"Valiant Spanish Main Ships?" Topic

Does anyone have pictures or instructions on how to assemble and paint the valiant Spanish Main ships?

Didn't they include instructions with the vessels?

They used to provide a paper sheet of instructions, at least with the Napoleonic vessel packs.

Perhaps you purchased the less expensive "build your own miniatures" lots.

If they didn't include one with those, you might call, or write them to ask for a copy. I presume they have one as well for the Spanish Main vessels, but don't really know for sure.

I will take a look later today to see if some of the unopened ones I have have the sheets. If so I will scan them.

Nope. No instructions in either the blister or clamshell versions of their packages.

What do you need to know?

Hmmm, surprising.

Okay, brown for the hulls, and canvas color for the sails.

The Spanish definitely had some fancy artwork stitched into their sails. I'd suggest looking at paintings, and model kit boxes for inspiration.

VSB can probably provide some good photo examples too.

There's a beautiful plastic, Chinese kit of a Spanish vessel with great looking detailing. It can be seen on eBay, and is worth a look. It's about 1/100th scale.

I thought there were some very basic instructions on the packs that I got. I will check later.

For a painting guide I suggest Historic Sail, The Glory of the Sailing
Ship from the 13th to the 19th Century by Joseph Wheatley
ISBN 1-85367-399-4

I got a used copy for a very reasonable price on Amazon a couple years ago. It is a big coffee table book with a discription on one page and a color plate on the facing page.

Stacy

The ships should be relatively straightforward but will require a little knife-work. Rule of thumb, biggest sail in middle, lateen (triangular) sail in the back, smaller sail in the front. They all have holes to be forced into (!!!), with plenty of crazy glue… you'll have to make your own spritsails; just use a piece of toothpick and a small rectangle of paper. There are some examples here:
link

Painting is a whole other issue; what nation are you building a fleet for? Fleets in the period were composed of purpose-built warships, hired ships, pressed ships and voluteered ships. The state only had control of the warships, and even then, little uniformity. Take a look at some of Angus Konstam's books for Osprey, lots of good pics to get ideas from.

TPC

I was thinking of something in the Spanish main with 3 nations. Spain of course who has the colonies and must use their ships to conduct trade between them and Spain as well as try to keep the other two nations out of "their pond". Then England who sends their adventurers to the main to conduct trade with the new world and of course if they capture a rich Spanish galleon as a prize so much the better.
I'm not sure who the 3rd nation should be. I'm thinking Dutch or French who was more nautically active in the new world in the second half of the 1500s to the very early 1600s?

Thanks for the help so far.

Hmmmm, not really sure, activity-wise, so why not just go with four, since variety is always good, and there were both Dutch and French pirates and privateers in the region as well.

I like how you think Mako11

another question as well, how to valiant's spanish main line of ships work with navwar's galleon era ships, as in how do they mix on the table?

We came up with a free campaign game for raiding in the Spanish Main in the 16th century:
link

There are some three player scenarios as well (English, French and Spanish. You can also play it as a stand alone.

TPC

For a few ideas on building and painting the Valliant Spanish Main vessels, have a look at these examples:

link