1/1200 Naval Additions

Continuing on the naval front, here's a sampler of 1/1200 scale vessels completed recently. The sailing ships in the background are Ark Royal casts, except for the 2nd rate to the front, which is a resin recast, made by yours truly, of the Ark Royal 80-gun Indiaman. It's not very pretty but suffices to balance my two fledgling fleets.

The larger galleys are of my earlier stash, the small ones are the refined thing which look more to scale. I upgraded the earlier two-mast large galleys to be capitanas or squadron flagships, and these new ones are considered to be galee sottili, that is, standard size galleys.

With this many ships completed, perhaps some gaming is also due. I am keen to try out some house modifications for Galleys & Galleons.

Airfix HMS Prince WIP

Wow, an actual hobby post you say? With pictures?

Let me start by saying I'm not a sucker for vintage plastic model kits. I know some people like to torment themselves specialize in such things, but I'm not one of them.

However, Baroque warship kits in general have always been very appealing to me. I like their looks - and history - better than the later periods. So once I learned of this Airfix produce, I was constantly on the lookout for it.

If you are familiar with the Airfix HMS Prince kit (said variously to be 1/138, 1/150 and 1/180 scale), you might know that the secondary market price for it is, as can be deducted from the name, princely. So I was rather surprised one day when I found it on a local Facebook buy&sell group for about the tenth of the price it goes on ebay. Needless to say, I struck like a hawk and grabbed it. 

A Couple More ADW ships

 

I've completed two more Ark Royal 1/1200 scale Anglo-Dutch Wars era ships, and a press mould copy I made of their generic 70-gun model. 

The ships were easy to assemble, paint and rig, the frigate causing some grief as despite the two layers of varnish I managed to rub some of the paint off when applying the standing rigging. Never mind, I corrected that.

The large one is obviously of a lesser quality, but it's only there to add to the numbers. I will most likely expand the project as I really like these models and the period, so I can downgrade the three resin hulls I made as I progress onward.

I'm going to stick with the basing configuration you see on the picture - 60x30 pill bases for ships of the line, 60x30 oval for frigates and smaller rated ships (also indiamen), and 20x45 (I think) for even smaller vessels such as this fluyt. 

Three more ships are varnished as I make more rigging line (which involves running the thread through some glue and hanging it out with a weight on one end to make it straighter and stiffer), and the opposing fleet's hulls are also primed, so the project is well on the way and I expect I can play a few games in the near future.

A Fluyt

You might remember that last time I was thinking about 17th/early 18th century naval gaming, I chose to stick with the current scale (about 1/500) as I had the necessary amount of hulls. In the end I reversed my decision and bit the bullet, switching to 1/1200 scale, the primary reason being the relative ease of building the models and storing them. Thus, for starters, I made an order with Warfare Miniatures for an economy pack of their Ark Royal ADW Dutch ships, this first complete vessel being one of them.

The order arrived in due time and the castings are great, splendid little vessels with lots of individual character. I chose to build a smaller one to see how challenging it is to paint and rig, thinking that the larger ships won't prove such a hassle once I mastered this.

I'll divide my ships to Red and Blue squadrons to be able to field them against each other until reinforcements arrive. I also made some resin copies of the 70-gun large Indiaman, using Blue Stuff (for strictly personal use, mind you) to boost the firepower of each of the two squadrons. Of course the copies are nothing compared to the crisp detail of the original, but they will suffice.

I used acrylics (notably VMC Flat Brown on the hull, AK Flat Flesh and Cream White on the sails) for the base colors, followed by a raw umber oil wash and highlights to paint the ship. The rigging was made with thread, using the same method as with the 1/500 scale ships, albeit with some simplification.

The base is a Renedra 20x40 plastic one from the spares box, with rounded off corners. For the sea effect I used artist's acrylic paste, stippled on with a stiff brush, and some acrylic medium, painted with Prussian Blue, followed by a grey drybrush, a dark green glaze, another glaze of Prussian Brown and a white drybrush for the wave crests. Once the paint dried, I added a single layer of gloss varnish.

For now I'll up-rate the vessels I have: the fluyts will become fifth and sixth rates, the frigates and smaller Indiamen fourth rates. I'm very contended with the quality of the models, so I will most likely purchase some more.

Updated Anglo-Dutch Wars Paper Ships

My interest has been rekindled in this conflict, and as traditional models cost a smaller fortune, I took the paper sprites previously designed, and updated them a little, adding more rigging and more period appropriate hull colours.

Here's a Google Drive link for them, I think they are pretty good quality things. A colour printer does them justice, all you need to do is glue the sprites on two sides of a piece of card or balsa, and maybe add a base. They'll still be sort of two-dimensional, but for gaming purposes they are fine.

Here are two posts with my paper ships in action: a fireship scenario and a selection of images.