"HMS Victory - Battle Damage" Topic

Here's how I represent battle damage of a ship of the line.

link

Worth a look.

Neat idea! But of course I would say that – I did the same thing.

I did this to my growing collection of Armada period ships, but my lower mast is a tube and the sails (with the crow's nest) have the rod that mates into it. I also made the topmast out of tube, so that I can plant any arbitrary flag on each one.

I see a few disadvantages:

1. The sails can rotate. I'd like to figure out a way to "key" the sail piece to the mast piece so that doesn't happen, but haven't successfully done so yet.
   
2. The removable sail units are (largely) not interchangeable between ships, which could be a problem in a big, confused, noisy convention game with players who aren't paying full attention…
   
3. No rigging.
   

I like the effect anyway. It's nice that a ship which has lost a mast can actually lose a mast. I also like the fact that I can re-rig a ship from full sail to partial sail to all yards furled, just by plopping a different sail arrangement onto the lower mast.

- Ix

Thanks Ix. (What a great name and how do you pronounce it?)

Having played naval games with model ships just like this for more than 40 years I've never understood the 'new' fangled idea of adding rigging to ships. Besides I'm a wargamer not a modeller.

I would never consider the idea of letting the 'great unwashed' put their paws on my ships. They are too fragile, wargaming chums only.

The rotating sails problem can be minimised with a little blob of blue tac.

I might steal your idea of a tube for the topmast when I do the refurbishment of the broken ones, the re-building of the second hand ones I have and the untouched sprues I have in the loft.

Jim