Ships off Haiti, part 1

Some progress:

Here are the contents of the Haitian rebel ship package - hulls, masts, bowsprits, funnels, and deck guns!  Fortunately, there are good pics of the assembled models on the FB page, and line drawings in the Salnave's War book.  Phil (of Spithead Miniatures) also sent a helpful e-mail detailing some of the differences he decided for the models, and suggested painting guides.

After a bit of sorting, the models are ready for assembly.  I need to review my basing plan before going much further.

Last but not least, the government squadron is sorted.

Back, again?

I am trying to get my wargaming 'sea legs' back!

A new arrival has piqued my interest:

These are 1/1200 ship models from Spithead Miniatures for the Haitian Revolution (Salnave's War) of 1867.  Also pictured above is an ACW 90-day gunboat and USS Benton.

To accompany these wonderful models, I picked up a copy of this:

This slender book is a concise source of information for the vessels and battles at sea during the revolution, including maps and drawings of all the ships present.

Great Lakes, part 1

With my recent order to Waterloo Minis, I added a sampling of the Langton War of 1812 ships:

Here we have a pair of schooners that could be used for either faction on the Great Lakes.  Each model is comprised of five cast pieces - hull and masts - and a set of photo-etch sails.  Beautifully cast in the Langton manner, and oh my, are they small.  Each square on the grid in the pics is ¼" (6.35mm) - the hulls are less than 1" (25mm) in length.

Anglo-Dutch, part 3

The second pair of miniatures for my Anglo-Dutch naval project recently arrived.  These ships are Langton, and they were purchased through Waterloo Minis:

This is Langton AD8, a British 4th Rate vessel, 48-56 guns.  13 pieces total.  I decided to try cast sails for this batch, just to see how much difference there will be in assembly compared to the photo-etch variety, plus they were a bit less expensive.  Beautifully detailed, as one would expect from Langton.

This is Langton AD14, a Dutch 4th Rate of 46 guns.  Again, 13 pieces make up this model, and again beautifully detailed.  It is interesting to note the size difference between the two 4th rates - the British ships are a fair amount larger than their Dutch counterparts.


The easy part is now complete!  Next is to figure out basing and rigging essentials, as I want to have all of the supplies present before I start any assembly.

The return of an old favorite, with a twist

Along with the Anglo-Dutch ships, I purchased a few miniatures for an era that I once played extensively - ACW naval:

These ships are part of a new series of ships from Thoroughbred Models.  Thoroughbred is well-known for their line of 1/600 ACW ships, and I once had quite a few.  They were sold years ago to make ends meet, but now I am ready to return to the genre except that my new collection will be in 1/1200 scale.


First up is CSS Arkansas:

Just 43mm or so in length, this model is a bit small but the detail is very nice.  This is a one-piece cast, although there is a flagstaff and flag included with the kit.

Here is a port bow shot:

Next is a Union 90-day gunboat:

This model is more complicated, with masts, bowsprit, foredeck, and a pair of separately-cast guns.


Following these is another Union vessel.  This one is an armed ferry:

Not a big ship at 37mm in length, but there is a lot of detail including a very nice 'walking beam' assembly for the engines.


Honestly, I find this project to be much less intimidating than the Anglo-Dutch ships, simply due to the greatly reduced amount of rigging needed per ship.  Some of these will required little to none.  Of course, once I get to USS Hartford, things will change!

Anglo-Dutch naval, part 1

This is the start of my newest naval project; just a pair of ships but I find it to be very daunting.  The rigging of these ships will be the hard part for me to overcome!

Here is the first step - a pair of lovely 3rd rates in 1/1200 scale from Langton.  (Edit:  purchased from Waterloo Miniatures)  (and the ratlines are sold separately!).

Inside the box one will find:

Above are the parts for the Dutch 3rd rate (Langton AD19).  The hull is three pieces, while the masts and sails comprise a total of 15 pieces.  All of the wonderful details that one expects from a Langton miniature are here.

The parts of the English kit (Langton AD9) are similar.

Please note that these miniatures are not very large.  The pics above are on a ¼" (6.35 mm) grid.  The hulls are less than 2" (51mm) long overall.

Ships from Valiant

Yet another new arrival:

These miniatures are from the Ramming Speed line from Valiant Enterprises.  At 1/900 scale, they are right between the almost too small (for me!) 1/1200 ships and the oddly shaped 1/600 line from Xyston.  I just can not put my finger on why the Xyston ships look off to me, but I am finding that I really do not want to work on them.

