the box you really get a feel for its size and heft and I realized this was the biggest model I have ever painted. Besides the huge white hull, you also get 8 medium cannons, 8 swivel guns, gun ports, gun tips, 8-yards of rigging and enough wood (for the masts) to make a campfire.

After clearing out the flash of the model the first thing I did was take the boat out for a spin in my bathtub. While the ship did float the real purpose of this is to clean up the dust and residue on the model and a warm bath with some Simple Green and then let it dry overnight.

After this I glued the hatches and gun tips to the model. The hatches took some time and I used some short cuts to help me out. I already have a Sloop and a Light Frigate in my collection and I know that these hatches get knocked off a lot yet I could not find a way to secure these and I will just have to be careful with the model.

Priming and Mast Building
I decided to use the Krylon Tan Camo for the model’s basecoat. I felt this was light enough to make the colors on the model really stand out and it’s a cheap and easy to find paint. I ended up putting two coats of primer on the model and while it dried, I started to work on the masts.

My recommendation on the masts is to go to Firelock’s website and download the instruction on how to assemble the masts. The ship has three deck masts (Mizzen, Main, and Fore) and a Bowsprit that extends past the front of the ship. I measured the wooden pieces to ensure I laid the dowels that hold the sail are even and only made one mistake in assembling the masts. Once this was done,

I used a Cocoa-Brown spray to paint the wooden masts which came out perfectly.

The Hard Part
Painting the hull was not hard in itself but selecting the colors was. I ended up using a lot of my Citadel Contrast paints since the bottles I have are a mix of oddly named browns and earthy colors.

I did not solely use Contrast Paints; I used a bottle of “Old White” for the deck and some Yellow Ochre for decorative parts of the bow, just to name a few regular acrylic paints. I do not know why it took so long for me to select the colors of the ship, however the ones I selected really made the detail of the ship stand out. The contrast paints really did the job on the model and I recommend a few coats to get the right color on the model.

For some of the detailing, I used a Vallejo Brass and some Oily Steel along with some Sky Blue for the windows. Another two colors that I used on some of the cross beams were Vallejo Cavalry Brown which has a nice reddish color and some Saddle Brown for highlights. Once done I used a sepia wash on the main deck and stern of the ship and some blue wash on the windows. Once this was all done, I gave the model a matte varnish and then painted some details on the ship.

Rigging the Frigate
Despite once wearing this badge on my uniform; I am no expert on how to do this.

I decided to use one long piece of the elastic string for each set of the rigging, so it goes from the side of the ship up to the topsail. I did not glue the main chains to the side of the ship in case I needed to remove the masts to make the model easier to play with. The 8-yards of elastic string is just enough to rig the entire ship with about a foot left over.

As for the sails, I am going to hold off for now. From playing with the ships a lot I noticed they really get in the way and in my other models the sails are furled on the masts for the sake of ease. I think I will look for some third party made sails and see if I can use magnets to be able to remove the sails when I play.

Rating the 6th Rate

The 6th Rate is not the largest ship in Blood and Plunder, that honor belongs to the Galleon.

However, the 6th Rate is the biggest “ship of war” in the game and just looks so much better than the big and slow merchantman. It is a pricey addition at 25-points (same as the Galleon) to your force but to pick one up for your collection is more economical ($169 vice $299). So far, I have a Sloop and Light Frigate in my collection and I have recently really liked playing the double Piragua list I build, so the 6th Rate may not see the table too often but it will make an appearance very once and a while.

The model itself is really well detailed and despite my dragging the process out it was easy to paint and I would recommend that anyone who is on the fence about getting one should grab one while supplies last.