Inspired

 This week has been very productive here at the Lead gardens both because I am approaching the end of the teaching term and have a bit more time and because of the trip my wife and oldest son took to New York this past few days has given me the run of the house with my youngest daughter who is pretty easy to take care of. I managed to get some pre-dreadnoughts built and painted and had a few fun games to get me into the "holiday mood".  This afternoon I made good progress on painting up the Union figures for my Battle Cry game. Late today I was ruminating on the "Memoir of War at Sea" rules and had an, "oh wait, I have something that will work for this!" moment. So I went out to the garage (where my "gaming stuff" is stored) and I unearthed a box of 1/600 sailing ships that I had built more than 20 years ago when I was first living on my own after my first marriage went kaput. In those few months I spent in a sparse apartment without much in the way of furniture, and lots of time on my hands, I bought a bunch of Airfix 1/600 "Victory" and Heller 1/500 "Le Superb" plastic kits and set to building converting and scratchbuilding a small French and British fleet of sailing ships.

The original 1/600 Airfix kit

 I really got into it and the results were very satisfying even if I had no really good rules to use for solo gaming in the period.

This is the Heller 1/500 Le Superb unfortunately I think out of production, and I've got only four unbuilt kits left. The Victory is still available.

 I learned a lot about scratchbuilding back then and I still have a few kits left unbuilt. The scale is great for small actions.

 So I'm thinking a variant of the variant "Memoir of Battle at Sea: Age of Sail" is in order...and this afternoon I sat down with pencil and paper to do just that. As soon as I get a draft up I will post it and see what my readers think.

Some of the smaller ships were entirely scratchbuilt...and unfortunately are in need of some repair

 The scale of 1/600 is really beautiful for sailing ships and a good size if you want to do some basic rigging. The scale works also because ratlines can be simulated with a triangle of window screen cut to the proper size.

A big French three decker...the 120 gun "Orient"

 I tried to model each of these after a real ship and for this rule variant I thought a nice goal would be to make a simple game that still was able to account for different ship armaments. I've got some simple formulas cooked up based on the broadside weight to rate the ships for number of battle dice to roll and and the tonnage to give a damage value. Next I'm cooking up some sailing rules that will hopefully keep everything really simple  and in the spirit of Bob's variant on the M44 rules approach.

Some of the smaller ships are pretty damaged but I think in time I can bring them back to full glory! This is the British 44 gun frigate "Sprite"

The whole collection.

I'm pretty excited about this new direction, but of course, as always, the specter of being spread over too many projects looms on the horizon...but what the hell, I never let that stop me before!

The Admiralty's Response

Two new British cruisers (small) are added to my British fleet

After the "world turned upsidedown" debacle on the high seas, the British Admiralty has ordered two new cruisers to be constructed to accompany the sister ship of the now sunken "London" to hunt down the Brandenburg and disable or sink her.

 Some pics of the finished cruisers and my attempt to make believable smoke using pins and cotton balls.

 ...And here they are in action in confined waters....made using new hex blocks I just got in the post to enhance my M44 and Battle Cry games from RDOXX Inc. They worked pretty well to make headlands at the mouth of an estuary that the British are attempting to leave while the Brandenburg lurks in the distance.

 It was interesting to see if the large ships could be played on a very small table ("30ish" inches diameter...small and simple is always my goal..)

 Again, these hexes are too small for the scale of the ships, but that will be remedied soon...but still it was an interesting action and the simplicity of the "Memoir of Battle at Sea" Rules made playing it solo easy even with my little ones clamoring for attention.

The hex blocks are exactly scaled to M44-C&C game hexes and are very nicely made and well worth the reasonable price... my hexes are just a bit bigger, hence the gaps.

The Brandenburg barely skirts the headlands to make her escape

This time the battle was a draw with the Brandenburg escaping after heavily damaging a cruiser and the battleship and taking heavy damage herself, so the British commander decided to break off  try again another day.

Encounter on the High Seas

HMS London and SMS Brandenburg closing range.

 The newspapers are unclear as to why this incident occurred, but word from the admiralty has it that German ambitions in East Africa were in need of a stout pounding!

An early critical hit slows the Brandenburg but she still packs a dangerous punch

 I managed to get my first two pre dreadnoughts at this larger scale  painted up in late Victorian livery, and decided to give them a go with a single ship to ship action set up the hex board I made a week ago out of the back of a Christmas tree mat. The hexes are M44 sized and I plan to get/make a larger hex mat with 5" hexes soon but until then, I just assumed the ships were located in the bow hex and it all worked out pretty well.

The London changes course to close range and sustains a hit in her forward turret.

The "iron dice" are rolling hot for Brandenburg's gun crews and the London begins to take significant damage as the range closes.

at 4.000 yards both ships run parallel courses and trade pounding broadsides.

Both ships are approaching their "break off" point with the London taking another hit on her guns.

Final turn of the game finds the London battling a fire and attempting to escape, but the Brandenburg gets in a final broadside that completely disables the London and she starts to list and the captain reluctantly orders "abandon ship!"

"Londoners were shocked at the news in the morning papers..."-

I'm really enjoying Bob Cordery's "Memoir of Battle at Sea"...and the great potential for adding "chrome" to the basic rules. The ships painted up pretty well and look the part so I started a couple of British cruisers to beef up a retaliatory strike on those overly ambitious Germans!