The variety of ships above were selected in order to flesh out my idea of what types of miniatures from Valiant could fill out the roles for Tékumel naval gaming.  Since the Valiant selection is limited, I am being careful about filling those roles in a fashion that is easily identifiable on the table top.  The information on the Valiant website has the triremes at the same length as the quinqueremes, so I am hoping that the wider beam of the quinquereme will make up for that.


Here is a comparison pic:

Each square is ¼".

Lots of good news in this pic.  The triremes are slightly shorter than the quinquereme, which is good.  Also, the triremes have a noticeable difference in beam from the quinquereme, and this will alter even more once the oar banks are attached.

 In my mind, the ships types will correspond in the following fashion:

     The pentekonter from Valiant (not shown above) will represent the Tékumeli séscha;

     Triremes will be the srügánta;

     Quinqueremes will represent the qél;

     Heptares and dekares (not pictured above) will be the Tékumeli zírunel.

The Valiant ships are plain enough that modifications will be easier than on the Xyston models - I intend to try to make some ships that look something akin to the ships illustrated in this wonderful post about Tékumel naval actions.



Although it seems simple, that bit of organization posted above is a weight off my shoulders!

New project, and old

Just a quick pic or two:

On the left, my new 1/1800 ships from WTJ, with a pair of extras that were sent just in case some of my order fell afoul of a production problem.  Awesome service from WTJ!  Now, for some primer...

And on the right, one of my 1/600 Xyston ancient vessels, and assorted bits.  I am going to take another look at this scale for my Tékumel naval project.  One item that I can see already is the size of the 'castle' from Xyston.  It seems to be slightly small.  A scratch-built replacement might be in order.


Lastly, the Tékumel naval project got another boost with this:

I finally purchased my copy, and I am looking forward to reading through it again.

Ships from WTJ!

Finally had some time to post this... my small, test order with WTJ arrived some time ago.  I ordered just a few ships - SMS Magdeburg and V167 for the Germans, and cruisers Oleg and Bogatyr and TB Boiki for the Russians.  Here is a quick pic:

Bogatyr is the top, Magdeburg is the bottom.  These ships are in 1/1800 scale.  The translucent material makes it difficult to get a good photograph of them, so once they are primed I will take a better set of pics.  Right now, they are soaking in some soapy water...

Galleys & Galleons, part 2

After a multitude of delays, from holidays to a pronounced avoidance of the painting table, a small measure of progress has been made.  Here is a pic:

This is the assembled Figurehead small English squadron for the Armada period, in 1/2400 scale.  These vessels are not very large - those bases are 40mm long and 20mm wide!  But, for small miniatures they are very nice.

Here are some close-ups:

The largest ships are these:  FR30 Race built galleons, based on Ark Royal.  One can see that there is a good amount of detail, including flags from each mast.  These miniatures are three-piece kits, with the fore and main masts being separate from the hull.

The other two large galleons are:  FR31, based on Revenge.  These are also three piece miniatures.

Here are three of the six small galleons (FR32).  This pic only shows three, as I had misplaced the other pack until just before the squadron pic was taken.  In contrast to the larger galleons, these smaller galleons are one piece castings, making assembly just a matter of removing a small amount of flash and making sure the bottom of the hull is flat.



Last but not least:

This is pack FR34, showing a large pinnace (left) and a galleass (right).  One piece castings, these small ships still have a lot of detail.


Unfortunately, my slow pace of assembly/painting means that the next game of Galleys & Galleons will use the counters again...

WTJ strikes again!

The ships are just flowing out of the printers at War Times Journal - now, there is a new line of ships:   World War One ships in 1/1500, 1/1800, 1/2400, and 1/3000 scales!  Check this link:

WTJ 3-d printed WW1 ships

Just Germans for now, but soon the Royal Navy as well...

And, for more pics, see this great new blog:   Red In The Morning

(Not my blog but go visit just the same!)

Langton ancient ships, part 2

Here are some closer looks at the recent purchase:

Egyptian Warship of Queen Hatshepsut

Egyptian Warship of Ramses III

Warship of the Sea Peoples

I am still digging into some research on the fleets, but the fleet lists from Naumachiae list several types of ships for both the Egyptians and Sea Peoples.  It would be interesting to get a mix of ships, especially for the Sea Peoples, as they were a loose confederation of tribes their ships should be different also.  It is interesting to note that this Sea Peoples vessel was modeled without oar banks.  How hard might it be to add some?

A slightly different direction?

I recently became the proud owner of some new ship miniatures:

More Langton ships, all the way from Down Under courtesy of Ian (who has a fine blog at Thomo's Hole!)  The package included ten Bronze Age Egyptian and ten Sea Peoples ships along with bases.  Of course, what to do with them...  The first course will be to integrate them into my Tékumel fantasy naval project, where, due to their older appearance and small size, they will be representing minor powers (the Tsoléi Islands among others) or perhaps pirates.

