55 Days at Sea: Part 5

Just finished the British Squadron for the Boxer Rebellion, as we can see in the group shot above, all done with name tags and national flags as described in my previous post. Unfortunately, having scoured the Navwar catalogue for suitable models, I felt I wasn't able to represent the gunboats Algerine, Alacrity, Pygmy and Spray, so had to leave them out for now, but at least I've got a decent group of ocean-going vessels to fly the flag!

Below we see the Orlando Class Armoured Cruisers, Aurora and Orlando, the former being resplendent in her white China Station paint scheme. They are accompanied by the Edgar Class Large Cruiser Endymion:

Next up we have the battleships Centurion and Barfleur, the former being the flagship of the China Station at the time; both these ships were specially designed with a shallow draught of only 27 feet in order to operate in the large rivers and estuaries of the Chinese mainland, and some sources say that when launched, were the fastest battleships afloat.

HMS Terrible, a Powerful Class Armoured Cruiser, was designed as a direct riposte to the large Russian Cruisers Rurik and Rossiya, and cost twice as much to build as the Edgar Class seen above. Terrible sailed to the Taku Bar from Hong Kong, bringing troops from both the garrison and India, that subsequently formed a large part of the Relief Force for the Legations at Peking:

Endymion solo now, a ship that went on to see service in WWI in the Dardanelles and the Agean!

Finally we have the Torpedo Boat Destroyers Fame and Whiting, who both took part in the famous raid on the Taku Forts, the latter a Star Class three funneled ship, whilst the former is a two funnel Desperate Class, both capable of around 30 knots!

As you might have noticed, I'm currently using an old blue nylon tarp as background for the pictures, but am looking to get a proper sea scape mat sometime soon, any suggestions for good products out there would be appreciated. The next step, of course, is the rules - I didn't want anything too complex, so have been fooling around with Phil Barker's "Damn Battleships Again" (DBA - geddit?), which are available to look at online at:

http://www.phil-barker.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/DBSA.htm

These get neatly around the need for large lists of statistics for each vessel by defining them in a number of limited classes of 'type'. Then again, perhaps I'm missing something by not looking into the various inches of deck armour and calibres of guns; I'll see how it goes, but again, any suggestions for some good rulesets would be appreciated! 

Next for painting are a mixed bag of the 'minor' nations: Italy, Austro-Hungary and the good 'ole US of A, pictures to follow soon!