Wednesday 25 March 2009

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:


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!


9 comments:

  1. Try this site for an interesting set of rules. I'm not sure how much of your chosen period they'd cover (though it says from late 1890's);

    http://www.cke1st.com/m_games1.htm

    Search for the "Easy Ship" down the list.
    I think they're hex based but that shouldn't prove too much of a hassle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Luka, thanks for the info on that site, my, there's a heck of a lot of work gone in to that, with downloadable counters, to rules, to all sorts!
    I'm going to be working on some 1/450th Pirate ships soon, so I can even get the rules from there...

    Cheers, SteelonSand.

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  3. Oh, for sailing ships, I recommend the Perfect Captain's "Sail!" rules (google Perfect Captain), especially for the "early" part of the golden age of piracy. Very cool wind mechanics.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks again, Luka, I'll give them a try!

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  5. Hi,

    You might find the following a very interesting site if you are liking the Barker rules . . . he's done some tinkering and cleared up some stuff:

    http://www.hksw.org/damn%20battleships.htm

    You also might want to check out various discussions on the TMP Naval Gaming Message Board:

    http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/topics.mv?id=129

    Finally, while I haven't played them, the War Times Journal does have a couple of rule sets free for the download. Here's the simpler of the two:

    http://www.wtj.com/games/quickfire/


    -- Jeff

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  6. Hi Jeff, thanks for the heads up regarding the modified Barker rules, I'll definitely be checking those out; The WTJ stuff is my next stop for bit of a dabble, it breaks my heart to look at their site though, as the weak '£' means I can't afford any of their excellent minis just now!

    To be honest, I've been a bit shy to post on the naval message boards at TMP, like I said, this is my first foray into 1/3000th, but of course it has been an excellent resource in checking out how others appraoch the subject.

    Cheers, SteelonSand.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hiya,

    I want to send you an e-mail.
    Can you e-mail me so I can reply please?

    mail@angelbarracks.co.uk



    Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hiya,

    I wish to add you to my links page:

    http://angelbarracks.co.uk/html/angel_barracks_-_links.html


    Is that ok?


    Michael.

    mail@angelbarracks.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Michael, I'd be honoured to be added to your links page: feel free!

    E-mail is on its way.....Cheers, SteelonSand.

    ReplyDelete