But, it occurred to me that they could be used for historical purposes also.  I could paint them up in historical schemes, and they would still fit in with the fantasy scheme.  Some sea battles circa 1200 BC might be fun, and it would not be hard to expand the collection, especially if some of the other Langton ships fit in time-wise, maybe the 20-oar galley or pentecontors to represent Mycenaean or Trojan ships  :)

Langton ancient ships

And now, a closer look at the Langton ships:

Deceres

Octeres

Hepteres

These are among the largest ancient ships that Langton makes.  For Tékumel, they will fill the role of the zírunel, the largest of the common classes of warships.  I believe that there are larger warships plying the oceans of Tékumel, but they are rare and I will not worry about them, for now...

Roman quinquereme

Carthaginian quinquereme

Quadrireme

Trireme

The next step down in size, these are slated to represent the qél for my Tékumeli navies.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the relatives sizes of these miniatures are very close.  This will allow a lot of variety, not only for different navies but also within a particular empire's navy (Langton has other miniatures of this size that I have yet to purchase).

Liburnian

Trihemiolia

Hemiolia

These three miniatures are markedly more narrow than the previous four, as well as being slightly shorter.  For Tékumel, I think these will work as the srügánta, although the hemiolia is a bit smaller than the other two and might be better as a séscha.  Out of these, the liburnian is especially appealing with the stern platform.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the appearance of these miniatures.  There is still work to do, as the representation of a séscha is not fully set yet, and there are a couple of trireme variants I would like to look at before setting it all in stone (heh) for the building of some flotillas.

Fantasy naval, part 1

The first set of ships has arrived - from Valiant:

A trio of Heptares.  Although a length for the miniature is given on the Valiant web site, I was still surprised at them.

Here is a closer look:

Looks like assembly will be straightforward, although I seem to have too many starboard-side oar banks (see the bottom ship in the above pic).  I will send off an e-mail about that.

No matter what scale I finally choose, and I can see using a combo of 1/900 (for larger ships) and 1/1200 (for the rest especially cargo ships), I intend to use some of the ideas found here.

Austrian ironclads, part 3

Not really an ironclad, this is an unarmored wooden steam vessel from the 1/2400 Figurehead line:

I intend to use it as the Austrian frigate Novara.

Building this one will be a bit different from the previous ironclads, as it appears that the fore and main masts are carried over from the Figurehead sailing ship lines.  The ironclads from Figurehead have the mast as an integral part of the hull, with the sails being separate, and the sailing vessels have the masts+sails as separate pieces.  Cutting the sails from the masts would be a delicate task; it will be easier to make a new set of masts.

Austrian ironclads, part 2

After a long delay, I decided to get the shipyards going again.  Here is a brief glimpse:

Drache

Kaiser Max

A couple of Austrian ironclads to get the ball rolling again.  I am cutting the masts down somewhat, as I understand the Austrians ships, at Lissa, had reduced their rigging in advance of the engagement.  It will help differentiate the Austrians from the Italians, although the hull paint will cover that!

Old projects, part 1 - Figurehead ships

I have been slowly sifting through boxes of hobby stuff, and some surprises have been uncovered. There are some pics of some items over at my other blog, but the discoveries have not been of a naval variety, until now:




I was quite shocked to find these! These are a nice set of Figurehead Ships ironclads in 1/2400 scale. I purchased these 9 or 10 years ago, I think, at a convention in British Columbia. The dealer had them at 50% off and I bought what he had left. Figurehead's selection is based on the Battle of Lissa, 1866, at the end of the Seven Weeks War. Now, I'm not sure but it seems that I have a good selection of Italian ships, but only 4 Austrians; not nearly enough for the actual battle. There are also some 'generic' steam ships, which I think I bought with the intention of using them as Turkish ships. Figurehead minis were originally cast in England, but they are now available from Noble Miniatures in the USA.

I assembled one of these fine minis, long ago:


Regina maria Pia, one assembled and one still in the bag. The mini is in four parts: hull w/masts, 2 sails, and a base. On the assembled ship, the base is augmented by a piece of magnetic strip trimmed to the size of the original base.


Not quite 1½ inches long including the base. The mini is very nicely detailed, with individual gunports and some deckwork.


The sails are well detailed also. In all, a fine looking mini!

This looks to be a significant addition to my list of naval projects. Although I am rather short on Austrian ships, there are enough to start working on learning some rules and then building up to the full Lissa fleet rosters.