u/Amazing_Twist_4383

We continue our coverage of the Playmobil galeons, today's subject is the legendary 4424 one of the best pirate ships and my favorite toy growing up, a ship that look apart among the other galeons both for her look and historic background, let's dive in!

The ship reuses the hull of the original galeon but in a unique black variant giving the ship a villanus look amplified by the blood red sails and decorations on the hull that come in the form of the stern castle and stickers placed along the hull; the sails are unfortunately solid plastic and rolled up making the ship look more like she's docking rather than chasing down some poor spanish galeon, however this sacrifice helps with playing as you have no sails getting in your way of playing with your figures on deck, the decision of going for 4 sails on the masts is a welcome one as it helps making the ship taller and imposing than what she really is.

The armament is bit lacking, the ship only has a single cannon but don't worry because said cannon is a massive one capable of firing a very large cannon ball that will make quick work of any smaller vessel and intimidate large ships into submissions.

This is not the only playfeature onboard as the ship also comes with a boarding rope for your pirates to use and a lot of interior for role playing, this include a decently large captain's cabin and in there's lot of space for booty in the hull.

As mentioned before the ship looks apart in terms of look making her definetely among the prettiest pirate ships of Playmobil, but looks is not the only unique thing about this vessel, to understand what I mean we need to analize the era in which she came out.

The ship was the flagship set of Pirates vs Corsairs sub theme and very approprietely was also the flagship of the pirate faction commanded by no others than the legendary, and historical figure, of captain Edward Teach that you might better know as Blackbeard!

This means that 4424 is non other than the legendary Queen Anne's Revenge, the most famous of Blackbeard flagships; we aren't sure what the real Queen Anne's looked like but it's easy to say that 4424 share little in common with the legendary pirate frigate (ironically shares more in common with the Adventure, another flagship of Blackbeard which was a bermuda sloop that according to most sources was rigged with two masts) but she remains a worthy placeholder, this makes 4424 the only Playmobil pirate ship that actually "existed" making her even more interesting.

Now time for the score, 4424 was not only my flagship growing up but also my very first Playmobil set and the only ship of my fleet left to these days that recently inspired me to start a serie of photoshoots dedicated to her adventures, looking back with critics eyes I gotta be honest, she's a bit lacking in the playfeature department, however her inspiring design, her imposing silhouette and her real life background just scream "Adventure!" and I can garanteed that it will encourage the creativity of any child who would be lucky enough to get their tiny hands on one of these, 4424 is the perfect ship for the seas of imagination.

Final score 9/10

Hello everybody! Recently I posted the first episode of a serie about the adventures of a Playmobil pirate crew of my own creations, the first episode went surprisingly well both in r/Playmobil and r/pirates and I got a few questions about when the next episode is coming out, so I decided to address everything in one single post.

[PRODUCTION]:

The production of the next episode has officially started days ago when it comes to writing, sets are yet to be built but I got my hands on useful ready to go set piece that will be used in many episodes to come, no photos have been taken yet but dw people! Everything is coming together.

[NEXT EPISODE RELEASE]:

Since the sets are still being built it's hard to give a release date, plus I'm currently working on my final exams of my academy (I'm a animation student) and those have the priority.

[FUTURE OF THE SERIE AND ISSUES]:

I have no idea how long the serie will be long but do not expect One Piece X3 I wouldn't be surprised if the serie will end by the start of September, this is just a hobby for me; this doesn't mean that I will stop doing photoshoots of my pirates dw but I'm not sure if after this serie a follow up will be made.

There's a big problem though, my pirates collection isn't as big as it used to, of my fleet only the Red Sea Barracuda remains, that's why I'm building my own sets with scavanger materials, and my minifigure collection is limited, I'm probably will be forced to buy new Playmobil sets for the future which is something I'm open to but I also have to buy stuff for you know.....survive, this means that production of future episodes will take even longer as I gather enough money to afford to buy toys as well, so keep this in mind.

That being said I'm very happy of how the first episode have been recived and I can't wait to show you all what's coming next, see ya on the high seas crew!⛵

When someone ask what's the best pirate ship made by Playmobil people often say 3940, 5135, 5736 and sometimes even 3750, all four are fantastic ships of the galeon category but I'm surprised no one ever talks about 4290, which I think it's actually one of, if not the BEST ship made by Playmobil and the best of the galeon category, so I decided to make a post about this underrated darling of the seas.

(DISCLAIMER: I never owned this ship but a kid in my childhood neighborhood had one and we would often fight eachothers ships in battles so I am at least very familiar with her)

The ship has a unique hull that would never be reused for any other ship (6678 is a ship that reuses many elements from 4290 but it has a quiet different hull that includes gun ports, which are a welcome update) giving the ship a striking silhouette, the ship has a elegant yet intimidating long bow remeanissing of historical galeons such as the Vasa or the Sovereing of the Seas.

Her four sails set up give her a striking intimidating appearance making her look taller than what she actually is, all previous and future Playmobil galeons had only 2 sails (except for 5736 but that one sails are of rigid plastic and are rolled up) which I always found a bit weird, such large ships need at least four and this delivers, the presence of a spanker sail is also welcome as it is a element that seems to often being forgoten by Playmobil designers; there's also a crane included in the rigging which is a welcome addition and it's great for playing.

The ship has one of the weirdest armament layout among Playmobil ships, the main armament is positioned on a eleveted bow castle plus a centerline cannon on the stern that can rotate 360°, I personally would have prefered if a lower gun deck like on 6678 was added because the ship does have blind angles of fire making her a bit underperforming in battle, that being said it has to be also said that it would have made the ship look a bit too much busy.

