New ships at War Times Journal!

It appears that War Times Journal, a producer of 1/3000 naval miniatures, has greatly expanded their selection.  By shifting to rapid prototyping methods, several new ships and many old favorites are now available in several scales, 1/1500 (!), 1/1800, 1/2400, and 1/3000.

For more information, please visit their web site here.

Please note that if you are a fan of their pewter miniatures, you should get them while you can as they are being phased out of production in favor of the new material...

Part Two!

I had intended to continue the wall of text approach with my decision of a genre to pursue more closely.  But, I think it makes more sense to just cut to the chase and get going.  WW2 naval it is, specifically The Med as a starting point.

Now, does this mean that I am taking the narrow historical account?  Nope.  The collection will start with some hypothetical French/Italian actions, maybe even as early as 1939.  It is my intent to collect the proper forces to do historical battles, but I do not want to be limited to only that approach.

Slowly, this will include the British and Americans as well.  Plan Rubber has not been forgotten, but I will not be working on it to a large extent for a year or more.

The task has started already:

The pic above shows what is left of my WW2 naval collection, being re-organized.  These are all miniatures from GHQ.  Over years past, I sold off all of my completed ships, including a large Italian contingent.  Now, I am starting with two battleships, a Littorio class and another BB which I have yet to identify - probably Cesare.  One French ship is there - Dunkerque.  Two US ships were spared, Arkansas and Texas.  Four British ships are waiting - King George V, Hood, Rodney, and Barham.  And, a lone German ship - Graf Spee.  I have a large quantity of bits from past work, and one can see that they are being organized into a more sensible system.

It is a start, yes, but much more needs to be done.  Basing, rules, paints, and more are still to be determined...  Clear for action!!!

Fish, or cut bait!

Well, for quite a while I have floundered along with my naval projects, and maybe it is time to put that to an end.

The key is, as always, the perfect plan.  Well, I have yet to figure that one out so a close facsimile will have to suffice.

The easiest way to go about it is to start eliminating options.  I want to try and keep this project to a 'near historical'  aspect.  It could never be completely 'historical', as that just is not how I do things.  Close is enough.

So, what gets eliminated first?  It is easiest to talk periods, so let us start there.  Now, I enjoy all periods of naval gaming, but I will need to draw a line somewhere as my lovely wife (and current gaming partner) has some preferences.  One of those preferences is the ability to maneuver freely.  This will mean that the various 'Age of Sail' periods will be shunted to the back burner.

Next to go will be the 'Ancients' period, as this will be covered quite adequately by my fantasy Tékumel naval project, which will continue to get coverage here.

The two strokes of the knife described above just pared over 2000 years of naval history from The Plan!  This leaves just the past 150 years or so left...

The Modern naval era, or maybe more precisely the Missile era, is also out.  As I have stated previously, I do enjoy all sorts of naval gaming, and it pains me a bit to narrow my focus, but it needs to be done.  I am not stating that it is not a possibility in the future, however  :)

What is left?  'Ironclads', 'Pre-Dreadnought', 'WW1', and 'WW2', as the groups are commonly known.

And now, the choice becomes much more subjective.  Sending off the other periods was easy compared to this task, as each of these periods has special charms and obstacles.  Scale of the miniatures also has an impact.




Enough text for now, more later!

Another distraction?

Father's Day went by on the calendar recently, and my lovely wife took it upon herself to get me something.  She went through my Amazon wish-list and came up with this:

I do have a soft spot for pre-dreadnoughts, but what to do?  The Spanish-American War is one which seems one-sided but throw in a few what-if situations and just maybe it could be interesting.  But, how about a different tack?  What other opponent could be possible?  Or, perhaps a bit of time-twisting is in order... maybe some 'hypothetical' actions between the US and Japan, in, say, 1907 or 1910 or so.  I could go on!  But, some thought is really needed before any other planning is done.  One thing is for certain - this is a project for the future and I should not expend too much time and effort into it before getting the Tékumel naval stuff along......

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.