"East Indiaman and the inshore squadron at 1:2400" Topic

Just a quick post to show what I've been working on. I picked this ship up after reading a certain Patrick O'Brian book, Think she will come in useful in a few games.

I'm not a hundred percent positive that the pennant is correct so if anyone can advice otherwise that would be helpful. I've also got some small craft rigged and ready to sail in the form of a sloop a brig and a cutter, these guys are tiny!! I mean really tiny like 2mm of freeboard if that. you Could do the battle of Lake Erie on a A3 peace of paper… now there is an idea for a travel game….

http://theminiaturespage.com/

http://theminiaturespage.com/

http://theminiaturespage.com/

Ben,
I love them
Be safe
Rory

Ben, great looking ships and scenery too. I love the look of the water. I hope you'll post pictures of the smaller vessels as well when you finish them, I'm particularly curious to see what brigs and sloops look like in that scale. – James

Thanks Roy and James glad you like them and the terrain. I Think I enjoy doing the terrain as much as the ships, well almost :)

James, the last picture shows the ship sloop, brig and cuter, but admittedly it's a bit ambiguous without context to compare the miniatures to. To give you a better idea of scale here's two pictures. As you can see these guys are small, that's a 74 gun in the background and a 20 pence piece… um not sure if that's a good thing to judge scale with if you're not from the UK, but it gives you an idea.

whitejamest

Thanks for posting those pictures Ben, now I recognize them in the last of the pictures you posted earlier. Good to see them next to the larger ship for reference though. They look great, and it's impressive that you manage to rig them too, small as they are.
- James

Thanks James, I rigged them the cheating way with thread stiffened with PVA so it's not that bad really.

I'm looking forward to getting some big games in with them based around a French fleet under a blockade. I'm going to try to represent the different levels of the blockade, sort of a strategic level game. I'm not totally positive how it will pan out yet or if it will even be fun as a game, but I'm interested in how the weather, supplies, Coastal operations and raids ect all come in to play over time. Any ideas would definitely be welcome.

Ben, very impressive, especially for the size. I really like them. I also really like the islands and of course your sea mat since I always comment on it (and still waiting for the "How I did it" article!) Is that the Irregular Miniatures 2MM fort on the island in the background?

You asked about the pennant. Saint Georges cross with red stripe on top and bottom whith white in the middle is correct for for the period and the striped ensign with the union cross is correct from 1707 to 1801. This per Flags At Sea by Timothy Wilson pages 36 & 37.

Again, very nice Ben, and I looked at your ironclads too. That may be my next period after seeing what you have done.

Regards,
Vol

Ben,
I understand 20p piece! I always have to think then our friends across to pond put US pennies and cents coins in there photo's. So thank you! Great ships and shore line
Be safe
Rory

Ben, I like your idea for a blockade game. I can imagine a number of interesting scenarios, like the French fleet having to make a dash to get out, maybe a privateer or two trying to bring prizes back in, a cutting out expedition. But of course the system for stringing scenarios together in to a meaningful whole is more challenging.

I keep toying around with ideas for the simplest kind of campaign I can come up with, a system of ship duels or 2 on 2 engagements. Players would have a roster of say ten ships or so, of different classes, and a given match would call on them to use either one or two. Damage would carry over from previous games, but a small number of repair points could be spent between matches.

But that's a pretty abstract system, more like jousting than a historical operation.

For your blockade game, I can imagine the British using a system of supply points that they have to allocate to keep ships on station, different classes of ships eating up different numbers of points. Perhaps the French would have a quota of points that have to be secured by managing to get ships past the blockade, or perhaps by privateers taking prizes and managing to get back to port. And then perhaps there could be an option for the British to steal those points back in a cutting out mission.

Just brain storming there, I always love the idea of campaigns but have never had the opportunity to put one in to action. Hope you'll update us as you go.

- James

And you could add factors like rolling a blow that would move the blockading force off station for a turn, allowing privateers with their prizes, or supply ships into port, or even the escape of the French fleet. The ideas are coming so fast I can hardly stand it!

Vol

Vol I will do the how to article I promise… I've got a bit of time the week after next so ill make it a priority, sorry it kind of got pushed on to the back burner. Glad you liked the ironclads; it's an interesting period to do with lots of strange and wonderful craft. And thanks for the flag clarification.

Thanks for the ideas guys, James I really like your supply points idea that could get interesting. Especially when you consider how they get used up and replenished. I think that would make you think about how active you can be as the blockading fleet, how closely can you press the blockade, when do you take the main fleet off station (as Vol said) in a storm to preserve supply points. If the French fleet is in the roads ready for sea and a storm blows up you are going to risk those supply points to keep your fleet on station.

I was thinking of two ways of running the game. I like the campaign idea of linked games using a map to plot the campaign turns. I think this method could run quite smoothly and do what I'm after.

The other idea I had is playing the whole campaign on one table (possible in 1:2400 with a big table with a bit of abstraction) using a game mechanism adapted from the modern naval rules shipwrecked. In the shipwrecked rules you have two time scales in the game, so movement turns run until a missile if fired then you go in to a loop of combat turns until this faster paced action is resolved. So using this principle you would have turns of blockade which represents longer periods of time, say a day where you set stations for ships and move supplies ect, this would go on until a set of combat turns starts. The set of combat turns would kick in when you have a ship to ship action or a raid. I think this would have to be teamed up with a very fast play set of rules for the actual ship to ship actions but could be fun. I don't think this idea would handle a full feet action but it could do the build up to one.

Your dual idea sounds good to me to, it's nice to get more of the events round an action in to a game. After all the actual firing bit of a fight could be over in twenty minutes or less but the lead up to that could have been going on for weeks.

Sorry for the long post…