Now let's talk about the color scheme and overall asthetic, the ship has one of the weirdest color schemes of the Playmobil pirate ships and also one of the prettiest, Playmobil pirate ships when it comes to color schemes often go in two ways:

1. base of brown with added colors for decorations and details

2. dark color palette to sell the menacing pirate ship asthetic

4290 does none of this and goes for bright and light colors, the gargiant red, cyan and gold is all tied with a clean tan upper hull piece, the dark brown masts give a nice welcome dark contrast.

The ship also includes what I think is the best Playmobil figurehead, a simple skull that can rotate and hide inside the bow and replaced by a gold element; now we talked a lot about how appearance is quiet unique compared to other pirate ships, she looks almost....royal, here's why I think this is the case:

Other than the hiden figurehead feature the ship comes with a spanish armada flag, in the commercial of the ship the story goes that the pirates are trying to get a treasure of gold from a spanish fort, the pirates conduct a surprise attack on the fort by posing as a ship of the armada before raising the jolly roger and attack.

Now this is a bit of headcanon but the look and story of the commercial confirm it, 4290 is, or better say was, actually a large spanish galeon captured by the pirates to carry on this surprise attack, this explain why in the commercial the spanish did not immediately fired upon her, why there are spanish flags onboard and why the ship looks so regal compared to every galeon that came before and after, this can give a lot of option and can give you a fantastic flagship for your imperial faction in your pirate world, it is also a welcome addition to the small european imperial fleet, in the first years of the theme Playmobil used to give our imperialist buddies large warships, we saw a galeon and a large sloop based on the british Royal Navy but than the imperials disappeared returning many years later first with the spanish and than back the british, but in both case if we ignore 4290 the spanish got no ship and not the british that came after got a very tiny sloop, instead both factions relaying on costal fortifications, now in the modern era we saw some new imperial ships but they're all small sloops, this and 3750 are the only imperial galeon that we got.

Before I finish I gotta mentione the controversy that made this set infamous, in the crew there's a black pirate that wears a slave iron collar, canonically he is a former slave turned pirate but the inclusion of the collar is a bit off putting and I personally don't think was necessary.

Here we are at the end, 4290 is a fantastic unique ship that carries a lot of playfeature, story potential, versatility for your pirate world and is also a good looker, I might be bias as this ship is my white whale but for me 4290 is a 10/10

I've only recently returned in the Playmobil hobby and was surprised to know that the pirates theme was still a thing, I've seen the pictures and they're all great....except for the 2 ships.

I decided to make a post about it to share my view as a returning fan and on why I think these two ships are a let down.

Let's start with the sloop: the sloop as a pretty good hull not that different from previous pirate ships however I'm not a fan of the bowsprit being part of the hull though it doesn't bother me much, my biggest problem are the sails, it seems Playmobil has abandoned fabric in favor of plastic, a cost cut measure sure, which can be forgiven, what bugs me however is the jolly roger, I think it looks a bit too much detailed and a more minimal design would have worked better; overall the sloop is the better one of the two and I'd give it a 7/10 rate

Now, the galeon is the elephant in the room: now let's start with the good, the ship introduces a very nice new hull design that gives the ship a unique sleak silhouette, it gives vibes of a fast ship... unfortunately this is it when it comes to the good.

The worst part of the ship I think it's the kraken figurehead, in concept is a cool detail but in practice it ruins the previously mentioned sleak silhouette due to it being so big, the masts feel too thin and short for a ship of this size, interesting to note that this Is Playmobil first try at a ketch rig ship in the Pirates Theme (forward mast taller the aft one) sad that the concept was poorly executed; there are sweavel guns attached to the rope ladders....makes no sense and is off puting, the wheel is amid ship, this is because the ship sacrifice space for the captain's cabin in favor of a cage for sea monsters, while the playfeature is cool I think sacrifice the captain's cabine on the flagship of the theme is a silly idea, there were better locations to put this feature in.

The galeon to me is a major missed opportunity in the look department however it carries a lot of fun playfeature, so to me it gets a 4/10 score

So in the end to me it seems that the newest ships have been designed with playing being the mean objective, this is not necessary a bad thing however previous pirate ships kept playfeature while preserving the look, maybe the look is influenced by the more fantasy driven side of this wave of the Pirate Theme being about Pirates vs Seamonsters (a concept that I like), however I think they could do better

So wdyt about my take? Wdyt about these ships? Do you have one or both? I'm open to chat with all of you in the comment section :)

Ex pirate captain turned privateer Black Patch Bellamy was waiting a trap for Red Beard the whole time!

He and his crew board the unguarded Barracuda and steal her under Red Beard only eye; from the stern castle Bellamy mocks the former rival and friend

Captain Red Beard and his crew find a spot to relax on a tropical beach

Schools of fish gather around the Red Sea Barracuda while she makes her entrance in a safe spot

The Red Sea Barracuda have been out at sea for months, captain Red Beard decides to camp for some weeks on a desert island and looks for a safe anchorage, but the island doesn't seem to be as desert as he thought

More than a decade ago my grandpa built this for me, the Titanic II, a what if ships built along the lines of ships such as the Queen Elizabeth 2, originally she had 4 funnels but two broke off during play time when I was just a child.

She collected dust for years on a shelf until today when I decided to take her for a ride :3

Captain Red Beard decides to explore the island, it might be a good place to start a secret lair for his treasures

After a violent storm the Red Sea Barracuda ran aground on a uncharted island, unfortunately the grounding happened on rocks but the hull holded on and no holes were found, now it's only a matter of waiting for the tide