Age of Sail, Black Seas - The Brigs

Another acquisition earlier in the year was the starter US Navy fleet from Warlord Games for Black Seas. I have always had an interest in the period but this was the first time I saw something that grabbed my interest enough to get into it. The starter box for the US Navy gets you almost the whole damn Navy that served in the Atlantic. I think a campaign on the Great Lakes would be fun but the ships there tend to be quite a bit smaller. In the box are two of the big frigates; the President and the United States, three smaller frigates; the Constellation, the Congress and the Chesapeake. That gives you five of the original six frigates. The only one missing is the Constitution which was included in the bundle that I bought (which also included terrain!). 

I opted to start with the brigs of which there are six.

Two brigs per sprue, three sprues in the starter box

Instructions, not bad but they could be better. They left off talking about the anchors as an example or that the assembly sequence on the masts is really reversed

Three part hulls, pretty easy, no problems

Masts in place

Bow sprits added

And those odd, rear yardarms. Really those should have been added to the mast before it was attached to the hull. Not that it added any difficulty to the build but the instruction sequence is a little whacked.

After I worked my way through the first two the rest went together really fast. I think the hardest part was scrapping the mold lines off the masts.