And finally to the stout fellows who graciously honored me with a Liebster Award for my blog please know that it was really appreciated and I'm working on posting my favorite 10 blogs that I think are tops...(I know, not the exact rules of the game...but I follow and enjoy 160 blogs on a regular basis and I thought that it would be good to honor the top ten...maybe I'll do a "Lead Gardens Top Way Beyond Cool Gaming Bogs Award" ...suffice to say I'm compiling that list right this minute and hopefully will be my holiday "shout-out" to all my favorites who give me so much pleasure and inspiration...Thanks Everyone!

Exciting Holiday Find

 I don't normally love the holiday season because here in the states it can get a bit crazy. But one thing I always look forward to is the holiday decorations that can be turned to good use for wargaming. Today I found a Christmas tree rug 30" in diameter with a nice green grass surface on one side and a smooth black rubber surface on the back. it was under 10 dollars and I bought one and headed home with my gaming wheels turning!

I got home and gave the rubber backside a coat of blue acrylic loosely applied letting some of the black show through...making a nice ocean texture. Then I got out a hex "template" that I had saved after punching out a Battle Cry boardgame a few years ago...(my wife calls me a hoarder but it's for just such a moment that I save things.

I got a hole punch and punched the vertices of the leftover hex sheet giving a good sized template to use for laying out some ocean "terrain" for my predreadnoughts. I just used a white gel pen to mark dots at the vertices and then freehanded the sides of the hexes...(a little drawing ability helps here...) The result is loose but effective. And the board is 12+ hexes across ...and at the game scale I think works with my ships, (1 hex to 1000 yards)which would be extreme engagement distance for ships of that era. Ships are allowed to use movement points to turn more than one hexface since the scale of the hex allows even the largest ship to turn within the hex. This is a variation of Bob Cordery's Naval version of his Memoir 44 based rules.

 I enjoy the way the circular board gives a sense of there being a horizon. It also reminds me of the "battle board" in the old Avalon Hill Bismark game...which I think I still have somewhere in my garage.

Now what to do with the grassy side....

PS, I found this mat at Lowes.

Home Brewed Pre-Dreadnoughts

Pre-dreadnoughts painted British style.

 I've been following a few blogs where homemade wargaming minis feature particularly "Wooden Warriors", and I was also looking at the yahoo group, "wargaming on a budget" this morning and it reminded me of a little project I started a year ago that was my shot a wargaming on the cheap.

 These pre-dreadnoughts are made of precut wooden shapes that can be had by the bag at typical craft outlets here in the states such as Michael's or AC Moore. I make the turrets from discs cut out of craft foam sheet using a paper hole punch. guns are from the ends of round toothpicks or in some case the ends of decorative toothpicks. The hole punch also works for punching thin sheet styrene. Sections of toothpick, styrene tube rod, and a wee bit of brass wire and you're all set.

The hulls are built-up using a stack of two or three of the same size shape with each layer shifted just a bit to give the impression of a pre-dreadnought bow of the period.

The German-ish fleet

The ships are stylized and a bit cartoonish, but the overall effect is belligerent in a 19th century "big stick" sort of way and to my eye pretty convincing. I've been trying to work up some rules that would not involve record keeping (...to me the toxic part of naval gaming...as well as spaceship gaming for that matter...) Just a few hit markers or such. Perhaps a system a bit like the old SPI Dreadnought game. I was also thinking these might work on a gridded field using a more abstract movement system of some sort.

I just used British and German color schemes from the late 19th century to give everything the right feel visually.
One thing that makes this project go quickly is having a "Chopper" from Northwest Short Line. It's perfect when you need a bunch of wood cut to the same length (perfect for those toothpick gun barrels).

The "Chopper"

Gunboat Specs

Just a few images to show those of you who asked about the sizes of my colonial gunboats.

The basic construction of these is to cut a double layer of foamcore to total 1/2" thick in the shape of the hull.

Then I add a layer of white Strathmore illustration board to the hull then I draw on the deck planks with a pencil and straightedge.

Next add the hull sides cut from white thin posterboard. I make this just a bit taller than the hull and taper it up at the bow to get a boat-like profile. It also serves to cover the laminated foamcore hull sides.

Then the rest is a matter of building up wheelhouses out of Strathmore and adding details.

The width of all the boats is about 3-1/2" to 4"...and the length varies:

The Merak is 7" long.

and 3 " wide

The Safieh is 9-1/2" long

and 4" wide at the paddle wheel housings but the actual deck is about 3-1-2"

The Mizar is about 10" long (the railing at the top of the wheelhouse is small straightpins stuck and glued into the deck and then thread makes the rails and its all painted white which stiffens the rail nicely.

and just shy of 4" wide (here you can also see the drawn on deck detail as well as the drawn and watercolored windows, the deck is stained with a wash of tan over the pencil lines. The ladder is plastic HO railroad bit with a wire rail added.

The lengths seem to work well for my 8x5 table but much bigger and the size would become unwieldly. The 4" width dimension seems to work best to give a reasonably slender boat but still have enough room for figures but if you build one of these, test fitting the figures is a must...wouldn't want to have to leave any of the lads behind!